Carpe Diem

Book excerpt: Liber prosperissimus et mirabilis ex Britannia ad Americam tandem advenit! Umquam vexatus es quando homo inritans "sine qua non" aut "mea culpa" dicit Aut postmeridiana tempora vetera, quando verba obscura ediscere conatus es, terrunt. Nil desperandum! Linguae Latinae hoc in itinere iucundo, qui omnia ex lectione grammatica ab Monte Pythone ad Angelinae Jolia in pelle notas et omnia optima in historiae litteratae annis duo milliis ex poese et litteris excerpta habet, Henricus Mons pulvem ex libellis odiosis deterget et in linguam maximam in aeternum vitam respirat. The phenomenal bestseller from the U.K. finally arrives in the States! Have you even found yourself irritated when a "sine qua non" or a "mea culpa" is thrown into the conversation by a particularly annoying person? Or do distant memories of afternoons spent struggling to learn obscure verbs fill you with dread? Never fear! In this delightful guided tour of Latin, which features everything from a Monty Python grammar lesson to Angelina Jolie's tattoo and all the best snippets of prose and poetry from two thousand years of literary history, Harry Mount wipes the dust off those boring primers and breathes life back into the greatest language of them all.