IF YOU LIKE SOULFUL WITCHES…
Circe by Madeline Miller
What’s the backstory of the nymph who ensnares Odysseus and transforms his men into squealing pigs? Miller brings us into her world, from her painful upbringing as an unloved child of a Titan, to an exiled witch living on a remote island. In this tale we see Odysseus through Circe’s wise eyes, which notice the pain and contradictions of Homer’s war-traumatised hero.
Filled with sublime, poetic description, you’ll be hooked by Circe’s first lines, each of which sound like an incantation: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities.” Spellbinding stuff.
IF YOU LIKE WEIRD, COLOURFUL JOURNEYS…
ODY-C by Matt Fraction and Christian Ward
If the scale of the original Odyssey wasn’t enough, try a genre-morphing graphic novel adaptation where Zeus and Odysseus (among others) are both women, with the latter desperate to head home to her partner Penelope, themself a Sebex or third gender – an ingenious play on the ‘I am no-man’ scene in Homer’s Odyssey.
True to the blurb, this is a “trippy, gender-flipped version of Homer’s Odyssey hurtling through space on psychedelic, science fiction wings”. All explored in galactic scale and the brightest of colour palettes. That should tide over anyone already impatient for Dune: Part Three’s December release date.
IF YOU’RE A NERD FOR GREEK CULTURE…
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Tartt’s story of a group of students whose love of ancient Greek culture and myth slowly turns murderous is a hallmark of the ‘dark academia’ genre. More importantly, it’s an unputdownable tale of obsession, university group dynamics and the ‘ritual of Bacchus’ (AKA crazy partying) gone wrong.
As one character seductively asks: “What could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely?” No wonder this modern classic featured on Time magazine’s “100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time” list.
