100 books like The Iliad

This is the parallel companion book to the New Testament, for anyone who wants to try to discern "the true story behind the religious text." And it is also the biggest impediment to all historians and biblical scholars who have attempted to portray Jesus and his disciples as historical individuals. He simply does not seem to be there (if one excepts the paragraph "Testimonium Flavianum", which has been added or amended by later scribes). But perhaps he does... If one looks slightly beneath the surface....

Most theoretical works on war claim to instruct their readers about how to wage war. With the result that, especially in modern times when technology is racing ahead, quickly becomes out of date. By contrast, Clausewitz, a student of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, all but ignores technology. Instead he focuses on two cardinal questions: what war is, and what it is waged for. From this, using reality to check on theory and theory to check on reality, he proceeds step by step. Many of his conclusions, e.g “war is a duel on an extended scale means.” “The best strategy is always to be very strong, first in general and then at the decisive point.” “The attacker always wants peace.” “The stronger form of war is the defense.” “In war everything is simple, but the simplest thing is very complex.” “Comes the culminating point, every offense will turn into a defense,”… show more.

Snow, Glass, Apples is my all-time favourite Gaiman story, which is quite staggering given how much of his work I adore, but I'd only seen it in short story form before, in Smoke and Mirrors. Then I was given a copy of just Snow Glass, Apples, illustrated by Colleen Doran. The artwork is stunning, beautifully dark with a tight palette and rich, intricate detailing. Every page is a work of art, allowing you to linger and slowly digest the tale as it unfolds. This story is a huge influence for me, in particular for my collection Once Upon A Twisted Fairytale, because it flips the story of Snow White on its head. All of the elements of the traditional tale - the huntsman, the stepmother queen, the dwarves, the glass coffin - are there, but put together from the perspective of the queen, totally changing the story. I love… show more.

I’m always a fan of graphic novels that capture the mood of the book, rather than trying to make everything perfectly accurate to the original. Mariah Marsden’s adaptation of Anne of Green Gables perfectly captures the magic and beauty of one of my favorite childhood books.

I mentioned how much I enjoyed this adaptation to a friend who’s also a fan of L.M. Montgomery. However, my friend hated this adaptation (especially how Anne’s nose is drawn!) which I actually found very liberating as I considered adapting The Great Gatsby. I’d been concerned about how people who loved Gatsby would view my adaptation, but this made me realize that some people would love my book and some people wouldn’t—and that was okay!

City of Glass: The Graphic Novel is the adaptation of a Paul Auster novella about a man who receives a call meant for a private investigator and is pulled into an existential mystery. I’ve long been a fan of film noir and the mystery genre, and I like how this adaptation handles these themes in more unusual and modern ways, as well as Paul Karasik’s thoughtful page layouts. The Great Gatsby also has many noir themes which I tried to hint at in places, although I resisted going full-out noir, since that wouldn’t have been appropriate for the book. 

Ideally, the style of art in a graphic novel should reflect the story being told. Yvain does a beautiful job of capturing this Arthurian myth set in the 12th century with drawings that feel appropriately medieval while the sketchy and gestural line art keep it from feeling heavy. I’m a bit obsessed with the idea of the style matching the story—I developed a whole new style and learned watercolor for The Great Gatsby—which is probably why I appreciate it so much in Yvain.

I really hesitated putting The Art of War on my list. It is almost cliché as a lot of pretentious students of business and entrepreneurs will have a copy of this book prominently displayed in their office or listed as an influence in their professional profiles.

However, the lessons in this book are simple and profound. When you cannot win the battle, do not engage with the enemy. While these seem like simple common sense insights, all business leaders should revisit them in their most simplest terms. There are too many books and resources that will take one of the concepts from The Art of War and turn it into a thesis and completely water down the lessons at hand. 

To refine your entrepreneurial instinct, you should frequently revisit what it was built upon. The Art of War is the foundation.

In the whole of military history, no year was more important than 1945. Why? Because it introduced nuclear weapons to the world and the world to nuclear weapons. Both before and after Hiroshima new weapons have always affected the way war is waged; whereas nuclear ones, by threatening to turn even the “victor” into a radioactive desert, have cast doubt on the purpose for which may be waged and even whether it can be waged at all. 

As the current war in Ukraine has shown once again, provided both sides have a credible second-strike capability using nuclear weapons to win a war is impossible. So what can they be used for and how? Proceeding step by step Schelling, a Nobel-Prize winning professor of game theory, provides the answers in ways that not only have not been improved upon since the book was published in 1965 but are easy to understand… show more.

This is the first book I remember feeling so immersed into that I forgot I was reading. Many of Riordan’s books have that effect on me, but The Titan’s Curse especially brought me into the modern era of Greek Heroes and mythological characters. I remember this book as if I’d been there and lived through it.

For everyone who lost their love of reading while drowning in homework and chores, this is the book to revive it. I have never felt so intimately drawn into a book and never wanted to remain in the world as badly as when I first finished this book and raced to the nearest location of the next in the series.

Hand of Fire was one of the first books to truly win me over on Achilles as a real hero worthy of romanticism and admiration. Starkston’s exploration of Briseis’s character and her relationship to and with Achilles is so well-wrought, pulling both from the Hittites (the empire in which Briseis was born) and the Greek mythology and archeology. The way she weaves the two cultures together to create this story, priming Briseis for Achilles’s arrival to create a narrative that gives Briseis both power and agency is absolutely masterful. I loved that Starkston didn’t shy away from the supernatural hallmarks of the Iliad, either, allowing the gods and their direct influence to breathe inside her retelling of the Trojan War.