The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found (by Mary Beard)

I read this for the category "a book about a natural disaster." I picked this up after our visit to Pompeii a few years ago, but hadn't read it before. 

It is this weird mix of very interesting and very disappointing. Beard is one of the foremost experts on Pompeii, and it's chock-full of fascinating tidbits about the life of the city. I'm glad to have read it on paper too; the illustrations and colored plates really bring everything to life.

But the title ("fires of Vesuvius") implied a focus on the actual disaster that the book didn't pay off. Other than a prologue about some of the bodies found by archeologists, there was very little about the disaster itself, which was a bummer. I would have second thoughts about counting this at all given the lack of focus on the disaster for the "about a disaster" category, except that 1) it took me a long time to read; and 2) it's a particularly awful month in a particularly awful year, so I'm cutting myself some slack.

I also was looking forward to reading about the meaning of the phalluses and the experiences of the brothels but she kind of didn't cover that in much detail. I was like "yay the penis chapter is coming up" (er, no pun intended) but she was kind of snide about tourists not spending that much time in the brothel? Her authorial voice didn't quite win me over. 

Anyway it was okay, the topic was interesting, but I'd rather read another book about Pompeii, to be perfectly honest.