I bought two versions of this for the Kindle, because the first one I bought was hard going (archaic English, no explanations). The second version has a great introduction by the translator about Ovid, and then each of the 15 books that make up Metamorphoses also has a summary telling me what to watch out for.
Ovid is a Roman poet who lived around the time of Christ. He's collected a lot of stories from Greek and Roman mythology, all of them about metamorphosis (human to animal, human to tree, human to water, human to rock, human to god, man to woman, woman to man - you get the idea) and linked them together in one long poem. It made me think of someone telling jokes and saying 'if you think that's good, did you hear the one about ....?'.
He's a great story teller who uses subtle little details to make his characters individuals with real feelings.
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