Here are 93 books that The Complete Poems of Sappho fans have personally recommended if you like The Complete Poems of Sappho. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Golden Threshold

Chriselda Barretto Author Of The Creep: A First of Its Kind Narrative Poetry in a Thriller Genre!

From my list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets.

Why am I passionate about this?

Chriselda is a multi-genre, prolific author, and speaker, with a background in Business Administration and Chemistry/Microbiology. She speaks 5 languages & has published over 50 books. Her expansive writing covers poetry, horror, thriller, romance, children’s illustration, educational... but she enjoys telling a story in narrative poetry the most. Currently, she is working on her next dark poetry book Me and Him, where she will invoke one of the greatest poets – EA Poe. In her effort to promote more learning, she is also wrapping up the fourth book in her - Sigils, Symbols and Alchemy Series. Her passion for writing, lifelong learning, creativity, and her curiosity all help spark her innovative mindset.

Chriselda's book list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets

Chriselda Barretto Why Chriselda loves this book

Sarojini, a Bengali born in Hyderabad, was an Indian political activist and poet. She was a poignant figure in India's struggle for independence from colonial rule. Naidu's work as a poetess earned her the sobriquet 'the Nightingale of India', or 'Bharat Kokila' by Mahatma Gandhi because of the colour, imagery, and lyrical quality of her poetry.

With these poems Sarojini captures the imagery of her everyday surroundings and gives it a life of its own. One can already picture her sitting in a shaded veranda, glimpsing out into the bustling street, where she sees people working on their chores/livelihood, yet she takes each character and builds on their story albeit her own interpretation of it. Her poetry ignites an aesthetic sense with its rich sensory images and allows the reader to partake in her cherished moments of joy, pain, and sadness.

By Sarojini Naidu ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Golden Threshold as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Golden Threshold is a classic collection of Indian poetry by Sarojini Naidu. It is at my persuasion that these poems are now published. The earliest of them were read to me in London in 1896, when the writer was seventeen; the later ones were sent to me from India in 1904, when she was twenty-five; and they belong, I think, almost wholly to those two periods. As they seemed to me to have an individual beauty of their own, I thought they ought to be published.


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Requiem and Poem Without a Hero

Chriselda Barretto Author Of The Creep: A First of Its Kind Narrative Poetry in a Thriller Genre!

From my list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets.

Why am I passionate about this?

Chriselda is a multi-genre, prolific author, and speaker, with a background in Business Administration and Chemistry/Microbiology. She speaks 5 languages & has published over 50 books. Her expansive writing covers poetry, horror, thriller, romance, children’s illustration, educational... but she enjoys telling a story in narrative poetry the most. Currently, she is working on her next dark poetry book Me and Him, where she will invoke one of the greatest poets – EA Poe. In her effort to promote more learning, she is also wrapping up the fourth book in her - Sigils, Symbols and Alchemy Series. Her passion for writing, lifelong learning, creativity, and her curiosity all help spark her innovative mindset.

Chriselda's book list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets

Chriselda Barretto Why Chriselda loves this book

One of the most significant Russian poets of the 20th century, Anna was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in 1965. Her distinctive work ranging from short lyric poems to intricately structured pieces set her apart from her contemporaries. Her work deals heavily with the struggles of living and writing under the Stalinist era.

In this elegy, written over three decades, between 1935 and 1961, Anna relates details of her personal struggles together with the reflection of other voices during the "Great Purge". In an emotional call to help, she offers empathy to others faced with the same, dire predicament. Feel the gravity of suffering, pain, and mourning, ultimately teaching you one of the most important lessons in healing, which is acceptance and letting go. 

By Anna Akhmatova ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Requiem and Poem Without a Hero as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With this edition Swallow Press presents two of Anna Akhmatova’s best-known works that represent the poet at full maturity, and that most trenchantly process the trauma she and others experienced living under Stalin’s regime.

Akhmatova began the three-decade process of writing “Requiem” in 1935 after the arrests of her son, Lev Gumilev, and her third husband. The autobiographical fifteen-poem cycle primarily chronicles a mother’s wait—lining up outside Leningrad Prison every day for seventeen months—for news of her son’s fate. But from this limbo, Akhmatova expresses and elevates the collective grief for all the thousands vanished under the regime, and for…


Book cover of Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami

Chriselda Barretto Author Of The Creep: A First of Its Kind Narrative Poetry in a Thriller Genre!

From my list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets.

Why am I passionate about this?

