Sunday, April 08, 2012

REVIEW: Mediocrates

Title: Mediocrates: the Lost Philosopher of Athens
Author: Jason Childress
Genre: Humor
Price: $10.48 (paperback) 299 pages
Publisher: Lulu
ISBN: 978-1462042371
Point of Sale: Lulu
Reviewed by: Veinglory

I bought Mediocrates quite a while ago because various reliable people had told me it was very good.  But as it didn't really sit in any of my areas of interest, it languished in my great pile of unread books for some time (the corners now crinkled from that night the aquarium overflowed.)

If I'd had any idea what was between these rather (IMHO) unattractively designed covers, I would have read it the day it arrived.  I know only the basics of the philosophies and history relating to Socrates and his ilk. Just enough to get probably about half of the wry jabs and allusions in this spoof biography of one of his less illustrious contempraries.  But I would still easily give this a 9/10 and were I a little more learned I suspect it would be a 10.

This densely footnoted spoof of an academic work is truly unlike anything else I have read, self- or traditionally published. I would recommend it to any any reader whose sense of humor runs more to Blackadder than Three's Company.

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