** Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023 **In Stone Blind, the instant Sunday Times bestseller, Natalie Haynes brings the infamous Medusa to life as you have never seen her before.'Witty, gripping, ruthless' - Margaret Atwood via Twitter'Beautiful and moving' - Neil Gaiman via Twitter'So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters.’Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt. And her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know.When the sea god Poseidon commits an unforgivable act in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can – and Medusa is changed forever. Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. The power cannot be controlled: Medusa can look at nothing without destroying it. She is condemned to a life of shadows and darkness.Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .Praise for Natalie Haynes, the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of A Thousand Ships:‘With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism… her thoughtful portraits will linger with you long after the book is finished’ - Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles and Circe‘Haynes combines a wide-ranging knowledge of the original myths with a gift for compelling narrative’ - The Times‘Natalie Haynes is both a witty and an erudite guide. She wears her extensive learning lightly and deftly drags the Classics into the modern world’ - Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life‘Haynes is master of her trade . . . She succeeds in breathing warm life into some of our oldest stories’ - Telegraph‘Haynes is the nation’s greatest muse’ - Adam Rutherford
CONTRIBUTORS: Natalie HaynesEAN: 9781529061475COUNTRY: United KingdomPAGES: WEIGHT: 607 gHEIGHT: 241 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Pan MacmillanDATE PUBLISHED: CITY: GENRE: FICTION / Fantasy / Dragons & Mythical Creatures, FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology, FICTION / Historical / Ancient, FICTION / Family Life / Siblings, FICTION / FeministWIDTH: 164 cmSPINE:
Book Themes:
Ancient Greece, c 800 BCE to c 500 CE (Ancient and Classical period – Germany, Central and Eastern Europe), Historical fantasy, Fiction: Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Interior life
Witty, gripping, ruthless, Beautiful and moving, The rollicking narrative voice that energises Stone Blind . . . is a voice that feels at once bitingly (post)modern and filled with old wisdom . . . The Gorgon’s head will take on a new and powerful resonance as a symbol of the way stories can be warped by time. Stone Blind acts as a brilliant and compellingly readable corrective., Stone Blind is an exceptionally powerful retelling of Medusa's story, an emotional gut punch of a novel. Haynes brilliantly pulls off the feat of seamlessly alternating humour and heartbreak, creating characters that stay with you long after the novel's end. It is a dazzling achievement, With this, her third novel based on ancient myth, [Haynes] has found a way of using all her classical erudition and her vivid sense of the ambiguous potency of the ancient stories, while being simultaneously very, very funny
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, The Children of Jocasta, and A Thousand Ships, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her non-fiction book about women in Greek Myth, Pandora’s Jar, was a New York Times Bestseller in 2022. She has written and performed eight series of her BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015 she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience. Stone Blind is her fourth novel.
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** Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023 **In Stone Blind, the instant Sunday Times bestseller, Natalie Haynes brings the infamous Medusa to life as you have never seen her before.'Witty, gripping, ruthless' - Margaret Atwood via Twitter'Beautiful and moving' - Neil Gaiman via Twitter'So to mortal men, we are monsters. Because of our flight, our strength. They fear us, so they call us monsters.’Medusa is the sole mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her Gorgon sisters, she begins to realize that she is the only one who experiences change, the only one who can be hurt. And her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know.When the sea god Poseidon commits an unforgivable act in the temple of Athene, the goddess takes her revenge where she can – and Medusa is changed forever. Writhing snakes replace her hair, and her gaze now turns any living creature to stone. The power cannot be controlled: Medusa can look at nothing without destroying it. She is condemned to a life of shadows and darkness.Until Perseus embarks upon a quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon . . .Praise for Natalie Haynes, the Women’s Prize-shortlisted author of A Thousand Ships:‘With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism… her thoughtful portraits will linger with you long after the book is finished’ - Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles and Circe‘Haynes combines a wide-ranging knowledge of the original myths with a gift for compelling narrative’ - The Times‘Natalie Haynes is both a witty and an erudite guide. She wears her extensive learning lightly and deftly drags the Classics into the modern world’ - Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life‘Haynes is master of her trade . . . She succeeds in breathing warm life into some of our oldest stories’ - Telegraph‘Haynes is the nation’s greatest muse’ - Adam Rutherford
CONTRIBUTORS: Natalie HaynesEAN: 9781529061475COUNTRY: United KingdomPAGES: WEIGHT: 607 gHEIGHT: 241 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Pan MacmillanDATE PUBLISHED: CITY: GENRE: FICTION / Fantasy / Dragons & Mythical Creatures, FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology, FICTION / Historical / Ancient, FICTION / Family Life / Siblings, FICTION / FeministWIDTH: 164 cmSPINE:
Book Themes:
Ancient Greece, c 800 BCE to c 500 CE (Ancient and Classical period – Germany, Central and Eastern Europe), Historical fantasy, Fiction: Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales, Historical fiction, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: Interior life
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She is the author of The Amber Fury, The Children of Jocasta, and A Thousand Ships, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her non-fiction book about women in Greek Myth, Pandora’s Jar, was a New York Times Bestseller in 2022. She has written and performed eight series of her BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015 she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience. Stone Blind is her fourth novel.
Being the same age as the writer and growing up in the same area, the first few chapters took me straight back to my family home and I could virtually see and smell the sights and feelings he talks about. Wonderful story telling. From there, the book moves into adult life and growing up in apartheid South Africa as a white male and invites the reader to explore their own views and beliefs from that period. Inevitably, the book moves towards the "New South Africa" and into the post 1994 days, with it's highlights, hopes, euphoria and disappointments, problems and challenges.
This book is an easy read, but it is thought provoking in many ways and should be read by all South Africans, regardless of one's background.
I have read and own a lot of self-improvement books, this is the only one that has really propelled me into action. The short exercises in each chapter are well structured to enable you to learn about yourself and reasons behind your self-imposed limitations and gives great techniques and practical advise on how to overcome them, while also challenging you to think a lot about why you behave the way you do. I don't like writing in books usually - but this one is more of a workbook for myself now, so if you want to really give yourself a good shot at making some life changes - then this is the book for you.
AN INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN INDIGENOUS SPIRITUALITY
This is a great book, and its very clear about many things that I have been asking myself as an Africa. Through reading the book I feel awaken spiritually and now I understand why religion never worked for my ancestors and it did not work for me too, because its not for me as an African. The book reveals that my foundation as an African is African spirituality. The book is clear about our ways as Africans to worship God and it shows how special, unique and powerful we are as the Alkebulan people. In the book I also learnt the difference between religion and spirituality.
Well I would advice people to buy the book not only Africans but even other races because spirituality is universal in the world we live in we need spirituality as the world is becoming more and more immoral, dangerous and scary , and I know its ONLY spirituality that can change this world. We have tried religion it did not help people are immoral and religious at the same time. This book is our start as mankind.