The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
One of my favourite gifts that I received this year for Christmas is this new translation of The Iliad by Emily Wilson. The Iliad is a poem I have spent huge chunks of my life studying and obsessing over but it had been a long time since I last kicked back and read it purely for pleasure. For those who aren’t aware, The Iliad tells the story of a handful of days towards the end of the Trojan War, in which Greek soldiers are fighting to secure the return of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, who has been stolen away from her Greek husband, Menelaus, by Paris, a Trojan prince. The real focus of the poem however, is Achilles, the greatest of all the Greek warriors who knows he is doomed to die young and so must take every possible opportunity to secure his legacy as a hero and ensure his glory is sung of throughout the ages. When he is disrespected by the Greek commander, Agamemnon, Achilles withdraws his services from the Greek army and resolves to sulk in his camp until his honour is restored. This incident kicks off a chain of events that will see countless Greek and Trojan warriors die, including Achilles’ beloved Patroclus, before Achilles returns to the battlefield to take his terrible vengeance on the Trojans. But what always moves me so much about The Iliad is that the poem ends not on a scene of triumph or bloody revenge, but in a scene of forgiveness and mourning, as Achilles lets go of the destructive force of his anger and agrees to return the body of his greatest foe, Hector, to his father, Priam, the king of Troy, fo burial. As the women of Troy mourn their city’s protector, I always get a little shiver thinking about how all of the figures in this poem have been dead for thousands of years and yet here I am feeling for them, their kleos still resounding after all this time. Wilson as a translator really draws out the themes of impermanence and grief from this poem. Her choice of iambic pentameter as a meter is an excellent one which honours the oral history of the poem and draws the reader along at an invigorating pace, even through the infamous catalogue of ships. Her translators notes are also fascinating and the absolute nerd in me loved getting a glimpse behind the scenes as she offered context to the choices she made while translating. This edition is a classicist’s dream and was a perfect start to my reading year.
This was an absolute gut-punch of a novel and once I finished it I had to spend at least twenty minutes staring at the ceiling just processing. It centres around Eilish, an Irish everywoman type who splits her time between work, raising her four children alongside her husband Larry and caring for her father who is slowly losing himself to dementia. However, her life is turned upside down the day that Larry doesn’t come home from a protest against the government that he was leading as part of his job as a trade union organiser. Things have changed in Ireland recently and as the emergency powers brought in by the new government to manage upheaval are starting to look increasingly permanent, anyone who seems to oppose to the government is starting to vanish into thin air. No one will tell Eilish where her husband is and as the country slides farther and farther along the path to totalitarianism and civil war, Eilish fights desperately to keep her family together and hope alive. But the authoritarian forces that are now in control of Ireland are inexorable and as her family disintegrates around her, Eilish is faced with an impossible choice, should she stay and fight for the life she once had or should she flee to safety with as much of her family as she can take with her? The prose style is gorgeous but does take a little while to get used to. However, once you’ve adjusted, it really adds to the sense of denial and unreality that Eilish is experiencing. A fantastic read though be ready to be devastated.
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
Think defeating the Lord Ruler was hard? Try actually ruling over the fractured remains of his Empire. The second book in the Mistborn trilogy picks up one year after the end of The Final Empire as Vin, Elend and the rest of the crew struggle to maintain control over Luthadel with a newly-created people’s assembly vying for power, a cult springing up around the myth of Kelsier and Vin and multiple armies sitting on their doorstep looking to conquer the city. On top of all of these threats, the mist has started behaving very strangely indeed, with it starting to linger even as the sun rises and perhaps even killing people. With all of this chaos, Vin cannot stop thinking about the Lord Ruler’s final warning that killing him would unleash something truly terrible upon the land. Is this the Deepness coming back? And if so, does that mean a new Hero of Ages needs to rise up to stop it? I really love that even with all of this going on, Vin is still 100% an awkward teenage girl who is also very stressed about what clothes she should or shouldn’t be wearing and whether her boyfriend is too good to be true. And the twist at the end? Insane. And the OTHER twist? Breathtaking. I’m having to really work to pace myself on this series. Another stunningly beautiful, compulsively readable and perfectly constructed fantasy world from Brandon Sanderson.
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
I have already discussed my feelings about this book at length here on my blog but sometimes a book calls to you to be reread. Trick Mirror reached out to me late one night as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling with my brain firing on all cylinders. I was in typical January ‘new year, new me’ mode, obsessing about how I should be eating better, exercising more and maybe using retinol to fix my face. As I stared into the abyss, I could almost here this book whispering to me to come pick it up and so I did, reading Always Be Optimising, an essay which explores the cult of self-improvement and optimisation that is shoved down the throat of anyone with an Instagram account. Having been reassured of my sanity and determined to spite the capitalist machine out to exploit my anxiety, I drifted off to sleep. I spent the next few days rereading the whole book and it remains a tonic for tricky times. This is a book I know will always be there for me when I need it.
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum
I need cosy little slice-of-life stories about bookshops gently healing people injected directly into my veins. Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is a Korean novel which centres around Yeongju, formerly a high-flying career woman with an equally ambitious spouse, currently an independent bookshop owner trying to make a new start in life after quitting her job and getting a divorce. Initially burnt-out and unable to stop crying, slowly but surely Yeongju settles into the new slower and more deliberate pace of her life, reading voraciously and mulling what makes a great bookshop. As the shop begins to find its place, it attracts others who are at a crossroads in their life and looking to make changes, from the disillusioned barista, to the grumpy sales clerk to the quiet customer who comes in every day to knit in the cafe. Slowly but surely, these characters find the strength to take little steps forward and lean on each other in a world where the rat race can seem all-encompassing. If life is all feeling a bit much right now and you need some gentle reassurance that whatever you’re doing is A-OK, this is for you.
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
I’m usually an absolute wuss about all things horror, but I will always make an exception for Grady Hendrix novels because his ideas are so off-the-wall and the fear factor is offset by a dark sense of humour and real emotional depth. How to Sell a Haunted House is another fine example of this. It centres around Louise Joyner, a single mum who has just received the news that both of her parents have been killed in a sudden car accident. Having always been the responsible one, Louise now has to fly back home to take control and make arrangements lest her perpetually feckless brother Mark manage to screw things up. But death has an awful way of bringing people closer, especially when your childhood home is haunted by homicidal puppets. You see when Louise’s mother was alive, she was a prominent member of the Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers, spreading the gospel through puppet shows, and their family home is bursting with all of her various puppets, dolls and taxidermy projects. So basically the house was a horror show before anyone died. But now that her mother isn’t there to keep an eye on her most rambunctious and cursed creations, clearing out the house to sell it is definitely a two man job and the siblings must put aside their differences to finally put their family ghosts, both literal and figurative, to rest. While the premise is nuts and there are plenty of scares to satisfy the horror lovers, lurking just beneath the surface is a really quite touching story of healing from generational trauma. However, if you find puppets even remotely creepy and you want a good night’s sleep? This book is not for you.
Kindled Spirits 