Odyssey

Troy has fallen after ten years of war, and Odysseus wants one thing: to get back to Ithaca, to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Poseidon has a grievance against him, though, and the sea god sentences him to roam for ten more years.

The voyage is a run of monsters, storms and temptations. Odysseus meets the Cyclops Polyphemus, the sorceress Circe and the nymph Calypso, each of whom holds him back from the way home.

On Ithaca, meanwhile, suitors have crowded into his palace. Penelope and Telemachus wait for a man who may not return, and the question of whether he will arrive in time hangs over the whole book.

This retelling of Homer's epic is told in Stephen Fry's own voice, with humour and warmth and close attention to the human side of both gods and mortals. It is the fourth and last volume of his Greek myths series, after Mythos, Heroes and Troy, and it works for newcomers to the tale and for those who already know it closely.