Books like Circe
What should you read after Madeline Miller’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Madeline Miller
- 2018
- 400 pages
- Mythology
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Circe
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchThe Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
Miller's first novel: the same voice, the same clean grief, the Iliad told by the boy who loved Achilles and knew exactly how it would end.
- Madeline Miller's prose
- Greek myth retold
- Gods behaving badly
- A love story at the centre
Best for Greek myth retoldA Thousand Ships
Natalie Haynes
Haynes hands the Trojan War to its women, a chapter each, with the muse herself complaining about having been conscripted into telling men's stories again.
- Greek myth retold
- A woman finding her power
- Gods behaving badly
- A chorus, not one heroine
Best for a woman finding her powerThe Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood
Penelope narrates from Hades, and Atwood is far more interested in the twelve hanged maids than in anybody's heroism. A hundred and fifty tart pages.
- A woman finding her power
- Greek myth retold
- Gods behaving badly
- Satirical rather than lyrical
Best for the island and its quietPiranesi
Susanna Clarke
Another solitary figure in a vast, half-empty, beautiful world, keeping careful notes and slowly working out who put him there and why.
- The island and its quiet
- Immortality and loneliness
- Madeline Miller's prose
- No myth, no gods
Worth a look — with a warningThe Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker
Briseis narrates the Greek camp at Troy and Barker withholds every consolation Miller offers — the same material with all the beauty scraped off it.
- Greek myth retold
- A woman finding her power
- Motherhood and fear
- Grim from start to finish
Great matchAriadne
Jennifer Saint
The most direct readalike here: another mythic woman narrating her own abandonment, written squarely for people who closed Circe and wanted the feeling again.
- Greek myth retold
- A woman finding her power
- Motherhood and fear
- Thinner prose than Miller's
What should you read after Circe?
Circe by Madeline Miller works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller — miller's first novel: the same voice, the same clean grief, the Iliad told by the boy who loved Achilles and knew exactly how it would end.
If what stayed with you was greek myth retold, read A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes instead: haynes hands the Trojan War to its women, a chapter each, with the muse herself complaining about having been conscripted into telling men's stories again. The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood is the other strong option — penelope narrates from Hades, and Atwood is far more interested in the twelve hanged maids than in anybody's heroism. A hundred and fifty tart pages.
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