Collected Ancient Greek Novels

Collected Ancient Greek Novels

Book title: Collected Ancient Greek Novels
Edited by: B.P. Reardon
Genre: ancient literature, ancient Greek novels
Published: July 8, 2008 by University of California Press
835 pages
My rating: 5/5

Collected Ancient Greek Novels presents in modern English translations nine complete prose narratives and several fragments commonly included in the genre of ancient Greek novels. These prose narratives were written in the first centuries of the common era. I’ve read B.P. Reardon’s seminal edition several times over the years, and it is always a pleasure. Needless to say, I love the ancient Greek prose narratives, especially the five romance novels.

Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe is most likely the earliest of the novels, possibly written in the first century CE. It also provided the model for the plot that the other romance novels follow. The two titular characters are a young couple of noble birth. They fall in love at first sight and get married. Chaereas’ jealousy leads him to kick Callirhoe, and to all appearances she dies from the attack and is buried. However, she wakes up after her funeral when pirates rob her grave and take her with them to be sold as a slave. After a long separation, during which time Callirhoe has to marry another man and thwart the advances of several other men, Chaereas wins her back and they return to their home town.

October Wrap-Up and November Goals

October reads

October Wrap-Up

• Finished: 7
• Started but not finished: 2
• Total pages read: 2,191
• Average rating: 3.71

Another month with a lot of books. The only contemporary fiction, though, was The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (4/5 stars), which (despite the high rating) was a bit of a disappointment. I love The Hunger Games, but the prequel did not achieve the same level of excitement as the original trilogy. Click the link to read a longer review of book and what I did and didn’t like about it.

June Wrap-Up and July Goals

June reads

June Wrap-Up

• Finished: 10
• Total pages read: 2,475
• Average rating: 4.33

Over two thousand pages read again this month, but to be honest, I read four atlases which were mostly maps and other pictures. I finished ten books in June. I usually try to read at least one contemporary novel, but this time I didn’t read any. But I did read two classic novels, two ancient classics, and a few non-fiction books, including one memoir.

As I mentioned, I read four atlases. Two of these were my mother’s old schoolbooks, a historical atlas and her school atlas. Two were “modern” atlases, both of which also had interesting articles about Earth, space, and geographical features. But mostly all four were maps of the world and different countries. Not really something that you need to “read,” but I found it fascinating to flip through the books. I also had time to squeeze in another non-fiction book about ancient literature and its impact on later literature.

My Favorite Ancient Classics

Some of my favorite ancient classics

As my ancient texts project draws to a close, it’s time to present my ancient classics recommendations! Here are some favorites from different genres of ancient Greek and Latin texts. These are all works of fiction. I have a lot of nonfiction recommendations as well, but those will have to wait for another blog post.

May Wrap-Up and June Goals

 

May Reads

May Wrap-Up

• Finished: 7
• DNF’ed: 1
• Total pages read: 2,227
• Average rating: 4.29

Wow, I read a lot of pages! Partly that was because the one non-fiction book I read had a hundred pages of endnotes, but I really did read a lot. I finished seven books in May. Two of them were contemporary novels. I read my first graphic novel, Maus by Art Spiegelman (5/5 stars), and I loved it! The story was moving, and the pictures added another layer to the story. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (4/5 stars), on the other hand, was good but not as great as I had hoped. There were a few too many YA clichés in the book for me to fully enjoy it.

I read one non-fiction book, Naiset pyhyyden tulkkeina, which a collection of Finnish translations of texts written by women in the antiquity and Middle Ages.

April Wrap-Up and May Goals

April Reads

April Wrap-Up

• Finished: 3
• Started but not finished: 2
• Total pages read: 1,758
• Average rating: 4.25

I did not finish that many books in April, and there are two reasons. First is that I was reading quite thick books. The other is that I prioritized Camp NaNoWriMo in April, which meant that I had less time for reading. I finished only one contemporary novel, The Dragon’s Promise by Elizabeth Lim (4/5 stars). I loved Six Crimson Cranes, but the sequel didn’t quite live up to my expectations although I did enjoy it for the most part.

March wrap-up and April goals

  

March reads

March wrap-up

• Finished: 9
• Started but not finished: 2
• Total pages read: 2,137
• Average rating: 4.06

In March, I finished three modern fiction novels. One of them, Cinasee Pollett’s WildWood Revisited, was a reread, and I will post a review of it later this month. My favorite (new) read in March was Amanda Darcy’s Of Love & Beer (5/5 stars). I also read Tricia Cresswell’s The Midwife (3/5 stars), which unfortunately did not live up to its premise with its disappointing ending.

February Wrap-Up and March Goals

February reads

February Wrap-Up

• Finished: 8
• Started but not finished: 3
• Total pages read: 1,824
• Average rating: 3.875

Another great month with eight finished books and closer to two thousand pages read. I don't think the average rating accurately reflects how good this month was. That's because I read several books of ancient philosophy, which is not my favorite genre. The other books, however, I loved a lot.

January wrap-up and February goals

 

January reads

January wrap-up

• Finished: 5
• Started but not finished: 3
• Total pages read: 1,995
• Average rating: 4.5
• Books bought: 2

This was a great start to the year! Closer to two thousand pages read is always a great month, and I also finished a lot of books (which means that they were shorter reads, but anyway). Three books I will continue reading next month, so I won’t say more about them at the moment.

Two of the books I finished were modern fiction, Claire North’s Ithaca (4/5 stars) and Sunyi Dean’s The Book Eaters (3.5/5 stars). Click the links to read more on what I thought about those books. The other three were part of my ancient texts project (more on that below). When it comes to ratings, I wish I could have given my modern reads higher ratings, but at least the rest of the books I could give five stars to. Speaking of my other reads…