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Why Homer Matters Hardcover – November 18, 2014

by Adam Nicolson (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 77 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (November 18, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1627791795
  • ISBN-13: 978-1627791793
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.2 x 9.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #216,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsNicolson reads like an improved version of Robert Graves
By Erik Peterson on December 17, 2014
Format: Hardcover
`Why Homer Matters' is a powerful book.

It is impolite, manly, cosmic, wild, enormous.

It is a three part dance of ancestral memory, the present moment, and the spoken word.

For those of you who aspire to some form of artistic greatness, in the manner of your Proto-Indo European ancestors collectively known as Homer - to become `the weaver of words' (the weaver of worlds), to master the elements - of creativity, poetic truth, and word magic - you really need to hear what Mr. Nicolson has to say about these matters in this book - if you dare.

Nicolson reads like an improved version of Robert Graves - less arcane, less eccentric, less egotistical, more credible, clearer in meaning, and with the benefit of more years of accumulated archeological and historical insight.

In other words, you are released from the need to keep fumbling through `The White Goddess' for inspiration. What you have been looking for in vain in those pages is all right here instead. Written with clarity. Lucidity. Intelligibility, and...

Magical Prowess.

Here is one excerpt from the book, having to do with Ocean, which should alleviate any doubts you may have about whether this work is meant for you:

`It is an experience all deep sea sailors will have had. You are out in a storm, the boat rolls and pitches, thirty degrees one way and then the other, the sea coming at you in a pattern you wish would end, the battering and shrieking of the wind unstoppable in your ear. Every surface is broken. The winds cannot leave the sea alone. What has already been plowed and folded is plowed and folded again. No structure in the sea remains whole.Read more ›
3 Comments 84 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn Extraordinary Exploration
By Christopher Rowe on November 21, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
This fine book navigates between scholarly erudition and a personal encounter with the epics the way dapple-talented Odysseus made his way between Scylla and Charybdis—with undeniable success, but not without casualties. Nicolson's careful but confidently asserted claims about the dating and compositional history of the poems may spark debate among some readers, but they are ultimately not the point of this eloquent, tutelary invitation to Homer. The author's project is that of his subject, not to provide answers, but to "dramatize their reality." Recommended with enthusiasm.
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3.0 out of 5 starsA reall good book--- up to a point
By Foster J. Dickson on July 11, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
If I had stopped reading "Why Homer Matters" after the first seven chapters, I would have given it five stars. The writing is excellent, the description and exposition are vivid, the subject matter is compelling, the details are solid, the conclusions are interesting. But two things happened in chapter eight: first, I began to feel like Nicolson's tangents and digressions were going way to far off course, even getting off topic -- andthat continued into chapters nine and beyond – and he also included this weird out-of-nowhere story where he got raped by a guy he thought was leading him back to his hotel. I was already getting disgruntled with the tangents, but after the rape story, he lost me. Trying to read subsequent chapters, I felt distracted by that disturbing turn and wondered how much longer he would ramble about the side-topics. In short, he lost me in the chapter eight. I did finish the book, and overall did enjoy Nicolson's style and content. But that shift in the middle pushed me quickly from a five-star review to a three-star review.
2 Comments 39 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsMyThanks to Sarah Ruden reviewer of Why Homer Matters, The National Review. “First, everybody read this book” Her words.,
By Terry Stanfill on December 25, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Never would I have imagined myself reading about Homer and his " wine dark", " unharvestable sea " while in Phuket, Thailand, sitting under a palm tree gazing over a lacquered Andaman Sea. During my biannual visits here, I usually immerse myself in “spirit of place” stories recounting island adventures such as those of Paul Gauguin or Captain Cook. But after reading Sarah Ruden’s review of Adam Nicolson's Why Homer Matters, I heeded her urging .“ First, everybody read this book" --- and so downloaded Why Homer Matters. Before long I had surrendered to the spell of the book and found myself mesmerized as I turned its digital pages on my IPad.

After a while, I began to wonder why the book seemed so compelling and then suddenly, with a vivid clarity, I knew the answer. Ten years ago tomorrow, on Boxing Day, December 26, 2004 , this seemingly benign Andaman sea turned wild and roiling as the now infamous tsunami swept away everything on this shore, almost taking away the life of my son, who was on his way to go fishing. The usually benign sea he loved, and thought he knew, had turned, on that day, into a monster which might have “soak’d his heart through.” On this Christmas day 2014, Why Homer Matters is the perfect present to welcome my son home from a five day fishing expedition on the same sea which he both loves and yet rightly fears. He has read Homer --yet even if he had not —this book is so engagingly written, so captivating that I am sure he, like me, would sail from chapter to chapter.

As I reflect on it, perhaps it is not so strange to be reading about Odysseus and his voyage here, in Phuket. This is hardly Calypso's Island, but its exotic, languid, and hypnotic atmosphere is redolent of much that would have lured Odysseus.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

A superb book in every way. Must reading for humanities and liberal arts students.

Published 1 month ago by Frances Richardson
5.0 out of 5 starsWhy Homer Matters

"All men feast at the banquet of Homer." A true thought today, in this book, as the day Aeschylus first wrote the words. Thank you for an excellent presentation.

Published 2 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

A gem.

Published 2 months ago by C.
4.0 out of 5 starsThoughtful and engrossing.

This is a thoughtful and engrossing book. Having read it upon my return from a second visit to Mycenae and a tour of The Archaeological Museum in Athens, I want to go back to... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Robert Van Rensselaer
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat Fun to Read

A freshly thought through and passionate rediscovery of the Homer Epic poems, with plain and humourously-spoken, wide-ranging factual accounts and incidental intelligence to... Read more

Published 3 months ago by C. Simo Rosenblum
5.0 out of 5 starsIn love with this book!

One of the best books I have ever read on the subject. You can open it at random, read a few pages, and be immersed in the subject and the author's attention to detail. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Quesa
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Nice, well thought out theories...

Published 4 months ago by Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 starsGrumble

I am a huge fan of Homer, and of ancient Greek philosophy and culture, in general. I found the author's writing style to be dry, lumbering, nonvibrant. Read more

Published 6 months ago by ABCDEFG
5.0 out of 5 starsWow..... Homer is back in ...

Wow.....Homer is back in business.

Published 6 months ago by val coleman
5.0 out of 5 starsthe best book I have read in a very long time.

absorbing, well written, a new point of view, gathers all of Homer into one cultural age. I keep rereading it.

Published 6 months ago by colo

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