the lost books...

... of the odyssey by zachary mason. one of the most insightful books i've read about the odyssey and the iliad in a long time, even though it's not about the poems, rather a series of shorts fictional variations upon sections of the homeric poem and events in the margins. it reminds us - well, it reminds me at any rate - among many other things, that the canonical versions of the stories of odysseus, indeed the canonical version of pretty much all the characters in greek myths, are merely the winners in a long game of tales waring against one another for dominance. 

actually i think it's the most insightful book about storytelling that i've read for a long time. parts of it excited me in the precisely same way that i was excited by roberto calasso's the marriage of cadmus and harmony and tmoc&h is a masterpiece.