Canongate's The Myths Series by Alexander McCall Smith, Natsuo Kirino, Rebecca Copeland, Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Michel Faber, Philip Pullman, Karen Armstrong, Su Tong, Howard Goldblatt, A.S. Byatt, Dubravka Ugrešić, Laural Merlington, David Grossman, Victor Pelevin, Ali Smith, Klas Östergren, Milton Hatoum, Salley Vickers, Alai

3.53 · 243 ratings
  • A Short History of Myth (Canongate's The Myths #1)
    #1

    A Short History of Myth (Canongate's The Myths #1)

    Karen Armstrong

    · 18 ratings · published 2005

    This brilliant, readable synthesis of the history of mythology and the function it serves to humanity is the launch title of the groundbreaking publishing event, The Myths . “Human beings have always been mythmakers.” So begins Karen Armstrong’s concise yet compelling investigation into myth: what it is, how it has evolved, and why we still so desperately need it... more

  • The Penelopiad (Canongate's The Myths #2)
    #2

    The Penelopiad (Canongate's The Myths #2)

    Margaret Atwood, Laural Merlington

    · 32 ratings · published 2005

    Now that all the others have run out of air, it's my turn to do a little story-making.In Homer's account in The Odyssey, Penelope—wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy—is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages... more

  • The Penelopiad: The Play (Canongate's The Myths #2.5)
    #2.5

    The Penelopiad: The Play (Canongate's The Myths #2.5)

    Margaret Atwood

    · 6 ratings · published 2007

    As portrayed in Homer's 'Odyssey', Penelope - wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy - has become a symbol of wifely duty and devotion, enduring twenty years of waiting when her husband goes to fight in the Trojan War. As she fends off the attentions of a hundred greedy suitors, travelling minstrels regale her with news of Odysseus' epic adventures around the Mediterranean - slaying monsters and grappling with amorous goddesses... more

  • Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles (Canongate's The Myths #3)
    #3

    Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles (Canongate's The Myths #3)

    Jeanette Winterson

    · 18 ratings · published 2005

    “When I was asked to choose a myth to write about, I realized I had chosen already. The story of Atlas holding up the world was in my mind before the telephone call had ended. If the call had not come, perhaps I would never have written the story, but when the call did come, that story was waiting to be written. Rewritten. The recurring language motif of Weight is ‘I want to tell the story again.’ My work is full of cover versions... more

  • The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur (Canongate's The Myths #4)
    #4

    The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur (Canongate's The Myths #4)

    Victor Pelevin

    · 16 ratings · published 2005

    Victor Pelevin, the iconoclastic and wildly interesting contemporary Russian novelist who The New Yorker named one of the Best European Writers Under 35, upends any conventional notions of what mythology must be with his unique take on the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. By creating a mesmerizing world where the surreal and the hyperreal collide, The Helmet of Horror is a radical retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur set in an Internet chat room... more

  • A Short History of Myth / The Penelopiad / Weight / Dream Angus (Canongate's The Myths #1-4)
    #1-4

    A Short History of Myth / The Penelopiad / Weight / Dream Angus (Canongate's The Myths #1-4)

    Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Alexander McCall Smith

    · 1 ratings · published 2006

    An exquisitely designed box set of the hardcover editions of A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong; The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood; Dream Angus by Alexander McCall Smith, Weight by Jeanette Winterson, as well as a four-page, beautifully designed insert of an essay by Philip Pullman, "A Word or Two About Myths,{" available only within the box set.

  • Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson (Canongate's The Myths #5)
    #5

    Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson (Canongate's The Myths #5)

    David Grossman

    · 10 ratings · published 2005

    Israel’s most lauded contemporary writer retells the myth of Samson, one of the most tempestuous, charismatic, and colorful characters in the Hebrew Bible... more

  • Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams (Canongate's The Myths #6)
    #6

    Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams (Canongate's The Myths #6)

    Alexander McCall Smith

    · 14 ratings · published 2006

    Part of a series of books containing myths as retold by first-rank contemporary authors, this is Alexander McCall Smith's telling of the Celtic myth of Dream Angus, a god of love, youth, beauty, and also the bringer of dreams. He is cherished by all, but fated to love only Caér, the swan maiden from his own dreams. Smith spins five charming stories of Dream Angus with five tales of his modern alter egos.

  • Girl Meets Boy (Canongate's The Myths #8)
    #8

    Girl Meets Boy (Canongate's The Myths #8)

    Ali Smith

    · 18 ratings · published 2007

    Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances?Ali Smith's re-mix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold.It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations.Funny and fresh, poetic and political, Girl Meets Boy is a myth of metamorphosis for the modern world.

  • Binu and the Great Wall (Canongate's The Myths #9)
    #9

    Binu and the Great Wall (Canongate's The Myths #9)

    Su Tong, Howard Goldblatt

    · 6 ratings · published 2006

    In Peach village, crying is forbidden, but as a child, Binu never learnt to hide her tears. Shunned by the villagers, she faced a bleak future, until she met Qiliang, an orphan who offered her his hand in marriage.

