The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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Some days, you just need a broody, atmospheric novel, like today.  Other days, you need something that is, at least on the surface, light, fun, and … dare I say…fluffy?  Us too, and virtual book club as well!  Since June says summer, and summer says beach read, what better book to read together than Emily Henry’s Beach Read!   SIGN UP HERE to join us on June 18th at 7:30pm Central Time to discuss this romance about writers, because books about book lovers might be our favorite type of book.

Oh readers, I SO wish I remembered how A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes got on our TBR list, so I could go back there to see what else I can find to add.  I’m hopeful Ashley’s memory is better than mine.  This is a “woman’s epic” retelling of the Iliad and the Odyssey and the circumstances around those events.  The basics of the tale are the same, but Haynes shares a series of different perspectives that remind me of the reframing in Madeline Miller’s Circe (whose endorsement is on the cover, if that helps push you into putting this on your holds list ASAP).  

The story I didn’t know I needed in A Thousand Ships is Calliope’s.  She is the muse of epic poetry and interjects periodically, breaking the fourth wall, as she speaks to readers of her struggles to inspire this poet, and she’s delightfully grumpy about it.  “How much epic poetry does the world really need?” is not a question one expects the muse of epic poetry to ask, but she does.  Calliope understands and acknowledges the realities of war, and she wants that for her poet and his readers.  She wants them to also understand and acknowledge that “this is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s, and the poet will look upon their pain – the pain of the women who have always been relegated to the edges of the story, victims of men, survivors of men, slaves of men – and he will tell it, or he will tell nothing at all.”  I cannot express how much I adore that it is now mainstream for books to share perspectives that were deemed unworthy of effort for centuries.  Please ma’am may I have another?

Another piece I especially loved that I didn’t expect to find, much less enjoy, in A Thousand Ships is the way Penelope’s story is told.  If you don’t remember, Penelope is waiting for Odysseus to come home, especially after the end of the Trojan War, and spends her days weaving his father’s funeral shroud and promises to consider her many suitors after it’s done, which isn’t likely as she undoes her weaving each night.  Penelope speaks for herself, telling the story of her struggles, the pieces of Odysseus’s part in the war and his adventures on the way home that made their way to her ears, through letters to Odysseus.  She doesn’t know if he’ll ever read these letters, but she pours out her heart on the page and I cannot express how much I loved finally reading a focus on Penelope while Odysseus was “trying” to get home to her.  

The star of A Thousand Ships though, it’s the writing and the way the story is told.  There are multiple narrators, each with a different style, and they are all at different time periods in the retelling of two epic poems.  Readers do need to pay attention to who is leading each chapter, which is not my favorite, but it works.  Because this is such a familiar story it’s not a challenge to keep up (except when I texted Ashley one night and asked her WTH was going on – she kindly reminded me there were multiple timelines happening and I was just mentally in the wrong one – so perhaps it is a challenge at times).  

Now it’s confession time, dear readers.  I haven’t finished reading A Thousand Ships yet, so I’m withholding a star rating and encourage you to friend me on Goodreads if you want to see how that shakes down in the next day or two.  So far, I am really loving this title.  I don’t know that I’ll reread this book, but I am highly likely to dig into Haynes’s backlist.  If you enjoy the classics or retellings of them, I’d highly suggest A Thousand Ships for you!  

What’s a classic story you might enjoy more from another perspective?

~Nikki 

A Thousand Ships probably arrived on our/my radar when I was doing the book and author research for Angie Cruz’s Dominicana earlier this year because both Dominicana and A Thousand Ships were shortlisted for The Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020. We were in the planning stages for Mythology in May at the time and this title seemed too good to pass up! (I was right about that…) Natalie Haynes is an English broadcaster and journalist known for her love of the Classics. Her BBC Radio series Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics can be found on it’s own website here, and if you click through you can find some hilarious gems! What a comedienne is our author today! She’s no stranger to prestigious prizes, as she was on the boards to judge both the 2013 Man Booker Prize and the final Orange Prize in 2012. In addition to her prolific columns for The Independent and The Guardian, Haynes has written 5 other fiction titles all focusing on the women from the Classics except for her young adult novel entitled The Great Escape about a girl and her cat that talks.

Admittedly, as I was supposed to be writing this blog post, I got sucked into Hayne’s episode on Penelope from Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics. And Nikki’s so right about the letters of Penelope being more of what we want to know of her side of the tale and it comes straight from the Roman poet Ovid’s story of Ulysses. (That’s the Latin form of Odysseus, y’all.) She becomes for us in her letters the intellectual equal of Odysseus, worthy of the tricks of unweaving Laertes’ shroud at night to hold the suitors at bay. Her intelligence was the very thing which attracted Odysseus to HER rather than to Helen, who was the very reason he was in Sparta in the first place! In one letter, she bitterly thinks that perhaps taking a young husband would be the answer to all her woes and perhaps a bit of fun… “A young man would be delicious. And grateful. But, oh, Odysseus, they are all so stupid. I cannot abide it.” And, to be honest, who could for more than a short period of time?

