Gardini shares his deep love for Latin and encourages us to engage with a civilization that has never ceased to exist, becuase it's here with us now, whether we know it or not. Even readers without a single lick of Latin grammar can discover how this language is still capable of restoring our sense of identity, with the power that only useless things can miraculously express.

After thirty-five years as a book editor in New York, Ann Patty stopped working and moved to the country. Bored, she decided to challenge her word-loving brain through studying Latin at local colleges. Her study opened unexpected windows into her life, and along the way, she met an impassioned group of professors, students and classicists outside of academia who keep Latin very much alive. Written with humor, heart, and an infectious enthusiasm for...

"Within a decade of taking up his post as Thomaskantor in Leipzig in 1723, Bach was becoming ever more frustrated with the Saxon city's civic politics. Never one to compromise, he had clashed with the authorities almost from the word go. In August 1730 complaints that he had been neglecting his duties led him to submit a 'brief but highly necessary draft of a well-appointed church music' to the Leipzig council. Inter alia, he pointed out that he did...