100 Best Ancient Greece Books of All Time

Ted TurnerWhen I got to college, I was a classics major, and that was mainly the study of Greek - and to a lesser extent Roman - history and culture, and that fascinated me: the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid by Virgil. (Source)

Max PorterI still have an image of Odysseus in my head from when I was a child – he’s very Anglo-Saxon and stubbly, a bit like Michael Fassbender (Source)

Janine di GiovanniThe thing I loved about Ulysses was that he’s so in love with adventure and with love. (Source)

Ted TurnerWhen I got to college, I was a classics major, and that was mainly the study of Greek - and to a lesser extent Roman - history and culture, and that fascinated me: the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid by Virgil. (Source)

John GittingsHomer, like Shakespeare, encompassed all humanity in his work, and in The Iliad he encompasses peace as well as war. (Source)

Kate McLoughlinA lot of people who had public school educations, classical educations, might have gone into the First World War thinking that they were fighting Homer’s war. (Source)

Daniel MendelsohnI don’t want to know what Achilles did in bed, frankly. If you want to play with the big boys, fine, but don’t turn The Iliad into a Twilight novel. (Source)

Lucy CoatsI loved the richness of the language, the descriptions. She really made me feel I was in ancient Greece — the smells, the whole environment. (Source)

Maria PopovaTim Ferriss: "If you could guarantee that every public official or leader read one book, what would it be?": "The book would be, rather obviously, Plato's The Republic. I'm actually gobsmacked that this isn't required in order to be sworn into office, like the Constitution is required for us American immigrants when it comes time to gain American citizenship." (Source)

Rebecca GoldsteinLiving today in Trump’s America, I am constantly reminded of specific passages in the Republic, most saliently his warnings of how a demagogue might arise in the midst of a democracy by fanning up resentments and fears. (Source)

David Heinemeier HanssonI’m about a third through this and still can’t tell whether Plato is making a mockery of Socrates ideas for the idyllic society or not. So many of the arguments presented as Socrates’ are so tortured and with so disconnected leaps of logic that it’s hard to take it at face value. Yet still, it’s good fun to follow the dialogue. It reads more like a play than a book, and again, immensely... (Source)

Ryan HolidayThis book – of a long forgotten war – really functions as a biography and strategic analysis of some of the greatest minds in the history of war. We have Pericles, Brasidas, Alcibiades and many others. The anecdotes and the stories in this book are timeless. If you make your way all the way through it, I promise you will not forget it. Because the war was so long, involved so many different... (Source)

Steven PressfieldIt is loaded with hardcore, timeless truths and the story it tells ought to be required reading for every citizen in a democracy. (Source)

Ron ConwayThe story of the battle of 300 Spartan soldiers against the Persian army. (Source)

Chris FussellA classic in the special operations community. (Source)

Zach Even EshFrom @SPressfield . I love this excerpt from his book. . It reminds me of many things and people... . people who tell you how to grow your gym yet they have never owned a gym a day in their life. . People who… https://t.co/73UaLfH55K (Source)

Jacqui PrettyWhen it comes to fiction, there are so many to choose from! Some books I've loved in the past year include Circe by Madeline Miller. (Source)

Jason KottkeAnother contemporary reinterpretation of Greek mythology from the perspective of a woman. I’m 3/4s of the way through Circe right now and I might like it even more than The Odyssey. (Source)

Richard BransonOne example of a book that has helped me to #ReadToLead this year is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. While the book came out a few years ago now, I got around to it this year, and am very glad I did. I’ve always been fascinated in what makes humans human, and how people are constantly evolving, changing and growing. The genius of Sapiens is that it takes some daunting,... (Source)

Reid HoffmanA grand theory of humanity. (Source)

Barack Obamaeval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'theceolibrary_com-leader-2','ezslot_7',164,'0','1'])); Fact or fiction, the president knows that reading keeps the mind sharp. He also delved into these non-fiction reads. (Source)