  • Where Three Roads Meet (Canongate's The Myths #10)
    #10

    Where Three Roads Meet (Canongate's The Myths #10)

    Salley Vickers

    · 8 ratings · published 2005

    At the end of his life, an old man waits in his office for a stranger to arrive. Over the next few weeks, Teiresias will visit again, making his way across the heath to relate the story of his life. As these two men sit together in front of a roaring fire, a remarkable tale unfolds.

  • Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Canongate's The Myths #11)
    #11

    Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (Canongate's The Myths #11)

    Dubravka Ugrešić

    · 14 ratings · published 2007

    "Baba Yaga is an old hag who lives in a house built on chicken legs and kidnaps small children. She is one of the most pervasive and powerful creatures in all mythology.""But what does she have to do with a writer's journey to Bulgaria in 2007 on behalf of her mother?""Or with a trio of women who decide in their old age to spend a week together at a hotel spa?"By the end of Dubravka Ugresic's novel, the answers are revealed... more

  • The Fire Gospel (Canongate's The Myths #12)
    #12

    The Fire Gospel (Canongate's The Myths #12)

    Michel Faber

    · 12 ratings · published 2006

    From The New York Times best-selling author of The Crimson Petal and the White, Michel Faber’s The Fire Gospel is a wickedly funny, acid-tongued, media-savvy picaresque that delves into our sensationalist culture. Theo Griepenkerl, a Canadian linguistics scholar, is sent to Iraq in search of artifacts that have survived the destruction and looting of the war... more

  • The Goddess Chronicle (Canongate's The Myths #13)
    #13

    The Goddess Chronicle (Canongate's The Myths #13)

    Natsuo Kirino, Rebecca Copeland

    · 14 ratings · published 2008

    From internationally bestselling crime writer Natsuo Kirino comes a mythical feminist noir about family secrets, broken loyalties, and the search from truth in a deceitful world.In a place like no other, on a mystical island in the shape of tear drop, two sisters are born into a family of oracles. Kamikuu is admired far and wide for her otherworldly beauty; small and headstrong Namima learns to live in her sister’s shadow... more

  • Orphans of Eldorado (Canongate's The Myths #14)
    #14

    Orphans of Eldorado (Canongate's The Myths #14)

    Milton Hatoum

    · 6 ratings · published 2008

    A magical retelling of the myth of Eldorado, the Enchanted City of the Amazon, by one of Brazil's most acclaimed writersThe setting for this magical fable is Eldorado, the enchanted city that inhabited the fevered dreams of European navigators and conquistadors, but eluded all attempts to find it on the map. Some have linked it to Manaus in the Amazon Basin, and it is here that Arminto Cordovil lives with his father Amando in a white mansion... more

  • The Hurricane Party (Canongate's The Myths #15)
    #15

    The Hurricane Party (Canongate's The Myths #15)

    Klas Östergren

    · 6 ratings · published 2007

    Hanck Orn’s son is dead. When they come to the door they tell him it was a heart attack, but he knows they are lying. So he travels to the archipelago at the outermost reaches of the land to find out what really happened. He lands on an island and is met by a young woman, hair streaked with blood, raving like a lunatic. She is one of the sisters, who tell him the story of how his son died in the great hall of the Clan, the Norse gods, who were holding a party... more

  • The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Canongate's The Myths #16)
    #16

    The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Canongate's The Myths #16)

    Philip Pullman

    · 24 ratings · published 2009

    This is the story of two brothers. One is impassioned and one reserved. One is destined to go down in history and the other to be forgotten.In Philip Pullman's heands, this sacred tale is reborn as one of the most enchanting, thrilling and visionary stories of recent years.

  • Ragnarok (Canongate's The Myths #17)
    #17

    Ragnarok (Canongate's The Myths #17)

    A.S. Byatt

    · 18 ratings · published 2011

    Recently evacuated to the British countryside and with World War Two raging around her, one young girl is struggling to make sense of her life. Then she is given a book of ancient Norse legends and her inner and outer worlds are transformed. Intensely autobigraphical and linguistically stunning, this book is a landmark work of fiction from one of Britain's truly great writers. Intensely timely it is a book about how stories can give us the courage to face our own demise... more

  • The Song of King Gesar (Canongate's The Myths #18)
    #18

    The Song of King Gesar (Canongate's The Myths #18)

    Alai

    · 2 ratings · published 2013

    The first English translation of Tibet's founding myth, written by the renowned Chinese poet, novelist, and winner of China's Mao Dun Prize.The Song of King Gesar is one of the world's great epics, as significant for Tibetans as the Odyssey and Iliad were for the ancient Greeks. Passed down in song from one generation to the next, it is sung by Tibetan bards even today... more

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