Reading Zachary Mason's forthcoming The Lost Books of the Odyssey, I've been in danger of missing my subway stop. The book is hard to characterize; it's a collection of short pieces -- some of them really short -- which reimagine and retell parts of the Iliad, or the Odyssey, or imaginary scenes and episodes in between the actions in those two epics. Funny, spooky, action-packed, philosophical -- the mood keeps shifting, and you keep wanting to read just one more. I wouldn't want to spoil any of its pleasures -- part of the niftiness of the book is figuring out, as you read, what aspect of the original is being turned on its head. But look out for the story in which one of the characters in the Odyssey is neatly transformed, by the end, into Homer himself. Read more...