Classically Inspired: Some Reading Suggestions for Turn Up the Heat

If you’ve signed up for the library’s adult winter reading challenge, Turn Up the Heat, you might be wondering what book to read for “a retelling of a classic”. You've likely come across one or two retellings of a Jane Austen novel. In recent years, possibly encouraged by a spate of screen adaptations, books based on the works of Jane Austen have been published by the sack-load.

The Austen Project selected four well known authors to celebrate 200 years of Austen’s enduring popularity with four new retellings: Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope; Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid; Emma by Alexander McCall Smith; and Eligible, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Other Austen characters have been developed in new retellings. Among them The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow giving us Mary Bennet’s story; Longbourn by Jo Baker with a servant’s view of Pride and Prejudice; and Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr Wickham, a country-house mystery that collects all the main Austen characters from six books together under one roof.

But not everyone’s a Jane Austen fan. If Shakespeare’s more your cup of tea, have look at the Hogarth Shakespeare series with its retellings of well-known plays by the Bard. Among them are Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood’s version of The Tempest; Vinegar Girl, Anne Tyler’s reworking of The Taming of the Shrew; and Jo Nesbo’s Macbeth. The library also has The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson's reimagining of The Winter's Tale; Dunbar, Edward St Aubyn's update of King Lear; and New Boy, Tracy Chevalier's retelling of Othello. All of them immensely readable ways to enjoy some classic stories.

Then we’ve new books inspired by the classics from Ancient Greece and there are simply dozens of these. One of the most loved that springs to mind is Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles. Inspired by Homer’s Illyad and other Greek classics, the reader is  swept back to the Trojan War. Troy is also the subject of Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, the first in a trilogy with the last book, The Voyage Home due out soon.

Many more authors have been looking to antiquity for inspiration. Check out Jennifer Saint’s Elektra (inspired by the play by Sophocles), and Ithaca by Claire North which focuses on Penelope, left behind by her warrior king Odysseus (Homer's Illyad and Odyssey). The Odyssey is again the inspiration for Madeline Miller’s Circe, another stunning read. Quite a different kind of book is Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie a modern story inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone. 

Retellings of more modern classics have been catching the eye of the critics of late. Perhaps the most notable is Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, inspired by Dickens’s David Copperfield and which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and a Pulitzer Prize. Percival Everett has had the odd Booker nomination so James, his rollicking version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, has got people talking.

This is just a small selection of classical retellings you can find at the library. If you’re stuck, we’ve got a handy reading list with even more suggestions, or you can always have a chat with one of the library staff. Turn Up the Heat is a brilliant way to try reading out of your comfort zone with the chance to win prizes. Have a look at the library website to see how it all works. Happy reading.

21 June 2024

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