Nikki’s confession about not knowing the timeline of A Thousand Ships as she was reading reminds me to remind you to…ahem… not sleep on the Table of Contents or chapter headings of your books. So much is revealed by just a few words in a list down a page. [Nikki here: In my defense there are no dates, only names of the narrators.] Yeah, ok, sometimes it can be a little bit of foretelling by reading the Table of Contents, much like Cassandra’s curse from Apollo, but once I get into the story even a little bit I forget what ‘might’ come in the later parts of the book even if it’s RIGHT THERE AT THE BEGINNING. Kinda like Shakespeare’s habit of outlining an entire play at the beginning of it, literally telling you the plot so that you can pay attention to the intricacies of dialogue? It’s a similar thing with a table of contents and we should all be so kind as to pay attention to knowing the general way the wind is blowing. Unlike the way the wind was blowing at the beginning of The Iliad when Agamemnon had to sacrifice his eldest daughter Iphegenia and did so by pretending to her and his wife and all their servants that she would be marrying Achilles. That chapter: heartbreaking. Also, rage inducing.

Additionally, Haynes gave us a “List of Characters” right after the Table of Contents [which is not a part of the printed book, just the cast] and whoo, lawd, some lolz were had! For example: ‘PARIS, Trojan warrior and seducer of other men’s wives” and “HERA, queen of the Olympian gods and disliker of anyone Zeus seduces.” Nikki pointed out also “ATHENE, goddess of wisdom and defensive warfare. Supporter of Odysseus, patron goddess of Athens. Loves owls.” and “ERIS, goddess of strife. Troublemaker.” More days than not I feel Eris flapping her black-feathered wings around my head telling me to go out and sow discord in the world. Then I realize I’m too lazy and have too many books to read.

I, too, have not finished reading A Thousand Ships, but am working on finishing today, but I’ll go ahead and say this is a 4.5 star read for me, rounded up to 5. It checks my boxes, y’all, and I’m not ashamed of that. I’m definitely putting Haynes’ backlist on the TBR and look forward to all the emotions she’s capable of eliciting from me on every page.

~Ashley

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The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

Readers, sometimes we pick a known, loved book for book club, and other times we don’t.  When we don’t, sometimes I wonder what in the crazy we’ve gotten ourselves into.  This week is one of those weeks.  I’m only a third or so in, but it is off the wall, interesting, gorgeously written, fantastically creative, and bound to be great fodder for an amazing book club conversation.  If you’ve read, watched, or just want to discuss  American Gods by Neil Gaiman, then sign up here  and plan to join us THIS Friday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m. CST.  You don’t have to finish the book, or even start it, to join us, but you do have to be ok with spoilers!  

Dear readers, sometimes no expectations is the perfect situation, and sometimes it’s not.  I had NO idea what I was getting into with Lore by Alexandra Bracken.  I knew my local librarians read and loved it, that it was everywhere, and had something to do with the Greek gods.  I haven’t read Alexandra Bracken before but I am now interested, very interested, in her backlist.  Lore is a gorgeously written, creative story about a familiar pantheon that reinvents it in a really interesting way.  Melora, Lore’s full name, is my new favorite literary name, and I may or may not be looking for hunters (and hashashins for that matter) any time I leave the house (not that I expect any at the library, grocery store, or my office, but that’s not relevant), and wondering if they were hiding in the mist last week.  (Yes, that’s a Percy Jackson reference.  My littlest reader is currently reading The Battle of the Labyrinth).  

Usually when I know I’m going to read a book, I don’t look for more information because I don’t want to spoil the experience.  (See also: Downton Abbey Movie #2 – I’m going to see it and all those that follow and it just doesn’t matter so long as the cast is there.)  For me, Lore is one of those times when I should have had more expectations.  Yes, I’m shoulding on myself.  I also listened to The Lazy Sisters book episode today (yes, there’s a paywall, sorry, but also, Hannah and Kendra are worth it).  In the spirit of The Lazy Genius, these sisters were talking about their summer reading plans and how they organize their TBR stacks.  The best part though, it was about how they determine if a book is for them or not before putting it on their TBR stack.  I know, I need to focus more on that because I definitely lean towards “let’s read all the things,” but as Anne Bogel points out periodically, there are more books published in a given day than I can possibly read in a year (at least I think that’s the statistic, regardless, SO many books).  While that’s sad, it’s also really exciting because I’m never going to run out of books to read, and the odds of enough of them being the right books for me feel good (it’s a feeling, and based on absolutely no data).  