Simon KuestenmacherAmazing series of symbol visualises Greek mythology. I just finished @stephenfry's amazing book Mythos and could remember more characters than expected. Icon source: https://t.co/xd2ZbgqUca The book: https://t.co/svtMJRmEiF #Greece #mythology #history #booklovers https://t.co/opZxytQDCU (Source)

Bryan Callen[Bryan Callen recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Edward SkidelskyPlato is the founding figure in the Western philosophical tradition and the Symposium is one of his most charming books – you can read it like a novel. (Source)

Alan KayA few more books like this, and by the time I got to first grade I had been ruined for the 'single book - single truth' ideas of school and church. (Source)

Robert ServiceIt was the trauma of Thucydides’ lifetime and in the book he sought to explain why the war had gone on so long and why Athens lost it. (Source)

Joseph Nyewhen Thucydides is trying to account for the Peloponnesian War, an extraordinary war in the fifth century BC in which the Greek city-state system tore itself apart, he says the basic cause of the war was the rise in power of Athens and the fear that created in Sparta. He points out that when there is this kind of fear, and there is a belief that war is inevitable, it can itself become a cause of... (Source)

Gideon RoseThucydides is the single best treatment of international relations, foreign policy and military affairs that exists. It is the best description of what life in a multipolar world is like, what politics and war are like for the units involved, of the basic realities of international relations. It has no single line. (Source)

Olly Murphy (Wycombe Abbey)This book allows you to realise that one of the key issues with the classics—one of the things that we’re always fighting against—is the lack of information we have about women. (Source)

Lucy CoatsAs far as I know, every single myth and every single variation, every single little nugget of Greek myth that isn’t necessarily even complete, is in there. (Source)

Mehdi KajbafIt’s difficult for me to separate all the different things I was reading and learning about at that time but I think Socrates Apology is probably the best place to focus. If you aren’t familiar with Socrates, he’s considered by most to be the father of Philosophy (which means love of wisdom). He annoyed a lot of people though because he constantly challenged their world views and encouraged them... (Source)

Ryan HolidayAristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics was something I reread and cannot recommend highly enough. (Source)

A C GraylingHe said the great question is how we should live well, so that we live a good life, and he came up with a very positive response – what distinguishes us from the rest of the world is our possession of reason (Source)

Christian B MillerAccording to Aristotle, it is hard to become virtuous, and hard to become vicious too. The character of most people is somewhere in the middle. (Source)

Arianna HuffingtonI find [this book] so inspirational and instructive, it lives on my nightstand. (Source)

Chip ConleyI have given [this book] away to a number of people. (Source)

Marvin LiaoMy list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make... (Source)

Emily WilsonI really love the Penelopiad. It’s wonderful at bringing out some of what I already hinted was important in my work of a translator: teasing out the multiple perspectives, multiple voices, in this poem. I also love how it juxtaposes different styles and different voices. It has both ballad-like verse and prose intermixed, which is not what the Odyssey does, but I think it speaks to something... (Source)

Lydia RufflesFragments (Source)

Bettany HughesThis is a collection of fragments of Sappho’s poems. They are so beautiful, I would recommend them to anyone. (Source)

Bill LiaoThe Book "Made to Stick" combined with "The Poetics" by Aristotle really helped me to see the power of telling great stories with surprises in them and every time I meet a start-up I can always make a contribution to their pitch. (Source)

Richard WalterAristotle’s Poetics is the user’s guide to dramatic narrative and dramatic structure. It’s just a ragged little pamphlet really. (Source)

Hugh BowdenMary Renault really knew her sources. She really understands the material. She has another particular interest and that’s in homosexuality. So, both in Fire from Heaven and in the second volume The Persian Boy, there’s quite a lot of focus on Alexander and male lovers. (Source)

Hugh BowdenArrian is using Alexander as a model for how to be a king and setting up his bad points as things to avoid and his good points as things to follow. (Source)

