Books
From original texts to contemporary reinventions, theres something for every kind of reader.
Madeline Millers hit 2011 novelThe Song of Achilles, which reimaginesThe Iliad, sparked an enduring literary trend.
Bustles list includes plenty of those classics, along with encyclopedias and translations of the original works themselves.
Below, 50 books to read if you love Greek mythology.
Fry retells myths from Prometheus to Pandora with his signature wit and verve.
Susan Chira, in theNew York Times Book Review, called it a revelation.
18
Ulysses
Not every updated version ofThe Odysseyhews so closely to its source material.
20
Tales from Ovid:24 Passages from the Metamorphoses
But Greek mythology isnt limited to Homer.
24
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
This last novel by C.S.
25
Alcestis
Katherine Beutner, like C.S.
Lewis, put her own spin on a lesser-known figure from Greek mythology.
Beutner offers a feminist slant on Alcestis story.
Haunting, beautiful, and romantic, this book was a surprise hit when it was released in 1998.
30
Ariadne
Fans of Madeline Miller will no doubt enjoy Jennifer Saints debut novelAriadne.
In her verse playThe Darker Face of the Earth, former U.S. Haynes focuses on Jocastas unhappy first marriage and Ismenes efforts to uncover a plot to kill her.
Wards writing has the heft and scope of an odyssey all its own.
Chaos and existential crises ensue in this parable on the beauty, dangers, and limitations of human consciousness.
Soon, theyre holding bacchanals in the woods at night which sounds fun until those bacchanals lead to murder.
This time, that classics department isnt in a small, remote college but at Cambridge University.
The plot revolves around Mariana, a psychologist who begins investigating the murder of a student.
She quickly suspects that classics professor Edward Fosca is guilty but how can she prove it?
(One of them is Martha Stewart.)
Its worth reading for Rachel Smythes striking illustrations alone.
She gets sucked back in when a childhood friend and the great god Athena turn to her for help.
How can she say no?
In this clever novel, the gods are beset by existential malaise while languishing in a London townhouse.
They feel depressed, purposeless, and their powers dont work as well as they used to.
49
Oh.
Gods, the first in a series.
Instead of focusing on the gods themselves, Childs goes one step removed to their children.
Phoebe, the novels protagonist, is initially skeptical about moving to Greece with her mom and new stepdad.
Does she have what it takes to keep up?
This article was originally published onJan.
