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This collection of essays exemplifies the range, depth, and erudition that have made Daniel Mendelsohn �required reading for anyone interested in dissecting culture� (The Daily Beast). Here Mendelsohn once again casts an eye at literature, film, television, and the personal essay, filtering his insights through his training as a scholar of classical antiquity in surprising and illuminating ways. Many of these essays examine how we continue to look to the Greeks and Romans as models: some argue for the surprising modernity of canonical works (Bacchae, the Aeneid), while others detect a �Greek DNA� in our responses to the Boston Marathon bombings and the assassination of JFK. Modern topics are treated, too, from the �aesthetics of victimhood� in Hanya Yanagihara�s A Little Life to the novels of Karl Ove Knausgaard, and from Game of Thrones to recent films about artificial intelligence�a subject, Mendelsohn reminds us, that was already of interest to Homer. The collection also brings together for the first time a number of Mendelsohn�s personal essays, including his �critic�s manifesto� and a touching memoir of his boyhood correspondence with the historical novelist Mary Renault. (less)

This collection of essays exemplifies the range, depth, and erudition that have made Daniel Mendelsohn �required reading for anyone interested in dissecting culture� (The Daily Beast). Here Mendelsohn once again casts an eye at literature, (…more)