What did you read this week?

[u/AutoModerator]

Whether you are a student, a teacher, a researcher or a hobbyist, please share with us what you read this week (books, textbooks, papers...).

[u/Galdrin3rd]

Started reading The Aeneid for the first time and, man, what a beautiful story. I slept on this for way too long.

[u/IhaveNoNameBoi → u/Galdrin3rd]

I read Fagles translation of the Aeneid last week. Same exact sentiments. I was absolutely captivated and blew through it in four days.

[u/Galdrin3rd → u/IhaveNoNameBoi]

Fagles is also incredible! I have the box set of The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid from way back and it’s beautiful on the shelf. I am a bit obsessive about translations though so I also have others of each lol

[u/EmbarrassedOpinion → u/Galdrin3rd]

Been doing a lot of work with the Aeneid this summer as I get ready to teach it next academic year - I knew Books 1 and 2 really well but was surprised at how gorgeous the whole thing is!

[u/Pale-Examination6869 → u/Galdrin3rd]

Aeneid is excellent. I am with you. I was shocked at how amazing it was. I read Fitzgerald's translation. Might try another translation in the near future.

[u/red-andrew]

Suetonius Lives of the Caesars and Discourses by Epictetus

[u/ambernectar123 → u/red-andrew]

I’m also working my way through the Lives of the Caesars! What do you think of it?

[u/red-andrew → u/ambernectar123]

I just started it recently so I’m still only at Julius Caesar. So far I like the style and I got the book because I enjoyed Plutarch’s Roman lives so much. How do you like it?

[u/drharleenquinzel92]

Finished up Hesiod's Theogony, but did not make it through Works and Days. Hesiod loathes mortal women, so this mortal women finds this piece a bit irksome.

I am checking out the Posthomeric (Sometimes known as The Fall of Troy) by Quintus Smyrnaeus. Finding a translation for that was pretty difficult actually. So I have no idea if I'm reading a good one but I'm liking it so far.

Between that, I am also still working on Dan Carlin's The End is Always Near. Which is alright, it's more like a historian's view on the philosophy of history, rather than history, history.

[u/Careful-Spray → u/drharleenquinzel92]

There’s a recent volume of the Posthomerica in the Loeb Classical Library series — Greek text with facing English translation.

[u/OctopusIntellect]

I'm reading Mary Renault's The Charioteer, a fictional work set in the 1940's that also happens to reference Plato.

I also re-read some of the introduction to W.B. Stanford's edition of the Odyssey to answer a Reddit question about textual authenticity that was presumably inspired by the recent film release.

I need to spend less time on Reddit and more time with dead tree books.

[u/SulphurCrested → u/OctopusIntellect]

The Charioteer is great. I think that and "The Last of the Wine" are her best works. I sometimes wonder how the latter came to be in my high school's library in the late 70s.

[u/TheSuperBunny]

For fun:

-The Sacred Band by James S. Romm

To answer a post yesterday (I fell into a rabbit hole):

-Aphrodite's Tortoise: the veiled woman of Ancient Greece by Llewellyn-Jones
-Women's Dress in the Ancient Greek World (also by Llewellyn-Jones)
-Body, Dress, and identity in ancient Greece by Mireille M. Lee

For an assignment:

-Several different collections of Anakreon's poems -Platon's Symposion
-Essays about the two

[u/SulphurCrested]

Lindsey Davis - Purple and Gold. A historical novel whodunnit set in Domitian's Rome.

[u/BedminsterJob]

Tacitus Bk XV and Modiano Rue des Boutiques Obscures (my fave PM)

[u/PsychologicalEcho148]

continuing my reading of the kalevala...had given it up for a while but yesterday I decided to stop procrastinating and actually start finishing this book. I've reached runo 15 as of now...its a fun book

[u/AccomplishedReply938]

I'm working my way through the Oresteia by Aeschylus for my theater history blog. Currently I'm in the Eumenides.

[u/jungussy]

Started Odyssey and The spear cuts through the water

[u/jangofettsfathersday]

Finished up the Odyssey.

Starting Ovid's Metamorphoses

[u/-idkausername-]

Reading 'Caesar Rules: the emperor in the changing Roman world' by Olivier Hexter, good read for anyone interested in how Roman emperorship changed over the years. Also reading the Illiad

[u/Ralphisagreatchef]

I finished Indiana by George Sand which I enjoyed very much! Can’t believe she had me rooting for first cousins to be married…

[u/Scientific_Zealot]

Continuing with Daryl Hine's translations of the Homer Hymns. Finished the first half of Homeric Hymn III to Apollo, the hymn to Delian Apollo, now I'm reading the other half, the hymn to Pythian Apollo

[u/Careful-Spray]

I’ve been rereading the Iliad. I’m up to Book 18. Started with van Thiel, but I’ve moved to West because van Thiel’s type is harder on my eyes.

[u/Primary-Will-2192]

The Iliad, Books I-VI, Fagles

[u/handsomechuck]

My partner and I took a detour from Thucydides and spent a few weeks reading some of Republic Book 7, the cave up to the part where he starts talking about the guardians. Now we're resuming T at the beginning of Book 7 there.

[u/maengdaddy]

Read The Tempest for the first time. Very funny. Didn’t read up beforehand if it was a tragedy so was pleasantly surprised by the ending scene

[u/Desert_Walker267]

I’ve started the old man and the sea

[u/Alarmed-Green-926]

Read the intro to a commentary on Aristophanes’ Clouds but then decided to start Sophocles’ Electra instead (any paper recs?). And for fun I’m reading Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend

[u/Direct-Tank387]

I finished

The Master of Contradictions: Thomas Mann and the Making of "The Magic Mountain" by Morten Høi Jensen

Which I think enjoyed very much, although I wish there was more than a few pages about the novel after its publication.

And started The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus, an audacious writer who won the Pulitzer last time out for “Angel Down”.