Chriselda is a multi-genre, prolific author, and speaker, with a background in Business Administration and Chemistry/Microbiology. She speaks 5 languages & has published over 50 books. Her expansive writing covers poetry, horror, thriller, romance, children’s illustration, educational... but she enjoys telling a story in narrative poetry the most. Currently, she is working on her next dark poetry book Me and Him, where she will invoke one of the greatest poets – EA Poe. In her effort to promote more learning, she is also wrapping up the fourth book in her - Sigils, Symbols and Alchemy Series. Her passion for writing, lifelong learning, creativity, and her curiosity all help spark her innovative mindset.

Chriselda's book list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets

Chriselda Barretto Why Chriselda loves this book

Yosano was a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer, active in the late Meiji period as well as the Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. She is one of the most noted, and most controversial, post-classical woman poets of Japan.

Akiko, an imaginative, creative soul, succeeded in turning traditional tanka poetry, which had gotten lifeless and boring, into an unexplored, uninhibited dimension of passion and never seen before seduction. Being a pioneer with her tempestuous poetry, she makes you see the rawness and beauty in mundane things we take for granted. Sensational, authentic poetry from one of the greatest women poets. This book inspired me to investigate haiku, tanka, and other forms of Japanese poetry for my next WIP.

By Akiko Yosano (Shō Hō) , Seishi Shinoda (translator) , Sanford Goldstein (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tangled Hair as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Akiko Yosano's Tangled Hair, published in 1901, had a sensational impact on Japanese literature, and we are pleased to make this highly praised translation (originally published 30 years ago) available once again in a revised Cheng & Tsui edition. Akiko reshaped the tanka, the most popular form of Japanese poetry for 1,200 years, into a modern poetic form. In this new work, her tanka appear in their original Japanese, in roman transliterations, and English translations along with a new preface and notes. Suitable for literature programs and translation courses.


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of Madwomen: The Locas Mujeres Poems of Gabriela Mistral

Chriselda Barretto Author Of The Creep: A First of Its Kind Narrative Poetry in a Thriller Genre!

From my list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets.

Why am I passionate about this?

Chriselda is a multi-genre, prolific author, and speaker, with a background in Business Administration and Chemistry/Microbiology. She speaks 5 languages & has published over 50 books. Her expansive writing covers poetry, horror, thriller, romance, children’s illustration, educational... but she enjoys telling a story in narrative poetry the most. Currently, she is working on her next dark poetry book Me and Him, where she will invoke one of the greatest poets – EA Poe. In her effort to promote more learning, she is also wrapping up the fourth book in her - Sigils, Symbols and Alchemy Series. Her passion for writing, lifelong learning, creativity, and her curiosity all help spark her innovative mindset.

Chriselda's book list on poetry from the world's greatest female poets

Chriselda Barretto Why Chriselda loves this book

Gabriela was a Chilean poet-diplomat, educator, and humanist, who became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature. Her poetry often focuses on dark, humane themes that undoubtedly reflect on traumatic episodes that she had personally endured. 

Gabriela has the knack of scratching the surface, which is potent enough to get all your senses actively experiencing the emotions and character she puts forth. The poems resonate on a deep level, offering a compelling clarity of life with its tragedy and complications. The women depicted here are anything but mad; some would say entirely strong-willed and intense, with a collected control and a modernistic sense of independence.

By Gabriela Mistral , Randall Couch (translator) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Madwomen as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) is one of the most important and enigmatic figures in twentieth-century Latin American literature. The Locas mujeres poems collected here are among Mistral's most complex and compelling, exploring facets of the self in extremis - poems marked by the wound of blazing catastrophe and its aftermath of mourning. Madwomen promises to reveal a profound poet to a new generation while reacquainting Spanish readers with a stranger, more complicated 'madwoman' than most have ever known.


Book cover of If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

Phiroze Vasunia Author Of The Classics and Colonial India

From my list on love poems from ancient Greece and Rome.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by the ancient Greeks and Romans since my teenage years. I was lucky to have inspiring teachers when I was an undergraduate. Spending a few months in Greece during my university years intensified my love of antiquity, and now I’m a professor who teaches Greek and Latin. One of the things that first drew me to the Greeks and Romans was the sophistication of their poetry, and that’s why I wrote this list.

Phiroze's book list on love poems from ancient Greece and Rome

Phiroze Vasunia Why Phiroze loves this book

I was drawn to Sappho as a teenager, and in many ways, her poems are classic poems of teen angst, love, jealousy, and rejection. Over the years, I’ve also come to admire her poetic craft and skill at composing beautiful verse, as well as the music of her poetry.