Mark ZuckerbergOh, it’s not a favorite book or anything like that, I just added it because I liked it. I don’t think there’s any real significance to the fact that it’s listed there and other books aren’t. But there are definitely books—like the Aeneid—that I enjoyed reading a lot more. (Source)

Ryan HolidayI made an effort to read some classical poets and playwrights this year. The Aneiad was far and away the most quotable, readable and memorable of all of them. There’s no other way to put: the story is AMAZING. Better than the Odyssey, better than Juvenal’s Satires. Inspiring, beautiful, exciting, and eminently readable, I loved this. I took more notes on it that I have on anything I’ve read in a... (Source)

Ted TurnerWhen I got to college, I was a classics major, and that was mainly the study of Greek - and to a lesser extent Roman - history and culture, and that fascinated me: the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid by Virgil. (Source)

Johanna HaninkHe goes through to the end of the Peloponnesian War and becomes the major source that we have for what happened in Athens during the rise and the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. He then goes on into this very interesting period, in the first part of the 4th century, when Athens has some aspirations to regain the Aegean empire that it had. (Source)

David GreenbergPlato and Socrates heavily disapproved of spin (or rhetoric, as it was referred to back then). Aristotle and the Sophists had a different point of view. (Source)

Timothy FerrissThis is a letter from Stoic heavyweight Seneca the Younger — who lived a mere 2,000 years or so ago — to his friend Lucilius. It’s from a collection of letters that comprise, effectively, my favorite book of all time. I’ve read it dozens of times, and I loved it so much that I turned it into The Tao of Seneca, a three-volume set of audiobooks. (Source)

Ryan HolidayAfter Marcus Aurelius, this is one of my favorite books. While Marcus wrote mainly for himself, Seneca had no trouble advising and aiding others. In fact, that was his job—he was Nero’s tutor, tasked with reducing the terrible impulses of a terrible man. His advice on grief, on wealth, on power, on religion, and on life are always there when you need them. (Source)

Oliver BurkemanIt’s important to stress that I take a completely mercenary attitude towards Stoicism, picking and choosing the bits that seem to me to be useful techniques for the present day. There are aspects of Stoicism that are very hard to stomach today. For example, the underlying principle that the universe as a whole is in some sense God, with a will or agency of its own, and that rational behaviour... (Source)

Paul McMullenIt is a comedy and quite vulgar, which I love. (Source)

M M McCabeIf you read The Clouds and the Apology side by side you get a snapshot of Athens at the end of the Fifth Century (Source)

Charlotte HigginsWell, she was admired in antiquity for the delicacy and elegance of her verse, and this is quite right – it’s just pitch-perfect. She talks about love as being bittersweet – such a cliché but she was almost certainly the first person to coin this expression that everyone can understand…..In classical antiquity and later she was massively valued as a poet. In the Great Library in Alexandria there... (Source)

Ryan HolidayWhile most of the other practical philosophy recommendations I’m making are bent towards hard, practical advice, Heraclitus might seem a bit poetic. But those beautiful lines are really the same direct advice and timeless, perspective-changing observations as the others. “Try in vain with empty talk / to separate the essences of things / and say how each thing truly is.” “Applicants for wisdom /... (Source)

Jeffrey BenekerPlutarch would argue that what you’re doing in your private life will predict what’s going to happen if we put you in charge of public life. If you can’t run the small economy of your household in a competent way, why would we put you in charge of the city’s economy? It’s that way of thinking. (Source)

Ann Miurako@jamescham @yangszechoo Already read it! Fantastic book and highly recommend (Source)

Geoffrey Miller'Bronze Age Mindset' by @bronzeagemantisis is a fascinating & entertaining book on many levels. Required reading if want to understand Gen Z's politics. Here's a good review by Michael Anton: https://t.co/ofSY0dOdYX And a good reply by the author: https://t.co/IMWWYQYpE8 https://t.co/Fjl98rGxb3 (Source)