The Song of Achilles: A Novel

Madeline Miller

Mar 2012 · HarperAudio · Narrated by Frazer Douglas

About this audiobook

“At once a scholar’s homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art by an incredibly talented new novelist....A book I could not put down.”
—Ann Patchett

“Mary Renault lives again!” declares Emma Donoghue, author of Room, referring to The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller’s thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War. A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights—and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.

Ratings and reviews

Where do I even start...this book is about as bad as the Brad Pitt movie Troy. It portrays Patroclus as a feeble/sickly/weak hero that needs protection. Anyone whom has taken a college level humanities class or read works by Homer and truly studied the Iliad knows it was Patroclus who again and again attacked the walls of troy and was repelled by Apollo. A true devastating warrior in his own regard. Call this what it is...a romance novel that flows like a 2 hour bad movie. Hardly an in depth work. Hardly accurate. Use a local library. Buyers remorse for sure.

SO GOOD IT SHOULD BE A CRIME! Being a huge fan of the Iliad and The Odyssey and then later down the road, The Aenead by Virgil…… I never thought I could appreciate those stories more, of course I was proven wrong, by Madeleine Miller. The Song Of Achilles is a must read for anyone who respects the Homeric epics... I honestly don't think she could have done any better.

this book was absolutely amazing. it got me at the end, the way Thetis came around to him and allowed him to finally cross over to be with Achilles. the narrator was fantastic as well. 100% reccommend

About the author

Madeline Miller is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of two novels: The Song of Achilles, which won the Orange Women’s Prize for Fiction 2012, and Circe, which was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019. Her books have been translated into over thirty two languages. Miller holds an MA in Classics from Brown University, studied in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms, and taught Latin, Greek, and Shakespeare to high school students for over a decade.