Penelope's Bones

Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It- Emily Hauser

University of Chicago Press

Release Date: June 13, 2025

Rating: 📚📚📚

Synopsis: In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.

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I had very mixed feelings with this book. On the one hand, there was some very cool information on the latest archaeaolgical research and discoveries. New technology means DNA can tell us about travel in the Late Bronze Age, if families are buried together, or prove that more warrior gravesites are women warriors than were earlier believed. Texts unearthed through the Hittite Empire introduce powerful queens helping to rule the Hittite world next to Troy, and letters and tablets have been unearthed that suggest enough similarities between pieces of Homer's poems and real life to make Hauser's arguments plausible that the epics contain fragments of memories for ways of life that would have probably been old when the Iliad and the Odyssey were written down. I enjoyed most of the archaeological information, because I like reading about that kind of thing. 

Other parts of the book were, to me, more of a stretch. There was a lot of repetition. Hauser clearly didn't trust her audience to remember who any of the characters were, so would remind you every single time- especially the women already less well known like Briseis. Once or twice I can understand, but it was really annoying having her do it all the time. Each chapter would start with a short fictional story, which I know is the current fad, but personally I find throws me out of the nonfiction narrative and I always find off-putting. Some chapters were a stretch in terms of subject matter. In Circe's chapter, for example, I expected to learn about the ancient world's views on magic, or women living alone, or something else that might focus on women. Instead it is mostly about pigs. Yes, Circe and pigs go together and Hauser manages to connect them to religion and briefly to the mystery cults, but I was hoping for more. 

Frequently in the chapters Hauser brings up the modern retellings we see that are so popular today. Madeline Miller, Natalie Haynes, and some of her own books as well. These additions missed the mark for me. The readers of those books may be part of the audience she's trying to reach with this book, but adding the retellings here in the chapters themselves isn't part of the story of Homer's world. It would have worked better in the introduction or conclusion as part of the conversation on why women are now retelling the stories and focusing on reclaiming the lives and voices of the women in Homer's world.

I had high hopes going into Penelope's Bones, and while I would overall recommend reading it, I can't say I was as impressed with the book as I had hoped to be. Maybe I was expecting too much out if it. After all, Trying to uncover what has been pushed to the margins for thousands of years, both by the erosion of time, the men of the time period and by male archeologists until fairly recently, doesn't give you a lot to work with.

I received an ARC of this boon from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Design of Books

 The Design of Books: An Explainer for Authors, Editors, Agents, and Other Curious Readers- Debbie Berne

The University of Chicago Press

Release Date: March 12, 2024

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: Design is central to the appeal, messaging, and usefulness of books, but to most readers, it’s mysterious or even invisible. Through interiors as well as covers, designers provide structure and information that shape the meaning and experience of books. In The Design of Books , Debbie Berne shines a light on the conventions and processes of her profession, revealing both the aesthetic and market-driven decisions designers consider to make books readable and beautiful. In clear, unstuffy language, Berne reveals how books are put together, with discussions of production considerations, typography and fonts, page layouts, use of images and color, special issues for ebooks, and the very face of each the cover.  

The Design of Books speaks to readers and directly to books’ creators—authors, editors, and other publishing professionals—helping them to become more informed partners in the design of their projects. Berne lays out the practical steps at each stage of the design process, providing insight into who does what when and offering advice for authors on how to be effective advocates for their ideas while also letting go and trusting their manuscripts with teams of professionals. She includes guidance as well for self-publishing authors, including where to find a designer, what to expect from that relationship, and how to art direct your own book.
 
Throughout, Berne teaches how understanding the whats, hows, and whys of book design heightens our appreciation of these cherished objects and helps everyone involved in the process to create more functional, desirable, and wonderful books.

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Whether you're an author or just someone who loves books, at some point you've probably wondered about what goes into designing a book's cover. But how many of us think about the rest of the book? 

Somethings might seem obvious once you start thinking about them: cookbooks or picture books need extra work on the interior pages to make things look good. Otherwise, how hard can it be? There can't be that many decisions to make, right? 

Professional book designer Debbie Berne wrote The Design of Books to show readers, writers, editors, and anyone else interested in designing books what's involved in the process. She wanted to bridge the knowledge gap between her world and everyone else. And she does an amazing job. She shows the reader the myriad design decisions every book has to go through: both outside and inside. From colors and images to fonts and spacing, how the type of paper that gets chosen can effect the reading experience, how the number of pages automatically makes other choices happen. Little illustrations throughout the book teach us design jargon for page numbers, spaces, headers, footers, etc. in charming ways. Ebooks get their own chapter and I was amazed at the thought that has to go into things I would never have imagined– and how designers have to take into account things that aren't in their control! It turns out book designers are rather like my own profession, editors– when we're really good at our jobs, you don't notice our work at all.

One of the must-read chapters is the last chapter "The Design Process", where Berne walks us through the design process a manuscript takes from author to finsihed product in both the traditional and self/hybrid publishing worlds. If you're considering publishing a book, I can't stress how much you need to read this to get a feel for the decisions that get made, when they get made, why they get made, and when (or if) you as an author get to have a say in that process. And the sort of feedback that works best for the designer you're working with. It's the kind of education we all need, and probably most of us only find out we need it after we're completely lost and confused in the middle of publishing something.

Berne uses her own experiences and a sense of humor to make what could have been a very dry textbook something fun, readable, and memorable. The Design of Books is a must-read for those curious about how books are designed and those considering publishing a book themselves. Go into the process with a baseline knowledge of how your manuscript will become a book and how you can impact that design!

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