CR2: Book 26 Brush Up Your Mythology! by Michael Macrone

I picked this up heading to a friend's house to read while Henry played Rock Band, which is a ridiculous game.

I have to admit that while I know lots of Greek and Roman myths, I never really thought much about them. This book was completely easy-to-read and engaging. It is organized by sections covering both major and minor deities, stories of mortal heroes and the creatures they fought and awesomely enough, fun little lessons on the history behind words and objects we use everyday.

While I guess I realized that the Greeks and Romans "shared" some gods, this book opened my thinking up a bit as to how it all came about. The Greeks recounted elaborate allegories to explain the existence of the world around them. These stories weren't meant to be scientifically accurate, but entertaining.
When Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey) and Hesiod (the Theogony) wrote these myths down in the eighth century, the stories took on new life and were given more structure than previous oral incarnations.
The Romans had a different view of the gods. To them, mythology was less anthropomorphic and the gods had no clear relationship with each other. When the Greeks and the Romans started trading with each other (or warring), Roman myths started taking on more and more human characteristics. Roman poets added details and back-stories, stealing here, embellishing there and adding their own names to the players. Virgil and Ovid popularized these Roman influences.
And the myths picked up popularity during the Renaissance. Egyptian and Asian splashes were becoming more commonplace also.

There are WAY too many myths to start recounting in a simple book review, but I have to reiterate that this was fascinating, and will be my new go-to when I need to do a little research while watching , say, Clash of the Titans.