I say that I should have read the marketing copy for Lore because maybe I’d have understood more and my expectations would have situated me to enjoy the experience more.  I’m not going to spoil, but I am going to explain a smidge.  I wanted a nearly 500 page work to include character development worthy of that length (read: substantial).  I wanted to dig in with our people and see them grow, but dear readers, this book just covers one Agon, which is seven days.  ONE WEEK.  While there is a substantial amount of character development when one considers that it happens over one action-filled week, upon finishing the book, I was initially disappointed that it wasn’t more.  I don’t need more epilogue for this one, even though I may have told Ashley I wanted less ambiguity with the ending.  After a couple of days of reflection, I like the ending and I think it fits as is (and really isn’t ambiguous at all).  At first I thought this book wasn’t for me because there was so much plot and action and so little development, but looking back at it after a couple of days, I really enjoyed it.  I wish I’d have known the time frame included, but that’s all I’d change about the experience, oh, and I’d get more details on Medusa!  I wanted her to be a star in the book because she’s on the cover, but that isn’t the case.  Like Lore, the other women in this story, and so many women in history, Medusa is misunderstood, misremembered by history because of her gender.  That is definitely a point the book brings out, but it isn’t really what it’s about.  Lore is about owning your past, being the person you wish you were, and leaving it all on the mat for yourself and your people.  

I’m giving Lore 3.5 stars, which I’ll round up to 4.  I might read it again, but I might not.  Regardless, I’ll be watching out for what Bracken comes out with next, and I’ll be looking more closely at her backlist, and reading the marketing copy.  If you like YA, action novels, or a fresh take on the Greek gods, you should take another look at Lore.  When I was still early in the book, I may have described it to Ashley as Percy Jackson meets Hunger Games, and other than the whole series thing, I still think it fits.  

What book have you read recently that is helping you reconsider how you approach books?  

~Nikki 

Settle down for a few minutes. I’m going to tell you a story. I’m going to tell you the story of a book-loving, millennial woman who follows authors and independent bookstores on Instagram for late-night, early-morning, mid-day, all-the-damn-time scrolling. And then one chilly day in January 2021, she saw her local indie bookstore post this delicious, eye-catching collection of pre-order bonuses for a book she had never heard about even though the author’s name had been on her radar a time or two. Of course, by the time she saw said IG post, it was too late to pre-order said book to receive the badass Medusa pin for her collection. She is still bitter about that.

No surprise here that Lore by Alexandra Bracken is the book and I am that social-media addicted millennial woman. Looking back on this time, which involved lots of screenshots to the book-buddy, this was probably when Mythology in March (now May) was discussed because I was out of digital holds at the time and Nikki was still able to recommend it to her library. I was willing, at the time, to buy the dang book, either digital or dead tree because I was INTO THE MARKETING COPY HARD. This is probably where Nikki skipped over dissecting the marketing copy, because I did, and, well, sometimes we have differing tastes, and that’s good and I’m just thankful my book buddy was willing to read with me 1) for the blog and 2) because I was so dang excited.

Bracken, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twelve Young Adult books including The Darkest Minds series and the Passenger duology, lived up to the marketing copy in providing a “sweepingly ambitious, high-octane tale of power, destiny, love, and redemption.” Lore was, from the first page, filled with action. I was sucked into the go-go-go and the family vengeance plot arc that’s typically seen with a male protagonist. Melora Perseous is #feministgoals. I am sure Bracken used her experience of living and working in NYC when she worked in children’s book publishing to create Lore’s home city. Bracken currently lives in her home state of Arizona with her tiny pup, Tennyson, where she writes full-time.

Speaking of home cities, let’s talk the aegis. The aegis is, traditionally and in Lore, the shield and/or armor of Athena where the visage of Medusa was placed to offer protection from and sow fear in her enemies. There’s a scale replica of The Parthenon in Nashville’s Centennial Park. The building is an art museum and features a 40 foot tall statue of Athena Parthenos. You can see the Gorgon head on both her shield and her breastplate. How was Medusa’s head placed in the shield? Well, because Perseus chopped it off and placed it there.

For the Agon, Melora Perseous is of the line of the ancient hero, and only members of her family can wield the shield against other hunters or gods. As the last living descendant of Perseus, Lore is the only one who can lift the shield, its magic refuses any other hand. The finding and claiming of the aegis is central to the plot – no spoilers here except that it was everything I wanted it to be in the end.

Lore is a bit of a tome, and action packed in the best way. (Look, this girl loves yoga but she really loves hitting a bag real hard, and kinda gets into watching professional fights more than is necessarily typical of her gender or age group.) It checked off so many boxes for me: Greek mythology in a modern setting, a badass heroine, a diverse cast of characters (which could have been really hard in a book about the descendants of white people, but Bracken used NYC to amazing advantage), fights and weapons, and a solid ending that does not leave me wanting more. I’m unlikely to re-read this book even though I really liked it, so I’m giving it a solid 4 star rating. Me, I’m ready to see it be made into a movie pronto, cause it’d be an excellent action flick.

What’s a recent book you’ve read that you really want to see on the screen?

~Ashley

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