Thursday, September 10, 2020

Top ten goddesses in fiction

E. Foley and B. Coates are writers and editors based in London. They are the authors of the number-one bestseller, Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learnt at School and Promptly Forgot, as well as Advanced Homework for Grown-ups, The Homework for Grown-ups Quiz Book and Shakespeare for Grown-ups, and What Would Boudicca Do?: Life Lessons from History's Most Remarkable Women. Their latest book is You Goddess! Lessons in Being Legendary from Awesome Immortals.

At the Guardian, they tagged ten "brilliantly varied examples of how goddesses have been approached in fiction, sometimes revelling in the divine spotlight and sometimes in more background roles." One title on their list:
Circe by Madeline Miller

This magnificent story of the famous witch goddess from Homer’s Odyssey was shortlisted for the 2019 Women’s prize for fiction. It is both hugely enjoyable, showing the very male classical epic from a female point of view, and profoundly affecting in its depictions of the trials of immortality. This book is the closest you can get to experiencing what it might really be like to be a goddess, with all its benefits and sacrifices.
Read about another entry on the list.

Circe is among Jordan Ifueko's five fantasy titles driven by traumatic family bonds, Eleanor Porter's top ten books about witch-hunts, Emily B. Martin's six stunning fantasies for nature lovers, Allison Pataki's top six books that feature strong female voices, Pam Grossman's thirteen stories about strong women with magical powers, Kris Waldherr's nine top books inspired by mythology, Katharine Duckett's eight novels that reexamine literature from the margins, and Steph Posts' thirteen top novels set in the world of myth.

--Marshal Zeringue