If only more of her poems had survived! Even many of the surviving poems are marked by gaps and omissions. The fragmentariness of the poems is part of their mystique. An accomplished poet, Anne Carson captures the force and charm of these ancient love songs superbly in her version.

By Sappho , Anne Carson (translator) ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked If Not, Winter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this "gorgeous translation" (The New York Times), one of our most fearless and original poets provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman whose lyric power spans millennia. 

Of the nine books of lyrics the ancient Greek poet Sappho is said to have composed, only one poem has survived complete. The rest are fragments. In this miraculous new translation, acclaimed poet and classicist Anne Carson presents all of Sappho’s fragments, in Greek and in English, as if on the ragged scraps of papyrus that preserve them, inviting a thrill of discovery and conjecture that can be described…


Book cover of 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World

Jen Yoon Author Of The Greek Mythology Coloring Book: Epic Scenes from Olympus and Beyond

From my list on start the Greek Mythology journey.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by Greek Mythology since I read a book about it in childhood. There was a popular graphic novel series about Greek and Roman Mythology in Korea, and I was one of many kids obsessed with these books. That passion continued and became stronger when I moved to New York. It had various mythology books, including novels and picture books, and there were tons of references, such as paintings, sculptures, and authentic vases. I hope you enjoy the books on the list and feel the same thrill I felt!

Jen's book list on start the Greek Mythology journey

Jen Yoon Why Jen loves this book

I can see that I tend to choose books with nice illustrations that emphasize the story more. This was the most recent reading I did. These dreamy, whimsical illustrations caught my eye when I browsed in the local bookstore.

I’m glad I came across this book at the beginning of summer when it is much easier for our minds to fall in love. Before the weather gets colder, I plan to bring this book to a picnic and enjoy it fully outside.

By Sean Hewitt , Luke Edward Hall ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked 300,000 Kisses as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A landmark illustrated anthology of queer Greek and Roman love stories that reclaim and celebrate homosexual love and sensuality, from artist Luke Edward Hall and award-winning poet Seán Hewitt.

For centuries, evidence of queer love in the ancient world has either been ignored or suppressed. Even today, only a few narratives are widely known: the wild romance of Achilles and Patroclus; the yearning love of Sappho's lyrics; and the three genders introduced in Plato's Symposium. Yet there is a rich literary tradition of queer Greek and Roman love that extends far beyond the prudish translations of these familiar handful of…


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of Eros the Bittersweet

Harold Bergman Author Of Sometimes the Heart Sees Things the Eyes Cannot

From my list on poems written by Canadians madly in love.

Why am I passionate about this?

Over my past 87 years, I have experienced a multitude of intimate relationships, including “falling in lust,” infidelity, “one-night stands,” one-week trysts to 40-year companionships, two marriages, and fatherhood, but the one that was most lasting and important to me was one of unconditional love.

Harold's book list on poems written by Canadians madly in love

Harold Bergman Why Harold loves this book

Anne Carson is a Canadian poet who wonderfully expresses the trauma associated with loving another person, the angst of a failing relationship, and the bittersweet emotions once the relationship has ended.

Most everyone who has fallen in love and lost cannot help but relate to the words in her poems.

By Anne Carson ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Eros the Bittersweet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time

A book about romantic love, Eros the Bittersweet is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with, "It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her," Carson examines her subject from numerous points of view, creating a lyrical meditation in the tradition of William Carlos Williams's Spring and All and William H. Gass's On Being Blue.

Epigrammatic, witty, ironic, and endlessly entertaining, Eros is an utterly original book.


Book cover of The Life Of Crassus (Plutarch's Lives)

Andrew Levkoff Author Of The Other Alexander

From my list on the Parthia and the war with Rome in the 1st century.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up on Long Island, New York, got a BA in English from Stanford, then put that hard-earned degree to dubious use in the family packaging business. After a decade of trying to convince myself to think 'inside the box (lots of them), I fled to Vermont where I attempted to regain my sanity by chopping wood and shoveling snow off my roof for 8 years. (Okay, I came down off the roof every once in a while.) Like a fine cocktail, I was by then thoroughly chilled; what could be better after this than no sunshine for 13 years. That's right - Seattle. Since 2006 I have been taking the cure in Arizona, where my skin has darkened to a rich shade of pallid. Here it was that I finally realized, under the heading of hopefully-better-late-than-never, that I needed to return to my first love - writing. I live in Tempe with my wife, Stephany and our daughter, Allison, crowded into close proximity by hundreds of mineral specimens Steph and I have collected while rockhounding. "They're just a bunch of rocks," says Allison. Ouch.

