I'm about six weeks late in posting this, but many ancient history and late antiquity buffs have read a book or two by Michael Grant at some point along the way, so it seemed appropriate to mark his passing. Here's his obituary from The Daily Telegraph, written in that inimitable English style. Professor Grant had a life far richer and more interesting than I knew -- he trained for military intelligence at the start of the 1939 War with Anthony Blunt; later worked alongside David Niven at the War Office; was tasked with waking the Chief of the Imperial General Staff to advise him of the German invasion of Denmark and Norway; worked unsuccessfully to bring Turkey into the war on the Allied side; helped Steven Runciman get his first teaching job at the University of Ankara; and shared teaching quarters at Cambridge with Bertrand Russell after the war. He also served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Khartoum in the late 1950's, before enjoying the happy fate of being able to retire to a villa near Lucca in Tuscany at the age of 52, after which he spent the next 37 years writing the historical works for which he is so well known today. Oh, and his Swedish wife's father organized a contingent of volunteers to fight for the Finns against the Soviets during the Winter War of 1939-40. He published an autobiography ten years back (My First Eighty Years) which is probably a most engaging read.