The Ancient Greek Pleasure Manual

“I was still a child when I tried for the first time to trace with the stylus these characters of an unknown alphabet: my great change of scenery began…” It is with these words of Marguerite Yourcenar, in homage to ancient Greek, in the Memoirs of Hadrian, a book opens which could well be the good news of the start of the school year. It is called Ancient Greek Express (Les Belles Lettres, 312 p., €15.90) ??and it is beautiful, graphic, with a boat on the cover which promises an odyssey in several “stopovers”, as Caroline Fourgeaud says- Laville, captain of this intellectual and nevertheless playful adventure. Here is in fact a new method of learning ancient Greek which you can even devote yourself to alone, in hypertonic fifty-minute sessions full of examples. Enough to quickly become a hero of Hadrian’s Memoirs, and be able to understand Ulysses in the text. Not a luxury, in these uncertain times from every point of view, where a little mêtis (you will look in the manual) can always come in handy! §