Iowa City Public Library | Virtual Branch

Featured Collections On the shelf & ready to reserve

When you love a true story, well told

From Warsaw with love : Polish spies, the CIA, and the forging of an unlikely alliance

The Auschwitz photographer : the forgotten story of the WWII prisoner who documented thousands of lost souls

Thomas Quick : the making of a serial killer

Escape from Camp 14 : one man's remarkable odyssey from North Korea to freedom in the West

The wicked boy : the mystery of a Victorian child murderer

Nobody's child : a tragedy, a trial, and a history of the insanity defense

I'll be gone in the dark : one woman's obsessive search for the Golden State Killer

Escape from the deep : the epic story of a legendary submarine and her courageous crew

Ruthless tide : the heroes and villains of the Johnstown flood, America's astonishing gilded age disaster

The Apache wars : the hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the captive boy who started the longest war in American history

The boys in the boat : nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Spies in the family : an American spymaster, his Russian crown jewel, and the friendship that helped end the Cold War

The confidence men : how two prisoners of war engineered the most remarkable escape in history

The taking of Jemima Boone : colonial settlers, tribal nations, and the kidnap that shaped America

Madhouse at the end of the Earth : the Belgica's journey into the dark Antarctic night

Black Klansman : race, hate, and the undercover investigation of a lifetime

Barons of the sea : and their race to build the world's fastest clipper ship

Code name : Lise : the true story of World War II's most highly decorated woman

Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI

The world beneath their feet : mountaineering, madness, and the deadly race to summit the Himalayas

Hunting Che : how a U.S. special forces team helped capture the world's most famous revolutionary

The stranger in the woods : the extraordinary story of the last true hermit

Father of lions : one man's remarkable quest to save the Mosul Zoo

Into thin air : a personal account of the Mount Everest disaster

Catherine the Great : portrait of a woman

People who eat darkness : the true story of a young woman who vanished from the streets of Tokyo and the evil that swallowed her up

Hollywood double agent : the true tale of Boris Morros, film producer turned Cold War spy

Hotel Florida : truth, love, and death in the Spanish Civil War

Try out these detective and mystery stories.

The red horse : a Billy Boyle World War II mystery

The comforts of home : a Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler mystery

The key lime crime : a Key West food critic mystery

Want some tips to organize your time or home? Check these out.

Do it tomorrow : and other secrets of time management

Pick three : you can have it all (just not every day)

The deadline effect : how to work like it's the last minute--before the last minute

Say goodbye to survival mode : 9 simple strategies to stress less, sleep more, and restore your passion for life

Beautifully organized : a guide to function and style in your home

Four thousand weeks : time management for mortals

How to not always be working : a toolkit for creativity and radical self-care

U Chic. College girls' real advice for your first year (and beyond!)

It's about time : the art of choosing the meaningful over the urgent

The organized child : an effective program to maximize your kid's potential-- in school and in life

The minimalist home : a room-by-room guide to a decluttered, refocused life

Clean & green : 101 hints and tips for a more eco-friendly home

The smart but scattered guide to success : how to use your brain's executive skills to keep up, stay calm, and get organized at work and at home

Breaking up with busy : real-life solutions for overscheduled women

The frantic woman's guide to life : a year's worth of hints, tips, and tricks

The other 8 hours : maximize your free time to create new wealth & purpose

Take your time : how to find patience, peace & meaning

Getting things done for teens : take control of your life in a distracting world

Deep work : rules for focused success in a distracted world

Scheduling smarts : how to get organized, prioritize, manage your time, and more

The art of procrastination : a guide to effective dawdling, lollygagging, and postponing

The slow fix : solve problems, work smarter, and live better in a world addicted to speed

Unstuff your life! : kick the clutter habit and completely organize your life for good

Less doing, more living : make everything in life easier

The complete book of clean : tips & techniques for your home

How to manage your home without losing your mind : dealing with your house' s dirty little secrets

Buffy the vampire slayer. New school nightmare

Jolly foul play : a Wells & Wong mystery

More featured collections

Events

SRP Kids: Last Splash of Summer

August 11, 2022 - 10:00am

Party in the Park at Hunters Run Park

August 11, 2022 - 6:30pm

Intro to Coding with Python, Part 2

August 11, 2022 - 7:00pm

To-Do Apps and Websites

August 12, 2022 - 10:30am

ICPL Recommends

Pandora's jar : women in Greek myths

Natalie Haynes

292.211 /Haynes
Nonfiction

The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories. Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women's stories. And when they do, those women are often painted as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil. But Pandora--the first woman, who according to legend unloosed chaos upon the world-- was not a villain, and even Medea and Phaedra have more nuanced stories than generations of retellings might indicate. Now, in Pandora's Jar, Natalie Haynes--broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist-- redresses this imbalance. Taking Pandora and her jar (the box came later) as the starting point, she puts the women of the Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk. After millennia of stories telling of gods and men, be they Zeus or Agamemnon, Paris or Odysseus, Oedipus or Jason, the voices that sing from these pages are those of Hera, Athena and Artemis, and of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Eurydice and Penelope.

I love Haynes' novel "A Thousand Ships" as well as her podcast, "Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics." This book is also a delight. Haynes provides an incredibly engaging and enjoyable relook at the women of Greek myths, from Medea to Pandora to Clytemnestra to the Amazons. She goes back to the original texts, shows the differences in how their stories are told, how later authors and artists intepreted these women, and how their stories echo into the 21st century. -Anne M