I'm quite new to the hobby, so this book looked perfect. Robert Eaglen wrote this book around his own collection, with short chapters on individual cities and rulers. It's great to dip into, and the quality of illustration is high. But I didn't love it. The writing is rather laboured, and sometimes slapdash: "The Hellenistic period is fundamentally influential because it's adoption of coin portraiture, first copied by the Romans, endures to the present day" (p.18). The explanation is circular and the glaring apostrophe error is distracting. A more conversational style would have gone a long way to endear me to the book. Still, it's a nice overview and I found it a good starting point, though I suspect many of you will find little new.
I was really looking forward to it, but I'm sorry to say I can't give it the warmest recommendation. Some of you might be more sympathetic to its style than I was; I don't want to be unfair to it.
"Coin portraiture, a practice adopted during the Hellenistic period, endures to this day." There....much better, and no need to add the Romans in there as it is implied by the reference to the practice being adopted at an earlier period of history. Shame, stuff like that will ruin an otherwise good book.
Well, at least the book contains pretty pictures I agree about the maddening misuse of "it's" along with other homophonic and homonymic mistakes. It's like nails on a chalkboard. Occasional typos are one thing but consistent misuse... . PSA: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe Oops, I'd better post a coin. Here's a Greek coin with an apostrophe. Err, I mean lagobolon ILLYRIA, Apollonia c. 1st century BCE AR 15 mm, 1.25 gm Obv: AI-NEA; fires of the Nymphaeum of Apollonia; dotted border Rev: AΠOΛΛΩ-NIATAN, lagobolon; dotted border Ref: BMC 44; Maier 121
On the other hand: I have not seen the book and now I may not. That will discourage the publisher from putting out other books and contribute to the prevailing theory that books have been replaced by online information. Not having seen the book should disqualify me from reviewing it but I am always happy to see a book that is not a catalog of the "...and their values ilk." I like books that might just interest a novice reader in the subject and drive that reader into studying more about the hobby. Sure, there are better books written in better style. There might even be books with better content (you have heard how much I like the John Anthony book Collecting Greek Coins - some of you even bought one). Of course Anthony has been out of print for years and sells for a price that suggests it was remaindered for next to nothing and was considered a glut on the market. The one cent copies are all gone, it seems. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-lis...?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1499201651&sr=8-7 Alas, now I won't be able to find a publisher for my book (working title: Illiterate Ramblings of a Numismatic Nerd). Should we support any book that gets published? No. Should we look to see if there is anything good to say about a book that might ameliorate the maddening mistakes? I forgave some of the books I reviewed on my site: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/book.html Does this one deserve a little slack? I don't know; I have not seen the book. Update: For $53.20 I expect a lot!
How did I not know about the Oatmeal??? CoinTalk is the source of all useful knowledge. TIF helps a lot too.
