The Song of Troy

Never one to shy away from a good saga, Colleen McCullough (The Thorn Birds) tackles the Trojan War in The Song of Troy, a retelling modern in idiom but faithful to the original where it counts. Narrated by several of the key participants (Achilles, Agamemnon, Helen, etc.), it follows the war from the beginning, when Helen leaves her husband, Priam, for Paris of Troy, to the end, when Odysseus uses the wooden horse to sneak his soldiers into the city. Not aimed at classics scholars, this is a laudable interpretation of the epic, rendered with both sweep and intimacy.