Cassie McCullagh

Her dad is Helios.

Her mum is a Nyad called Perseus.

And on it goes through her life and her encounters with the traveller Odysseus, as well as many other gods and some pretty astonishing monsters on the way.

But this is exactly what I was drawn to in the Greek myths as a kid, you know, like the ideas of having these gods that behaved absolutely terribly.

It was fantastic.

Now with Circe in my schoolgirl mythology that I remember, she had this kind of strange sexual power over men and Odysseus was going to fall captive to her and

Does this figure in this story, is this part of what Madeline Miller has done with this book?

You brought the original Homer.

I have.

Let's hear some.

First to you, Maria.

Yeah.

And we've also just seen Mary Beard, the British archaeologist and thinker, writing about the public voice of women being silenced from classical times and very clearly picking out these moments where women's mouths were closed, literally.

On the bookshelf on RN, we're talking with Tamara Neal and Maria Takalanda.

And before we let you two go, we want to know what is on your TBR list to be read.

Tamara?

By George Saunders.

Yeah, one of the big hits of the last two years.

What about you, Maria Takalanda?

It is terrifying.