The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompei Lost and Found by Mary Beard

This book is a casual, at times hilarious account of the city of Pompeii, famously frozen in time in the year 79 AD, and it continues to offer the most complete material presentation of classical antiquity. This unique completeness, showing rather than telling of life in ancient Rome at a peak period of empire, makes a visit to Pompeii enticing for even the most casual visitor.
But at the same time the complexity of studying what was an entire city, surrounded by outlying farms and villages and resorts, is difficult. As Mary Beard points out in the Introduction to her book: “The bigger picture and many of the more basic questions about the town remain very murky indeed.” It is Beard’s achievement to have maintained a level of scholarly inquiry, while synthesizing what is known today about Pompeii into a single, accessible and delightfully readable volume.

The murkiness begins with the number of inhabitants: 15,000, perhaps, but then tens of thousands more lived in the neighborhood, but no one knows for sure. Nor is the distance separating the town from the seafront known with certainty, and archaeologists are still trying to fix the shoreline with its bays; two lagoons seem to have stood between sea and Pompeii, but no one knows for sure.
Examples of past misreadings by scholars long dead also abound. A wall painting in the macellum, the market hall off the main Roman forum in Pompeii, depicts a woman traditionally described as an artist holding a palette against a background of fantasy architecture. Today she is interpreted as holding a dish of offerings to the gods. But for all that we don't know, Pompeii still holds much allure--for me, the plethora of mosaics is enough to want to make the trip. In any case, all the murkiness is presented with good humor.
Pompeii thus offers a wonderful picture of life in ancient Rome--already planning my trip.