I loveeeeed the first half of the book. He has a great way of telling the stories and bringing the characters to life. I also really enjoyed his explanations of the words/language and how we use them today.

I found the second half a bit of a slog! Short stories with lots of characters which didn't keep me hooked.

Thus book came to me as a recommendation on booktok. I love Greek myths, they are fun and interesting stories. This book is written by Stephen Fry and he narrated the audiobook perfectly. I really enjoyed listening to the tales. It does go through all the children, not just the stories, so at times it’s a bit much, but he’s reciting Greek myths, not telling a story. It’s a really thorough telling with no interpretation.

Loved it! I was already quite familiar with the Greek myths through works adapted for children and a rather dull academic work that was supposed to introduce the Greek myths to a broader audience (how on earth can someone make these stories dull?? flamboyant, misogynistic, not being bothered by any law of physics, YES, but boring....?).

Yes, the number of 'unbelievably beautiful' people ending up on the wrong end of the stick becomes a tad long and Stephen Fry is the first to acknowledge that. But hey, that's how the story goes. Moreover, Stephen Fry manages to paint a picture of the Gods that I can work with. A picture in which the Gods really are just large, privileged children who treat humans as pets because that is why they created us. And that actually makes reading about their unfair egocentric behavior so much more bearable.

I particularly enjoyed the tale of Pandora. As a child I read the amended version, where the last of the creatures is not kept in the box (or vase, as Fry notes) but is released to the world, which was considered a good thing because this little moth (in my children's book it was a moth) represented Hope. That made sense to me.
However in this version, which is undoubtedly much closer to the original Greek versions, Hope is never released. And Fry provides us with some explanations based on the interpretation of the word hope in Greek that is really enlightening. So thank you, Stephen Fry, for making me re-enjoy these old stories (even appreciating them more) and for teaching me some cool stuff on the way.