The Iliad

This is a great book for anybody who is interested in greek history/mythology. As a fan of greco-roman themes I have watched many movies about the Trojan war, so it was interesting to finally read what is the basis for those films. It was interesting to see how dramatically different the movies are from the source material. The book ends before the sacking of Troy but to get answers from Homer read "The Odyssey" as it gives a few answers to what happened to some of the characters. This is one of my favourite books!!

i had the immense pleasure of reading the iliad by homer and i loved every captivating minute of it! i've been fascinated with ancient history and i loved studying ancient greece in history class, so that added more enjoyment to the reading. an excellent addition to add to your library no matter what time of year it is! i hope you enjoy it as much as i did!!

hated this book. For one, I'm not overly interested in war stories or movies or whatnot. It isn't my cup of tea. For another, the language was difficult to follow. I found it funny that the real people attributed so much to the gods and goddesses... "Oh I lost that race because Aphrodite made me slip in the ox blood..." "Apollo saved me from your spear!" yada yada yada
I don't know what the title means, not being familiar with Latin I wonder if it's a different form of Ilios or something? I wish it was called "All About Achilles" or even "How the Trojan War was Won" or even "Trojans gone wild!"
I could have done without the descriptions of all the different ways that people were killed. It's a war, and people die, I get it, however I don't need to read how their eyes fell out when they were it with a rock (anatomically impossible, their being attached to optical nerves. They would just dangle)
I was disappointed, because I thought there would be more of those traditional stories you hear about, like how Achilles was dipped in the Styx, or how awesome Helen was to make so many people fight over her or something. Nope, just straight up battles and funeral games and stuff.

There is nothing that compares to the artistic delivery of such a respected author. Homer paints the story with such passion and power that includes the reader as either a Trojan Warrior or a Greek Soldier! Excellent!