Books: Sources & Recommendations

As you all well know, Liv reads countless (endless!) sources for the podcast. Some of them are very readable and fun and entirely worth your time if you’re just a casual fan of the ancient world (looking at you, Euripides!). Some, meanwhile, are highly detailed and nuanced sources that you probably don’t want to bother with when you can just listen to the podcast instead! Below Liv has provided detailed information on each of these books so you can make up your own mind.

If there is a link provided then it will send you to Bookshop.org, a great organization working to support independent bookstores. This is a great alternative to the Big A (who are doing immense damage to the world of books!). If there’s no link, that means the book isn’t available on Bookshop.org and you must hunt it down yourself… Might I recommend a bookstore and not the Big A? (This is a work in progress… If it looks weird that is why)

Homeric epic! Ancient plays! Sourcebooks of random ancient things!

• Homer’s Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson

  The Odyssey is Liv’s favourite epic (because, Odysseus) and Emily Wilson’s translation is one of the best out there. Translations by women are becoming more and more popular and often lend a level of accuracy that is missing from older translations (because patriarchy).

• Homer’s Iliad translated by Caroline Alexander or Stephen Mitchell
  Both of these translations are very readable, though admittedly Liv has not read the Alexander translation. Emily Wilson is working on a translation that (we hope!) will be out soon. Neither book is available from Bookshop.org at this time, but you can find a classic translation by Richard Lattimore here (it is also very good).

• Homer’s Iliad, the graphic novel and Homer’s Odyssey, the graphic novel by Gareth Hinds
  These are very fun graphic novel adaptations of the Iliad and Odyssey, the perfect places to start if you want to learn more but aren’t up for reading 24 books of poetry (each!). Plus, they’re beautifully done!

• Apollodorus' Library of Greek Mythology translated by Robin Hard

• Apollonios Rhodios' (Apollonios of Rhodes) Argonautica translated by Peter Green (other translations here and here)

• Apuleius’ The Golden Ass translated by Sarah Ruden HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (not as good translation here)

• Aristophanes’ Frogs and Other Plays translated by Stephen Halliwell

• An Oresteia translated by Anne Carson

• The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony by Roberto Calasso HIGHLY RECOMMEND

• Magic in the Ancient Greek World by Derek Collins

• Eratosthenes and Hyginus’ Constellation Myths translated by Robin Hard.

• Euripides’ Bacchae translated by Emily Wilson from The Greek Plays new translations edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

• Euripides’ Bacchae and Other Plays translated by James Morwood

• Euripides’ Bakkhai translated by Anne Carson HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

• Grief Lessons, four plays by Euripides translated by Anne Carson

• Euripides’ Medea translated by John Davie (other translation here)

• Euripides’ Medea translated by Rachel Kitzinger, from The Modern Library's The Greek Plays new translations edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm

• Euripides’ The Trojan Women translated by Edith Hamilton (other translation here)

• The Ovidian Heroine as Author by Laurel Fulkerson

• Early Greek Myths (Volume 1 and Volume 2) by Timothy Gantz

• The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by Andrew George

• Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton

• Heroines of Olympus by Ellie Mackin Roberts

• The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor

• Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds, a sourcebook by Daniel Ogden RECOMMENDED

• Ovid's Fasti translated by Anne and Peter Wiseman

• Ovid’s Metamorphoses translated by Stephanie McCarter HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (other translation here)

• Roman Mythology, a Traveler's Guide from Troy to Tivoli by David Stuttard

• Virgil’s Aeneid translated by David Ferry

• Virgil’s Aeneid translated by Sarah Ruden

Here are books based in mythology that I’ve talked about on the podcast and/or just generally love:

• Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

• The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes, the story children of Jocasta and Oedipus, and of their parents meeting

• Circe by Madeline Miller, the story of the witch Circe

• Great Goddesses by Nikita Gill

• The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, a version of the Iliad through the eyes of Briseis

• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, the story of Achilles and Patroclus

• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes

• The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper