Grèce

A deft and clever retelling full of intrigue, rage and pathos' JENNIFER SAINT, author of Ariadne'An intelligent, highly crafted and necessary book' CLAIRE NORTH, author of Ithaca'Urgent and furious' ROSIE ANDREWS, author of The Leviathan ___________________In Athens, crowds flock to witness the most shocking trial of the ancient world. The royal family is mired in scandal. Phaedra, young bride of King Theseus, has accused her stepson, Hippolytus of rape. He's a prince, a talented horseman, a promising noble with his whole life ahead of him. She's a young and neglected wife, the youngest in a long line of Cretan women with less than savoury reputations. The men of Athens must determine the truth. Who is guilty, and who is innocent?But the women know truth is a slippery thing. After all, this is the age of heroes and the age of monsters. There are two sides to every story, and theirs has gone unheard. Until now. ___________________'Audacious and spirited' SARAH BURTON, author of The Strange Adventures of H'A timely and labyrinthian retelling of the trial of Phaedra: breaking down the old walls and illuminating the true monsters.' CARI THOMAS author of Threadneedle'The Heroines subverts the most enduring myth of all. That women are to blame.' JOANNE BURN, author of The Hemlock Cure'A mesmerizing read' ELIZABETH LEE, author of Cunning Women'Fiercely compelling' CAROLINE LEA, author of The Glass Woman'A stunning debut . . . vibrant characters, dark twists, a shimmering brilliant read.' CARLY REAGON, author of The Toll House'Beautifully told and utterly gripping . . . The Heroines compellingly asks us to consider how our understanding is influenced by who is telling the story, and why.' CAILEAN STEED, author of Home

The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the world―the fierce beauty of nature and the gods’ grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals. In Wilson’s hands, this thrilling, magical, and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poem’s deep pathos and reveals palpably real, even “complicated,” characters―both human and divine.

The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquity’s most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilson’s Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation.

A translation of Homer's poem of war which is a magnificent testimony to the power of the Iliad. This volume retells the story of Achilles, the great warrior, and his terrible wrath before the walls of besieged Troy, and the destruction it wreaks on both Greeks and Trojans.

'The first great book, and the first great book about the suffering and loss of war' GuardianOne of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its centre is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, who refuses to fight after being humiliated by his leader Agamemnon. But when the Trojan Hector kills Achilles' close friend Patroclus, he storms back into battle to take revenge - knowing this will ensure his own early death. E. V. Rieu's acclaimed translation of The Iliad was one of the first titles published in Penguin Classics, and now has classic status itself. Originally translated by E. V. RIEU Revised and updated by PETER JONES with D. C. H. RIEU Edited with an Introduction and notes by PETER JONES

Hector bidding farewell to his wife and baby son, Odysseus bound to the mast listening to the Sirens, Penelope at the loom, Achilles dragging Hector's body round the walls of Troy - scenes from Homer have been reportrayed in every generation. The questions about mortality and identity that Homer's heroes ask, the bonds of love, respect and fellowship that motivate them, have gripped audiences for three millennia. Chapman's Iliad and Odyssey are great English epic poems, but they are also two of the liveliest and readable translations of Homer.

In this book, you hold time and truth in your hands: this is how I understand Andrea Demetriou's beautiful and moving poetry. Her words and her silences -for like all true poets, Demetriou understands the dignity and profound power of the pause- take us from a Cyprus shattered and divided by the horror of war and occupation, to an evocation of the sights and sounds of inner-city Melbourne streets and then they return us to the eastern Mediterranean to where another form of war, an economic war, again shatters and divides. In her poems, it is as if time and memory run through our fingers; we try and catch them but as is their nature, they slip away, fall to the ground. But they don't disappear; they nourish the earth, they leave their mark on our hands and we bring our fingers to our lips and we are refreshed. That's what every poem in this book is: a kiss, welcome and needed, on our lips. Each poem is a trace of time, of memory, of love, of friendship, of rage, of remembering, of forgetting, of a night in celebration and of a day in mourning.

This "healing" book plunges the reader in a world full of sea, colours, light and cool breeze that portray the many facets of Greek life, and at the same time gives simple, every day, apparently unimportant facts their real value. "Whoever derives pleasure from small things always wins the lottery in life", says the aged heroine who, born in the midst of the Smyrna Disaster of 1922, was rescued from the flames and brought to live in one of the Aegean islands where she found a second home and a loving family. As she spins out for us the difficulties she has had to face in her life, she initiates us to the most difficult art of all, the art of living. A precious initiation in our times of stress and alienation

The Roman invasion from the western seas is imminent, and from the south the Spartans are burning and pillaging their way north. Battle-hardened Philopoemen believes the Achean League is facing annihilation if it does not arm. But without a formal army or cavalry, they don't stand a chance. Convincing his friend and healer Alexanor that the threat is real, together they begin to build a massive cavalry guard from the ground up - one that will fight on all fronts. It is the last roll of the dice for the Achean League. But Alexanor knows Philopoemen is one of the greatest warriors Greece has ever known - the New Achilles. The Last Greek.

Alexias, a young Athenian of good family, comes of age during the last phases of the Peloponnesian War. The adult world he enters is one in which the power and influence of his class have been undermined by the forces of war. Alexias finds himself drawn to the controversial teachings of Socrates, following him even though it at times endangers both his own life and his family's place in society. Among the great teacher's followers Alexias meets Lysis, and the two youths become inseparable - together they wrestle in the palaestra, journey to the Olympic Games, and fight in the wars against Sparta. As their relationship develops against the background of famine, siege and civil conflict, Mary Renault expertly conveys the intricacies of classical Greek culture.

Thessaloniki 1942. Vasilis Tsitsanis, the last outstanding performer of rebetiko music opens an ouzo tasting bar, an ouzeri, in the centre of the city. It soon attracts lovers of rebetiko, police officers, black market traffickers, spies, informants and anonymous partisan fighters. The centuries old city is living out its last days. The German occupying forces have set in motion the deportation of the large Jewish Sephardic community, represented by Estrella, a young girl enrolled in the resistance and the love object of the narrator of the novel. As it experiences its most difficult and decisive period in its history, the fascinating mosaic of Thessaloniki springs to life from the pages of Skambardonis’s novel. A mosaic made up of rebetiko, intrigue, love and betrayal set against the backdrop of a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic city which is on the verge of changing for ever.