October BAFAB Week book giveaway: Debra Hamel, Trying Neaira

NOTE: Entries in September's book giveaway, for a copy of John Shors's Beneath a Marble Sky, are due on or before September 29th. Click for full details.

The book-blog is one of a number of sites that are throwing contests/giveaways to celebrate Buy a Friend a Book (BAFAB) Week--October 1st-7th, 2006. (BAFAB weeks come four times a year, in the first weeks of every January, April, July, and October. For more information on the holiday visit the BAFAB site.) The list of participating sites appears in the gray box below.

All of these events are separate from one another, the bloggers hosting them having created their own rules for each event. (See at the bottom of the list a link to directions for adding the list to your site or for hosting your own BAFAB contest.) For the book-blog's contest, I've come up with something that I hope will be fun.

Entries so far:

Tom, Random Thinking
Kimmy, The Smug Cloud
nrkii, Journey Woman
Tim, The Lapped Catholic
Jason, The King of Common Sense

And the winner is: Jason of The King of Common Sense! Congratulations to the King, and thanks to everyone for playing!

First, the prize:

An autographed copy of my book, Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece. Yeah, you know you want it. And no, it's not a dry-as-dust stodgy tome, it's short and a reasonably quick read and it's written for people with no previous familiarity with ancient Greece. In it I tell the story of a prostitute (a real person: this is history, not fiction) who was put on trial in Athens in the fourth century B.C. In the process of unpacking the prosecution's case against her I'm able to introduce readers to all manner of information about ancient Greece--social and sexual mores, legal history, women's history, and so on.

Now, how to win it, in three easy steps:

1. In July of 2006 I posted four reviews at the book-blog. (Go ahead and use the pulldown menus in the sidebar to look at my archived reviews.) As with every review I post here, I selected one sentence from each review to serve as a teaser, and I put that sentence in a gray inset box within each review.

Your job is to locate the teaser sentences from my four July 2006 reviews. Then, take two or more words from each of those four sentences and rearrange them to form a new sentence--as amusing, as filled with pathos, as intriguing as you like.

2. Post the sentence you created on your blog sometime between now and the end of October 7th, 2006. Include a link back to this contest post so that other people can take part as well.

3. Finally, leave a comment below letting me know about your contest submission. Make sure to include its permalink.

On October 8th I'll select a winner in a random drawing from all entries received. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask via the comments below.

Tags: ancient Greece, ancient history, BAFAB, book memes, books, Buy a Friend a Book, contests, free books, prostitution, women's history

Comments

[Tom]

1.

I have entered the contest but I don't want to win since you have already very generously sent me a copy of your book. So if you like my entry the best, feel free to let me know but please give the book to someone else.

http://www.downsyn.com/phpbb2/weblog_entry.php?e=24

I am inspired so I am going to have a book giveaway! Details to follow...

[Debra Hamel]

2.

Excellent entry, Tom! And I'm eager to see what you come up with for a book giveaway.

This one, by the way, is a random drawing: judging that haiku contest was harder than I expected, especially because I'd established Rebecca as my co-judge. We had to agree on the winner, and there was a long debate here as we assessed the various contributions. It was fun, but random drawings are easier!

[Kimmy]

3.

I'm all done, and eager to win!

http://kimmy.inkbleedpress.com/?p=125

[nrkii]

4.

I'm in!

http://journey-woman.blogspot.com/2006/09/buy-friend-book-week-approaches.html

[Debra Hamel]

5.

I love it! You guys are doing a great job with these entries.

[nrkii]

6.

Debra, by the way, sorry I'm not hosting an event for this. I'm scrambling to head out for 2 weeks of vacation, and I am likely to be blogless for the duration of BAFAB week.

[Tim]

7.

I'm always up for a contest! Here is my entry!

http://lappedcatholic.blogspot.com/2006/09/buy-friend-book-week-contest.html

By the way, I found my way here via nrkii's post about the contest.

[Medbie]

8.

I already own an autographed copy of this awesome book, so I'm not entering, just encouraging others to do so! :D

[Debra Hamel]

9.

Thanks, Medbie! I hope more people do.

[Jason]

10.

Alright Deb, I'm in!

[Jason]

11.

Big old OOPS! Forgot the link... http://pumpkinkingofcommonsense.blogspot.com/2006/10/buy-friend-book-week-is-back.html

[Debra Hamel]

12.

Thanks, Jason! I've added your pornographic sentence to the list of entrants!

[Jason]

13.

Go ahead and pigeonhole me whydontcha! Geez! I try to make a memorable sentence and all I get is insulted...pardon me while I go sulk in a corner. ::sulksulksulk::

[Debra Hamel]

14.

Hey, if the term "smut-dealing blogger" fits....

Just kidding!

[Jason]

15.

Veryveryvery cool! Thank You! Woohoo!