MARY BEARD Pompeii ***

Visiting Pompeii blew us away. It's one of those world-famous sites that actually turns out to be better than you imagined. So I read Mary Beard's book with much eagerness.

One of the main points she makes is that the remains aren't a snapshot of everyday life in a Roman town - they're a snapshot of a town engulfed by trauma. Most of the citizens had fled in terror when the eruptions first started. And you can't assume that the people found in any one house actually lived there - they could have gone there for safety or to burgle it.

There's loads of fascinating detail, but Mary Beard refuses to draw conclusions when the evidence isn't there - unlike the guides at Pompeii who like to talk with a high degree of confidence about what a building was used for and who lived there. Her approach is thoroughly commendable but sometimes a bit frustrating.

Most annoying thing is the appalling quality of the photographs. The publishers should have had a bit more confidence and printed on decent quality paper rather than the paperback version's blotting-paper, which renders half the pictures as grainy dark grey rectangles.