The Iliad by Homer
It was quite shocking how much death there was in this book, but considering the time and place, life was short, hard and believing in gods would certainly help you understand your fate. Another thing to consider is that there was not water filtration, so to prevent being sick you would drink wine because it killed bacteria, so was safe to drink . . . a lot of it. In my mind the haze that would accompany that much alcohol would make for seeing gods and people doing things beyond human comprehension a lot more understandable.
This book spent a lot of time setting up the characters lineage, saying who’s the father of this person and where they come from only to have them all cut down in battle. Those sections I can’t really follow cause there are so many names that I would need a huge white board to draw them all out, but I forged on in that book and in the end came out feeling better about not living in those times.
I would not have read this book if it was not on Daria’s Reading List. Reading different books really does give you different perspectives, and I’m really getting a better appreciation for reading, but more importantly reading that might not be as easy to read or that I agree with completely. After I’ve completed the reading list I’m not sure how I’ll choose books from that point on. I’ve got some time to think about that though.