Books like Gods Behaving Badly — picked by fans

I love the way Miller treats mythic figures as sharing reality with humans.

Who can forget blue-green Thetis coming out dripping from the sea to meet her son, the hero Achilles? This is how the ancients wrote about the gods, and it's terrific to see it making a comeback after a hundred years or so when myth was treated as a source for psychoanalysis.

I was not so much inspired by this book (it came late) as encouraged and confirmed in my own treatment of otherworldly figures. They are there, for those with the eyes or imagination to see.

This is such a classic book to start learning about Greek Mythology. I read the translated Korean version when I was researching my book in the past.

Even though I was familiar with most characters, I still learned about new stories while reading it. I'm glad I started with this book and then branched out with other novels and picture books.

Over the years, I’ve read hundreds, maybe thousands of books. Many of them have moved, stretched, and entertained me, but there are only a few I wandered into and realized early on that I would not get out of this one unchanged.

The author's inventiveness is astonishing, managing to create not one new world we inhabit but three, all deftly interconnected by the unlikely thread of a simple fable passed from generation to generation. Perhaps most striking to me is the sheer power of the book, its capacity to take us places and share lives we would otherwise never dreamed of.

While the mysterious document—itself a fascinating story within a story—wends its way through a narrative that spans a thousand years, its message is less important than the lives it touches.

And what lives. Each character is drawn so vividly and infused with such essential, defining human traits that we… show more.

Is there any family more dysfunctional than the Greek gods? In this modern-day saga, author Stacey Swann skillfully reimagines our favorite gods as regular people caught up in the very human drama of lust, jealousy, secrets, and even murder. The author slyly crafts multiple myth-inspired vignettes, then fits them together like puzzle pieces. The central conflict is a clever spin on Aphrodite’s affair with her ho-hum hubby Hephaestus’s fiery brother Ares (the unholy union that created Cupid!). What I love most about Swann’s storytelling is her snappy dialogue – these characters don’t pull any punches! Even though we don’t really want to root for them, we can’t help ourselves. Why? Maybe they remind us of ourselves.

This is a deep dive into the mad world of the Greek myths but FUN. Who knew that Zeus was the proud inventor of the first golden shower? (Is anyone surprised?)

This book made me laugh a lot and taught me much about the sexist madness that are the Greek myths in general, and poor old Zeus in particular.

Apollo is a god who refuses to take his position as god of the sun.

Until his father forces him to either ascend immediately, or spend the year being mentored under the obnoxious Prince Hyacinth. Forced together, Apollo and Hyacinth grapple with their mutual disdain for each other, but eventually irritation turns into love.

Apollo and Hyacinth are the sweetest opposites attract couple. One is an uptight responsible prince, the other is a rebel demi-god. They get together, they give the other what they’ve lacked, and make each other better.

These are two good-natured characters who love humanity and work hard to make life better, while in the process falling in love.

This is for me and for anyone who loves to see a pure, natural, slow-burn attraction.

I loved this book from the first page… a purely delicious novel, of a rendezvous beyond the limits of time and the power of human love. The intersection of time/space/lives/dimensions within this narrative gave me hope for humanity. I also found myself reconsidering the concepts of the pantheons of old. Have we too easily dismissed the possibilities of their existence within modern-day life? Regardless, this book is a really fun beach read. :~)

This is the best collection of the Greek Myths I believe, and of course covers the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, the direct inspiration for my book. In the classical myth the poet and musician Orpheus loses his love, Eurydice, and sings his way into Hades, overcoming all opposition, until even Hades agrees to let him have Eurydice back in the living world, so long as he does not look back at her until returned there. Once in daylight he does look back, and loses her forever as she hasn't stepped into daylight too. However, unlike Orpheus my young hero succeeds.

This book is about being brave. You know when a problem grows into a huge scary monster, right? It’s got you cornered and you don't think you'll ever get out alive, but with the right attitude, you can. Our hero Phoenix is braver than his years, but in some ways he’s more grown-up than his dad. In this retelling of the ancient Greek story of the minotaur, who crushes mortals and eats them for breakfast, we step into a monstrous virtual world created by Phoenix’s dad. I wanted to run, but most of all I wanted to stay and see what happened next. Will the minotaur eat Phoenix alive? I related to Phoenix trying to survive and trying to work out his issues with his dad, because every one of us has to face the same difficult world and be courageous about… show more.

This graphic novel is an absolute gift to anyone interested in both many of the lesser-known but no less fascinating narrative digressions of the Trojan War cycle and the visual exploration of what the late bronze age might have truly looked like. Shanower has given so much attention to period details and clothing, to the settings and backgrounds of palace, ship, and landscape. If you’re like me and you struggle to really see what the archaeological record has presented to us in rough floor plans and surviving artworks as a whole picture of life and living, this is an absolute must-read as a gorgeously illustrated narrative of the Trojan War—and the people who existed in the period we often refer to as Mycenean.