Quote:
Originally Posted by ficbot
So, anybody want to suggest a chronological bible? :-)
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Well, I don't know about chronological, but I have to say that the
Brick Testament is the most awesome way to experience the Bible.
And if you're interested in how the story of Genesis holds up to scientific knowledge circa the 70s or so, Isaac Asimov's
In the Beginning, a line-by-line annotated version of that part of the Bible with commentary and explanation, is available DRM-free MultiFormat via Fictionwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ficbot
I have so little knowledge (beyond an abstract idea at perhaps the Wikipedia level) that I don't really know where to start with those. Maybe with Homer? I think I find the essay format more dull than a play or poem or novel.
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Best way to experience the Iliad is in Eric Shanower's excellent graphic novel series
Age of Bronze. But he's just barely into the story because it takes a long time to draw. However, it gives you great background on the backstories of some of the major characters such as Achilles and Paris.
For prose/poetry versions, I highly recommend British classicist Peter Jones'
Classics in Translation if your library has a copy. It's a very good set of humorous mini-essays about the major Greek and Roman philosophers, poets, and writers, what they contributed and why you might want to read it, and evaluates the various commonly-available decent-quality translations on accuracy and readability, with excerpted samples from each so that you can get a feel for which version might suit you best.
Jones is also one of the co-writers for the official Cambridge University course textbooks for learning Latin and wrote some very readable background-accompaniment books:
The World of Rome,
The World of Athens, and
The Intelligent Person's Guide to the Classics (really more a "what have we learned from the ancients" rather than a "try reading these").
There are also plenty of fictional retellings of the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, etc. that you might like to try if there's an author whose reputation you're familiar with who's done one. Ursula K. Le Guin and Marion Zimmer Bradley and Margaret Atwood (I think) have all done versions that focus on a subset of the characters, while a few authors have tried tackling the whole.