has anybody used this book? is it popular in the UK? what is it like?
I would say it is very much like Reading Greek from JACT. The two volunmes are similar in style, with a reader and a grammar plus exercises. I used it as a refresher course and found it very useful, but I think it would be quitye hard work for a beginner as I think the learening curve is quite steep.
chrisb
It would be a bit hard for beginners. It is aimed at adults of high linguistic aptitude in my opinion. The reader ends with extracts from Cicero and co.
A good use of it would be post-d’ooge: to refresh grammar and add vocabulary sensitivity to the latin idiom and reading practice.
I used it; everything was explained well; I found it very good. I agree that it would be heavy going for an absolute beginner, but if you have some grounding in basic Latin it isn’t too difficult. Before using it, I did about half of “The Approach to Latin” (book 1) by Paterson & Macnaughton, which turned out to be sufficient grounding.
(I believe Reading Greek is by the same authors as Reading Latin, which would be why it is similar.)
There is a review of the course at http://wonder.riverwillow.com.au/home_education/Latin/reading_latin.htm .
No, I don’t think so. The authors, Peter Jones and Keith Sidwell, did this book on their own initiative. I think it’s a bit better than Reading Greek, but the authors deliberately echoed the style of Reading Greek and had it published by the same publishers, Cambridge University Press.