The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

We are in Ancient Greece, a young boy Patroclus fails to live up to the hope of his father the king and finds himself exiled for being too weak to defend himself after accidentally killing another boy. His weight in gold pays for his place at the court of another king, and it is whilst trying to make himself invisible that Patroclus comes to the attention of golden child and prince Achilles. Deemed by prophecy to be unbeatable in battle, Achilles is the child of the king and a sea nymph. The story follows the boys as their friendship deepens, through their time studying medicine, astronomy and hunting with the centaur Chiron to the Trojan War and the events of The Iliad. 

I was captivated, the story was well told and the fantastical elements of gods walking with mortals, begetting children and influencing events never seemed like whimsical fantasy, they were as real as the other characters.

Ingo by Helen Dunmore (audio)

Sapphire lives with her brother Conor in a tiny beach cottage on the edge of the Cornish sea, their days are idyllic, swimming and playing in and around their secret cove below the house. The only shadow is their lost father and their sad mother who works all hours as a waitress to pay the bills. Then Conor begins to absent himself and Sapphire, naturally saddened and curious, follows him to the sea edge where he sees her taking with a mysterious girl. One day, in frustration, she pursues what she thinks is him but coming up close realises the boy is a stranger, and very strange at that. The boy and girl draw Conor and Sapphire into the world of Ingo where myth, family history and their own lives change shape irrepably.

Great storytelling, but a bit constrained and clearly the first of a series (a quadrology in this case), but I can't wait to read The Tide Knot.

I should mention that I've been listening to this on a Playaway audiobook, a dinky little thing that is basically a preloaded mp3, much easier than loading onto my mp3 player which is a bit archaic and doesn't necessarily get the discs in the right order...

Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson

An amazing book, both edition and content. It is worth getting the hardback for the tactile feel of the heavyweight pages and beautifully set typeface, and Winterson's belending of the sad myth of a titan and reflections on eternity are breathtaking. Can't wait to read the rest in the series.

Death Note by Tsugami Ohba, volumes 1 & 2

AZ: "Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects - and he's bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal...or his life? Light tests the boundaries of the Death Note's powers as L and the police begin to close in. Luckily Light's father is the head of the Japanese National Police Agency and leaves vital information about the case lying around the house. With access to his father's files, Light can keep one step ahead of the authorities. But who is the strange man following him, and how can Light guard against enemies whose names he doesn't know?"

It's funny, I only really warmed to this on second reading, and now I'm hooked and will have to wait until I can afford more issues. Humph! The interaction between the idiosyncratic slightly odd L and the charming hyperintelligent murderous Light is interesting in the extreme and the links with Japanese mythology are fascinating

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Philips AUDIO

After Hollinghurst I was now on a good run, in the same vein as Sandman but in prose and very very funny Gods Behaving Badly is about Greek gods living in the present day. Apollo, who Gaiman's Sandman is associated with, is a very different person in this book

Au: "Being immortal isn't all it's cracked up to be. Life's hard for a Greek god in the 21st century: Nobody believes in you any more, even your own family doesn't respect you, and you're stuck in a dilapidated hovel in North London with too many siblings and not enough hot water.

But for Artemis (goddess of hunting, professional dog walker), Aphrodite (goddess of beauty, telephone sex operator) and Apollo (god of the sun, TV psychic) there's no way out....Until a meek cleaner and her would-be boyfriend come into their lives and turn the world literally upside down."