Book Recs

Author Picks

Great Books Inspired by the Classics

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Madeline Miller

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  1. . 
    N_f8c36ed07accb0e6e7df32f784cb70acgertrude

    Gertrude and Claudius

    By John Updike

    This brilliant prequel to Hamlet tells the story of Gertrude’s life before Shakespeare’s play: her marriage to the old King Hamlet, her mothering of young Hamlet, and her affair with Claudius. If you love the original, you’ll appreciate Updike’s pitch-perfect interaction with the characters and story, but if you don’t, you’ll still enjoy it for the vigorous language, psychological complexity, and stark visuals of life in early Denmark.

  2. . 
    March

    March

    By Geraldine Brooks

    This novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006, runs parallel to the narrative of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, but focuses instead on the girls’ absent father. Mr. March, a well-intentioned chaplain who has joined up on the Union side of the Civil War, finds his ideals brutally tested in the ugly combat and its aftermath. Brooks’ command of the historical material is outstanding as always, as is her insight into human frailty.

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    March
  3. . 
    N_52271ab695d533f8674346e543e7e3adodyssey

    The Lost Books of The Odyssey

    By Zachary Mason

    Mason wrote a series of witty and thought-provoking alternate adventures for the western world’s wiliest hero. In beautiful, riddling prose, Mason plays with Odysseus’ traditional travels and travails, while also imagining several new ones. My favorite is the final book, a virtuosic and gripping deconstruction of storytelling itself.

  4. . 
    Wide Sargasso Sea

    Wide Sargasso Sea

    By Jean Rhys

    Jean Rhys’ haunting prequel to Jane Eyre is centered around Antoinette, Mr. Rochester’s first wife, who eventually becomes Bertha, the infamous mad woman in the attic. Born in the Caribbean, Antoinette is pressed into marriage with Rochester, and slowly driven mad by loneliness and social constriction. Rhys’ handling of her story is deft, subversive, and deeply moving.

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    Wide Sargasso Sea
  5. . 
    Autobiography of Red

    Autobiography of Red

    By Anne Carson

    This gorgeous postmodern retelling of the Heracles and Geryon myth is inspired by fragments from the ancient poet Stesichorus, but the result is pure Carson: gorgeous, startling, unsettling. A beautiful story of love and growing up that stars a little red monster with wings.

About the Author

Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms. The Song of Achilles, her first novel, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a New York Times Bestseller. It has been translated into twenty-three languages including Dutch, Mandarin, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic and Greek. Madeline was also shortlisted for the 2012 Stonewall Writer of the Year, and her essays have appeared in a number of publications including the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Lapham’s Quarterly and NPR.org. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA, where she teaches and writes.

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