Andrew's book list on the Parthia and the war with Rome in the 1st century

Andrew Levkoff Why Andrew loves this book

This is as close to the horse’s mouth as we can get, yet it’s still a hundred years after the events of Republican Rome’s demise. Remember the Viet Nam war? It was one of America’s great foreign policy failures. Rome hated failure like a teenager hates acne. Cover it up, deny it, erase it. That is what Plutarch does in this work. I think it speaks to Crassus' towering achievements that Plutarch has anything nice to say about him at all!

By Plutarch ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Life Of Crassus (Plutarch's Lives) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of Rome's richest man, who died a humiliating desert death in search of military glory

"A perfectly paced biography."-Tom Holland, Times Literary Supplement

Marcus Licinius Crassus (115-53 BCE) was a modern man in an ancient world, a pioneer disrupter of finance and politics, and the richest man of the last years of the Roman republic. Without his catastrophic ambition, this trailblazing tycoon might have quietly entered history as Rome's first modern political financier. Instead, Crassus and his son led an army on an unprovoked campaign against Parthia into what are now the borderlands of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq,…


Book cover of The Lives of the Artists

Nigel Spivey Author Of How Art Made the World

From my list on the origins of art.

Why am I passionate about this?

A part of me is reluctant to recommend books on art. The same part of me is reluctant to write books on art. After all, a work of art should speak for itself. Then I remembered that for most contemporary art shows, a catalog is produced, and that catalog typically features an explanatory essay by some sympathetic scholar or critic. If the art of today requires verbal elaboration, how much more will the art of the past—especially the remote past—require such commentary? These recommendations are a selection of some favorite texts about how art comes into beingand is part of our being. 

Nigel's book list on the origins of art

Nigel Spivey Why Nigel loves this book

I’m fond of writers who indulge the anecdotal mode. Vasari is up there with Plutarch, Boswell, de Quincey, and other biographers who see how apparently trivial information can transmit essential personal characteristics. While he gives reverential accounts of artists he regards in the category of genius, Vasari humanizes them through anecdotes.

How Michelangelo became physically attached to his clothes because he so seldom changed them. How Leonardo bought caged birds in the market in order to set them free. How Raphael died of too much sex. It’s not a read-through book, but a text to consult whenever you see a remarkable sculpture, building, or painting of the Italian Renaissance and want to know more about the men (it is all men) who made it—each burning with that hard gem-like flame.

By Giorgio Vasari ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Lives of the Artists as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute…


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Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of Moral Letters to Lucilius

Neel Burton Author Of Stoic Stories: A Heroic Account of Stoicism

From my list on Stoicism from a psychiatrist and philosopher.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a psychiatrist and philosopher who lives and teaches in Oxford, England. I’ve long held that there is much more to mental health than the mere absence of mental disorder. Mental health is not just about surviving, limping from crisis to crisis, but about thriving, about developing and expressing our highest, fullest potential as human beings. The Stoic attitude is a path not just to sanity but to hypersanity, at a time when more than one in five adults are suffering from some form of depression. Unlike many modern interventions, Stoicism is no sticking plaster, but a total and radical reappraisal of our relationship to ourselves and to the world.

Neel's book list on Stoicism from a psychiatrist and philosopher

Neel Burton Why Neel loves this book

Seneca lived through the reigns of all five Julio-Claudian emperors. His writings represent the most important body of primary material for ancient Stoicism. He wrote the Letters to Lucilius in his final years, intending them as his immortal legacy, prior to committing suicide on the order of Nero. The letters are an excellent entry point to Seneca, Stoicism, and philosophy in general. They collectively amount to a course in moral development and become longer and more technical as Lucilius appears to be making philosophical progress. Michel de Montaigne, the “French Seneca”, modelled his Essays upon the Letters, writing in one of them, “I have not devoted myself to any serious work except perhaps Plutarch and Seneca: but upon them, I draw as do the Danaids...”

By Seneca ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Moral Letters to Lucilius as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Moral Letters to Lucilius is a collection of 124 letters which were written by Seneca the Younger at the end of his life, during his retirement, and written after he had worked for the Emperor Nero for more than ten years. They are addressed to Lucilius, the then procurator of Sicily, although he is known only through Seneca's writings. Regardless of how Seneca and Lucilius actually corresponded, it is clear that Seneca crafted the letters with a broad readership in mind. The letters often begin with an observation on daily life before proceeding to an issue or principle that…


Book cover of The Golden Threshold
Book cover of Requiem and Poem Without a Hero
Book cover of Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from Midaregami

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