The Bookworm's Feast

Hello! I’ve teamed up with LadetteM, BombadilsBookishThings, AbiOfPellinor, and StuffCelineDoes and we’ve created Total Bollix Bookclub!!

bollix [verb]

clutter, mishmash, to throw into disorder

Each month one of us will host a live discussion on YouTube, where we each bring at least one recommendation based on the months prompt. We’ll also often have a guest join us with their recommendations too!

You can find our schedule / tracker here 👈

This Months Details

Reading Prompt: Bring Down the Patriarchy
Any feminist read, or book featuring female empowerment.

Discussion Date: Sunday 26th March, 7pm BST

Channel: Hannah @LadetteM 👈

Guest: Lianne @LiteraryDiversions

---

My Choice

There’s just one week to go until the live, and I’ve chosen to read Pandora’s Jar by Natalie Haynes.

Celine, one of my fellow co-hosts, gifted it to me in a giveaway – either last year or the year before. It’s about time I got around to it! And I have been so excited to read it (I’m just drowning in my tbr 😅)

Synopsis:

The Greek myths are one of the most important cultural foundation-stones of the modern world.

Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Virgil to from Aeschylus to Sophocles and Euripides. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories.

Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist redresses this imbalance. Taking Greek creation myths as her starting point and then retelling the four great mythic sagas: the Trojan War, the Royal House of Thebes, Jason and the Argonauts, Heracles, she puts the female characters on equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds and misdeeds – of Hera, Aphrodite, Athene and Circe. And away from the goddesses of Mount Olympus it is Helen, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Antigone and Medea who sing from these pages, not Paris, Agamemnon, Orestes or Jason.

---

What book would you have picked?

---

And if you’d like to catch up on our previous lives, you can watch them here 👈

Previous themes are:

• Feb – middle grades, hosted by me
• Jan – quick reads, hosted by Abi