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Lead book review

If you ever wanted a Homeric jump-start, this is your book

A review of The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters, by Adam Nicolson. A primer, a travel book, an exorcism and meditation and a séance

17 May 2014

9:00 AM

17 May 2014

9:00 AM

The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters Adam Nicolson

William Collins, pp.314, £25, ISBN: 9780007335527

As a teenager, like many of his class and generation, Adam Nicolson encountered Homer in Greek lessons. The subject matter seemed remote and uninteresting — ‘like someone else’s lunchtime account of a dream from the night before’ — and the words dead on the page — ‘as if the poems were written in maths’.

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