Welcome to Litsy!

#LELH #LitsyEventsLittleHelper @LitsyEvents (thanks @dabbe for setting these tags)

This is one of the 3 challenge on Storygraph https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/f54808fc-dbba-416b-b817-cd601e4....

I came up with Long Reads Workout 2026 to read books that are long and intimidating but I still want to try and read them. If you're interested tag me, @AnishaInkspill, or let me know if you want to be added to #3BookChallenge2026.

I started 2025 with Emily Wilson's translation of The Iliad and it just felt right to close it out with her take on The Odyssey. Sparse and precise, I love her considered choice to render the story in iambic pentameter for a modern, English-speaking audience. Her work has its fair share of detractors (rooted primarily in misogyny, let's be so for real), but I love it. New interpretations get an emphatic YES from me, and I really enjoyed this one.

Disappointed, because this is the last of my "Ten Before the End" reads but it's almost six hundred pages, I'm sketchy on several points from the last book, there's a "breath I hadn't known I was holding" on *page**one*, and a candidate for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award on page 16. I just can't for another 560 pages so am bailing at page 16. It probably gets better. (I'm perversely curious to see whether it can get worse, but not curious enough rn)

Bookclub pick that has long been on my TBR. ✅

Eminently readable translation, which is the true heroic feat of this epic.

#StorySpins #2026reads

@AllDebooks thanks for setting this up. This is a perfect challenge for me, I got into reading mythology by accident, it all started to see if I could read The Iliad. It was tough but I also enjoyed the challenge of reading it and was amazed by how entertaining a story that was around millennia ago could be entertaining. So, I'm looking forward to this challenge and seeing what everyone else is reading. ⬇️

It's hard to review a work with an oral tradition like The Iliad - an ancient epic poem that was once the domain of rhapsodes. My modern sensibilities considered it a slog at times, but the rage of Achilles & the ransom of Hektor still rang true after thousands of years. The glossary was very welcome & helpful with more opaque or contradictory passages, in addition to providing a good reference. It is the first epic, and it still feels that way.

It still needs a thumb and a good blocking, but the right-hand mitten is mostly done!

I‘m 75% through IN THE RUINS, too. This series is so stressful, due in large part to the characters who use their religion as an excuse to treat people abominably, but so good! I‘m excited to finally finish it after years of searching for this penultimate volume, which nobody gives away and the publisher only sells as an overpriced ebook. #audioknitting

👀

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️the original hero‘s journey. I loved the beautiful language and seeing what lengths we go through to get back to home and those we love. Always loved mythology and nice to read the origin story.

The Harivamsha - the addendum to the Mahabharata! Finished it today. And after almost 4 years of consistent reading - this brings me to the close of the reading of the BORI Critical Edition of the Mahabharata!! What a massive series and I am so proud of myself. More important, I can‘t wait to re-read this series again, for more inspired learning! 💖