books that made me – Jean's Thoughts

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The Argonautica; Jason and the Golden Fleece; Jason and the Argonauts; apparently the book with a million names, by Apollonius of Rhodes (can we also acknowledge that he wasn’t even from Rhodes).

So, because who cares about chronology lets jump many years into the future for my next ‘Books that made me’ instalment: from secondary school the early years to university the early years. This book first entered my life in January of 2012 – recently enough that I can be that specific. It was one of the three set texts for my Classical Literature course in the 2nd term of my 2nd year at university. The course itself was all about Ancient Epic and featured along side The Argonautica Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. Neither of which quite did it for me in the way Apollonius’ work did.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

What can I say about this book that I haven’t said before? Probably nothing so that’s why I’m going to start at the beginning and probably repeat some things that the 3 people who have actually watched every single one of my YouTube videos will have heard before.

This post is not a book review per say but the first in a series of posts sharing with you the ‘books that made me’; this is to say the books that have stuck with me since the day I read them, that have had an impact on the decisions I have made, the way I perceive the world and the person I am today, big or small. You can assume that I recommend each and everyone of these books before I say anything else and what I’d like to do here is just give some context to what that book has meant to me in my life.

So back to The Penelopiad.