I’m a PhD student at Newcastle University specialising in Hellenistic Literature and Culture. My thesis is about the Argonautica, which is a 3rd century epic poem in Ancient Greek about Jason and the Argonauts, but I’m also generally interested in themes of romance and religion in Ancient Greek poetry. My favourite character in the Iliad is Hector and my favourite Diadoch is Demetrius Poliorcetes.
This blog is dedicated to reviews of books and my own thoughts about literature and culture in general. It’s not really a space for academic stuff but I may post about my work from time to time and to be honest the way I write is very informed by academia, so a certain level of academic-ness is inevitable. I set myself a goal this year that I would read more non-Classics books and more modern books in particular, and so this is my way of holding myself to that promise. I want to read 50 books this year. I read a lot of garbage (being honest) and I would like to de-trashify my bookshelves, but we’ll just have to see!
When I’m not (not) writing or reading, my interests include hiking, visiting old churches, looking for cool rocks on the beach, and taking blurry pictures of birds to show my dad. I like movies about gangsters and I cut my own fringe. I also collect comics and I’m mostly interested in post-silver age Green Lantern, but I’m not that picky (that’s a lie, i’m actually very picky).
An embarassing story about me is that last winter I got lost in the snow walking the dog around Housteads Roman Fort and had to be retrieved and revived with cups of tea by mountain rescue (shout out to those guys, they were very kind about the whole thing). The dog was fine.
Eleanor Frances 