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#1 The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller

This is Miller's debut novel. She has a Masters in classics and was a Greek and was a Latin teacher for many years, so she knows a thing or two about the world she's creating in the book. It’s won the Orange Prize (now called Women's Prize for Fiction) for it in 2012, a prestigious achievement for a debutante.

The novel, despite its name, is not mainly about Achilles, the Greek hero, but about another little known character whose name was mostly lost in the rustle of the turning pages of Iliad, so to speak: Patroclus. He's portrayed in Iliad as Achilles' distant cousin. 

During the Trojan war, as the story goes, Achilles lays down his sword and refuses to fight owing to a perceived slight from Agamemnon, the Greek commander - and watches in supercilious amusement as the Greek army is routed by the Trojans, led by Hector, in his absence. Patroclus tries to persuade Achilles to fight and, failing, seeks permission to wear Achilles’ armor to the front lines of the Greek army - a trick to dissuade the Trojans from becoming too adventurous. Achilles reluctantly accedes, with the stern instruction that Patroclus will not fight. Patroclus succeeds in his ploy and rallies the Greek army, which beats back the Trojans - but then, he runs into Hector. He is killed.

Later, back in the Greek camp, Achilles goes berserk with fury when he hears the news of Patroclus' death. He finds Hector, kills him, drags the body behind his chariot back to Greek lines. He doesn't come to his senses until Priam, the Trojan king and Hector's father, comes to him to beg for the body. 

So much for Iliad. Achilles is the hero of Iliad, and Patroclus isn't much more than an excuse for setting the scene to showcase Achilles' valor. One could stop at that, and snap the ancient book shut, thoughts thrilling with the deeds of the warriors. But, as I like to imagine, this novelist took her woman's intuition to Iliad, and asked a question: Why would Achilles, the son of a goddess and already the hero of war songs of his day, go berserk at the death of one person? What drove him to the extreme cruelty that he displayed?

Hector in Iliad is no slouch, he's almost on par with Achilles in valor, but on the fateful day he meets Achilles for the final battle, he takes one look at the flaming face of Achilles and sees his nemesis. He then, contrary to all expectation, tells Achilles, 'I will make a pact with you - to pledge that the winner will allow the loser all the proper funeral rituals...', to which Achilles answers terribly, with words that have entered the cliché dictionary: 'There are no pacts between lions and men.' The actual words in Iliad are longer, though the movie Troy is more to the point. So the question the novelist asked was: Why would the death of Patroclus turn Achilles, a chivalrous hero, into a beast? And she answered: it wasn't just another person who got killed. Patroclus and Achilles were lovers.

This was a risky premise, not because it is not plausible - Miller in later interviews has quoted Plato, and other sources, to support this. It was risky because this premise would lead to a gay novel written by a woman.

The books builds into a great story, a very readable one regardless of one’s views on same sex love. The author also achieves the improbable - creating suspense in a story which has been known for centuries. 

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How to Die

(The Death of Socrates, 1787, by Jacques Louis David. Photograph: World History Archive / Alamy)

'Yet,' said Crito, 'The sun is still upon the hilltops, and many a one has taken the draught late; and after the announcement has been made to them he has eaten and drunk, and indulged in sensual pleasures. Do not hasten then - there is still time.'

Socretes said, 'Yes, Crito, and they of whom you speak are right in doing thus, for they think they will gain by the delay. But I am not right in doing thus, for I do not think that I would gain anything by drinking the poison a little later. I would be sparing and saving a life that is already gone. I would only laugh at myself for this. Please then do as I say; do not refuse me.'

Crito, when he heard this, made a sign to the servant, and the servant went in, and remained for some time, and returned with the jailor with the cup of poison. 

Socretes said, 'You, my good friend, who are experienced in these matters, shall give me directions how I am to proceed.'

The man said, 'You only have to walk about until your legs are heavy; and then to lie down, and the poison will act. 

At the same time he handed the cup to Socretes, who in the easiest and gentlest manner, without the least fear or change of colour or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes, as his manner was, took the cup and said: 'What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? May I, or may I not?'

The man said, 'Socretes, we only prepare just so much as we deem enough.'

'I understand,' he said. 'Yet I may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this to that other world - may this then, which is my prayer, be granted to me.

Then, holding his cup to his lips, he cheerfully drank the poison. 

And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear. In spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast, so I covered my face and wept over myself; for ceratainly I was not weeping over him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion. 

Nor was I the first, for when Crito, when he found he was unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away; and I followed. At that moment Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out into a loud cry which made cowards of us all.

Socretes alone retained his calmness: 'What is this strange outcry?' he said. 'I sent away the women mainly in order that they would not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be queit, then, and have patience.'

When we heard that we were ashamed, and retrained our tears. He walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions. The man who gave him the poison looked at his legs and feet now and then, and after a while he pressed his feet hard and asked him if he could feel, and Socretes said 'No' - and then his legs, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us he was cold and stiff. And then Socretes felt them himself, and said, 'When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end.'

He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face (for he had covered himself), and said - they were his last words - 'Crito, I owe a cock to Ascelpius, will you remember to pay the debt?'

'The debt shall be paid,' said Crito. 'Is there anything else?'

There was no answer to this question; but in a minute a movement or two was heard. The attended uncovered him; his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. 

Such was the end of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, justest and the best of all men whom I have ever known. 

-Trial and Death of Socretes, Phaedro sections 116-118, Plato