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Rating: 
Summary: Pliny's Natural History
Review: Endlessly quotable (I quote it all the time) funny and humbling (just think what people will think of some of our scientific theories in 2000 years time). Travellers tales, myth, fantasy and science all jumbled up together.
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Summary: Selections from the worlds first real encyclopaedia!
Review: For those of you who wish to get acquainted with Pliny, learn more of ancient customs and practices, or if you just look for something different and enlightening to read for a change this book is highly recommended. As the title rightly suggests this Penguin Classic consists of eclectic samples taken from the 37 books that comprise the Natural History. It is based on an updated, accurate and easy to read translation by John Healy and includes a 32 page introduction, the official section numbering, a key to ancient places mentioned in the text and an index. At 400 pages it is substantial enough to offer many pleasurable hours of thought provoking reading, although, to be honest, I had expected considerably more material to be included. This selection also reflects the translators interest in mineralogy and metallurgy (22 pages are for example devoted to a treatise on gold and silver while no selections have been made from book XIX on vegetable gardening). A curiosity which deserves a note here is book XIV (pp. 182-193 in this edition) in which Pliny gives an eminent account of the art of wine and viticulture. It is an absolute must read for all connoisseurs of good drink. Considering that the complete works are both very expensive and bulky this is a good introductory option. But this is only an appetiser. Those who wish to indulge in more serious reading, or look to read Pliny in a more scholarly manner for the possibility of making good and well informed quotes, will undoubtedly do better by consulting the separate volumes which contain the whole unabridged text (eg. H. Rackham's authoritative translation with parallel Latin-English text published in 10 volumes by Harvard University Press). Had this Penguin edition covered more material I would have rated it at 5 stars. // J. Silvennoinen
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Summary: Great job, covering many of Pliny's best writing.
Review: This book has many of the best parts from the full version of Naturlis Historia, and is much easier to read than the 1000+ pages in the many volumes. Great if you don't the time for all of the volumes, or to find them all. This is a book well worth reading.
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Summary: How get he get so much wrong?
Review: This book was pretty good although I had to constantly check most of Pliny's 'facts' with a natural science textbook nearby. I was shocked to find how wrong he was and on so many things. Its like he was just guessing and not performing the necessary experiments. I don't know where this guy got his degree, but that place probably wants to rethink their ciriculum. Quite frankly, with Scientists has ill-informed as Pliny was, its amazing that the Roman Empire lasted so long. What else can you really say?
Rating: 
Summary: Rome's Own Guiness Book
Review: Yes, yes, I know. It is the mark of great hubris to give 2 stars to a book that has survived over 2000 years and been a favorite work of many of history's top thinkers and achievers. Pliny's good enough for Petrarch, but not good enough for jrmspnc, eh? That's not what the star rating is about at all. Rather, 2 stars reflects my own, entirely subjective impression of the work. Is this a book that I want to pick up and read for fun? No. Is this a book that scholars of the ancient world should read? I don't know, I'll leave that to the scholars. What we have here is, to a modern reader, more of a Guiness Book of Records than an encyclopedia, although it is clear why Pliny may justly be called the first encyclopedist. There are some "tall tales" here, reports of creatures with no heads, or backward feet, of people who never laugh, and of people who live to be hundreds of years old. And there's lessons in mineralogy, botany, zoology, and so on. In short, the book is exactly as advertised. It is also, to one who looks for skilled prose and historical narrative, fairly tedious. The nuggest that fire the imagination are few and far between. Again, exactly as advertised so I have noone to blame but myself. I just don't see the average lay reader, with a passing interest in things Roman, getting a whole lot out of this one. Better to read an actual history of Rome, and let the historian cull the good bits out of Pliny. Healy's introduction does not help matters. Healy spends most of his introduction reciting how completely inaccurate Pliny is, sometimes even by contemporary standards, which does not bode well! So, the reader finds himself constantly thinking, "well, this is wrong anyway, so what's the point?" The point, of course, is up to each reader to judge. For this reader, there was very little point at all.
Rating:
Summary: Rome's Own Guiness Book
Review: Yes, yes, I know. It is the mark of great hubris to give 2 stars to a book that has survived over 2000 years and been a favorite work of many of history's top thinkers and achievers. Pliny's good enough for Petrarch, but not good enough for jrmspnc, eh? That's not what the star rating is about at all. Rather, 2 stars reflects my own, entirely subjective impression of the work. Is this a book that I want to pick up and read for fun? No. Is this a book that scholars of the ancient world should read? I don't know, I'll leave that to the scholars. What we have here is, to a modern reader, more of a Guiness Book of Records than an encyclopedia, although it is clear why Pliny may justly be called the first encyclopedist. There are some "tall tales" here, reports of creatures with no heads, or backward feet, of people who never laugh, and of people who live to be hundreds of years old. And there's lessons in mineralogy, botany, zoology, and so on. In short, the book is exactly as advertised. It is also, to one who looks for skilled prose and historical narrative, fairly tedious. The nuggest that fire the imagination are few and far between. Again, exactly as advertised so I have noone to blame but myself. I just don't see the average lay reader, with a passing interest in things Roman, getting a whole lot out of this one. Better to read an actual history of Rome, and let the historian cull the good bits out of Pliny. Healy's introduction does not help matters. Healy spends most of his introduction reciting how completely inaccurate Pliny is, sometimes even by contemporary standards, which does not bode well! So, the reader finds himself constantly thinking, "well, this is wrong anyway, so what's the point?" The point, of course, is up to each reader to judge. For this reader, there was very little point at all.
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