pickThe Voyage Home (Women of Troy 3), by Pat Barker (2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Premise: A Trojan nurse accompanies the doomed prophetess Cassandra to her fate as Agamemnon‘s entourage returns home.
Review: In a landscape overstuffed with retellings, once again this effort from Pat Barker elevates the genre to its full potential. It was jarring not to have Briseis as our point-of-view character in this third book. Cont.
Book haul!!!
pick51/100 I know it's an old saying, but honestly, I could listen to Stephen Fry read a phone book, if they still existed. His narration really brings the story of Odessus to life, it's often quite funny when it's not being tragic, as Odessus has one misadventure after another, both helped and hindered by the various gods of Olympus. I know this is the last book of his Greek Mythology series, but I love to see him tackle Norse mythology. 5 🌟 read
Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy! I did not know that Stephen Fry had a 4th book in the Greek Mythology series. I need to finish my current audiobook so I can get to this. I know it's going to be another winner. #SeriesLove2025
pickI found this haunting. There is something about the authors use of language that mimics the ‘for the ages‘ style of the original works whilst bringing fresh perspectives and an almost practical infuse telling. In this one our narrator is slave to Cassandra sailing home with Agamemnon who is mostly secondary to the story of his waiting wife and family. The horror of their home, ghosts of slaughtered and canabilised children adds tension .& horror.
pickAs an avid fan of all things myth (from a multitude of cultures), this wasn‘t anything mind-blowing to me, but I absolutely had a good time reading it. I enjoyed her connections to modernity. I like her wit. It‘s always fun to take a feminist critique, which is what I often did with my own scholarly papers. It‘s important work, but it‘s also important to be accessible and Haynes accomplishes just that.
pickExactly what I wanted, a modern feminist lens on the Greek goddesses. Really fills the niche I was missing after reading that collection of tragic plays and feeling so alienated by the lack of such considerations in the accompanying essays.
While she covers the classics by speaking on a selection of well known myths on certain goddesses, I love that Haynes also includes 1/?
Okay, but a horror film with the Olympians as the threats sounds AMAZING. 🤩
*Snrk* 🤭 Haynes is having such a good time, and so am I!
Bookish Pair: For a fun recent novel that uses Euripides‘s take on this saga as a backdrop, Ferdia Lennon‘s Glorious Exploits (2024). 4d