Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined: 1 (Stephen Fry's Greek Myths) Hardcover – 27 Aug. 2019

Stephen Fry takes you on a journey through the myths and legends of the Greek Gods and Goddesses; their ancestors, their offspring and a few humans. He does so in a style of his own that is easy to read and, as you would expect, humorous. If you love to read tales of ancient Greeks you will love this book.

Book on greek mythology

I was a little intimidated by the concept of learning about Greek Mythology, but Stephen Fry's book assured me I didn't need to know anything prior before starting to read this, so I gave it a go. I'm glad I did - I felt like I've learned a hell of a lot about Greek Mythology. Fry does a good job at explaining and giving context where necessary. It's also super interesting to learn about the origins of many of our societal concepts and language that were directly pulled from Greek Mythology. It also ties in well to a couple of other books I've read which are strongly influenced by Greek culture, so it's nice to have more context and insight to better understand those stories.That being said it is still a hard read - Greek Mythology is insanely complex. The relationships/marriages/families are impossible to keep track of, and a lot of the names I found were hard to differentiate to my anglicised mind. In hindsight I think reading this book cover to cover wasn't necessarily the best way to consume it, as by the end I felt I had a bit of reading fatigue, so I think this would be better consumed as a dip in-dip out kind of book.

Another stunning book, written and wrote by Stephen Fry.Each story was so captivating, that it was hard not to just read to whole thing in one go.

I just picked this up out of curriosity as was not the biggest fan of Mr Fry. I read it, then I read Heroes then I read Troy.Thoroughly enjoyed all three. I studdied classics and greek literature many years ago so a lot of this was vaguely familiar.A good re-telling of the greek myths with a 21st Century perspective.

There seems to be a lot of fervour around this series and especially this book so I picked it up after a recent trip to Athens. I found the writing to be a bit awkward to get into because it is neither wholly telling the story or discussing the context within which the stories were told, but instead opts to blend the two. Therefore, if you are expecting to pick this up primarily as a retelling of the Greek Myths you may struggle with it.The actual content is interesting and reasonably well written, but the stories often focus on one key aspect and gloss over other parts so it ends up carefully describing the beauty of a character, then when they meet their end it says something along the lines of "Zeus struck him down with a lightning bolt" or similar, which feels unceremonious which is a stylistic choice but didn't quite sit right with me.It's probably worth a read but anecdotally a couple of my friends have had to stop partway through the second book because they found it to be rather dull so your mileage may vary but I wasn't a huge fan.

An entertaining and interesting book about ancient Greek mythology written in a style that is recognisable as Stephen Fry (if you've ever watched him on QI). Originally, I had been looking for a book on ancient Greek mythology that was written in a modern way and would be both easy to understand and fluid and I think this book fulfilled those criteria. I had read books on Ulysses (Odysseus I think he's also known as), Theseus, Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts and Perseus as well as seeing a few films about said characters (although they are not really covered in this book because as Fry mentions you would need several books to tell their stories) and so wanted to find a book that tells other myths such as the creation of the Greek Gods, the Titans and some of the less well known characters in Greek myth such as Prometheus, Sisyphus, Persephone, but because I am not a classics scholar I didn't really feel that I would particularly enjoy reading translated ancient texts so this book was just about right and ideal for what I wanted.Fry does use some complicated words (although he'd probably recommend I use a dictionary) but I still found this to be, on the whole, easily understandable, a great read and it ticked all the boxes for what I was looking for. Fry's writing style is (as I'd imagine the man himself to be) charming, intelligent and informative with a sense of wit and of course there are plenty of footnotes as he adds extra bits of information as he tells the stories. Also, he does add a sources section at the end of the book for those who wish to delve further which I think is an excellent idea.I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest about ancient Greek mythology (although not sure if it's ideal for children), especially if you want to learn about the Greek Gods, the Titans and the many myths and stories associated with them but rather than using this as a definitive guide it should be seen as an entry point to a fascinating subject.