1 rating | 1 review | avg rating:5.00

Madeline Miller’s Followers (82,769)

Madeline’s Bookshelves

to-read (0)
currently-reading (0)
read (1)

Madeline’s Friends

Madeline hasn't connected with her friends on Goodreads, yet.

Madeline Miller

Goodreads Author

Born

Boston, The United States

Website

http://www.madelinemiller.com/

Twitter

MillerMadeline

Genre

Historical Fiction, Fiction

Member Since

August 2012

edit data

Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA, where she teaches and writes. The Song of Achilles is her first novel.

Learn more
Ask the Author

To ask Madeline Miller questions, please sign up.

Popular Answered Questions

I haven't gotten to Circe yet but WOW did I love Song of Achilles. I especially love the way you took the Homeric epic with its lack of character internality and made it such an intimate, personal novel. Did you deliberate a lot on POV and/or narrator, or did you go into it knowing that it has to be through Patrocles' eyes?

Madeline Miller Thank you! And it was always going to be Patroclus. He was the one who fascinated me--the most beloved companion of Achilles, the so-called minor char…moreThank you! And it was always going to be Patroclus. He was the one who fascinated me--the most beloved companion of Achilles, the so-called minor character whose actions are the turning point of the entire Iliad. He is called "gentle" in Homer, and "kind to everyone," which makes him an outlier among the other Greek soldiers. And of course, he is the only thing that matters more to Achilles than his reputation. I wanted to understand him, and why he meant so much to Achilles. And I'm very grateful: he was a wonderful person to spend ten plus years living with. The only time I considered switching narrators was towards the end, after the---spoiler, but it is in the Iliad---fateful encounter with Hector. I briefly considered moving to Briseis, or Achilles as a narrator. But that was only for a moment. The Song of Achilles is Patroclus' book, and his voice is its heart, and he deserved to tell his story to the end.(less)

flag

1003 likes · like
9 comments

Should I read The Odyssey before reading your new book Circe?

Madeline Miller You definitely do not have to have read the Odyssey to read Circe! It's really important to me that my novels don't require previous Greek myth knowle…moreYou definitely do not have to have read the Odyssey to read Circe! It's really important to me that my novels don't require previous Greek myth knowledge. I firmly believe that these stories are for everyone just as they are, and I work hard to try to give readers everything they need to know along the way. (Though if you do know the myths, there are some extra goodies in there!)

That said, as a classics teacher, I will never tell someone NOT to read Homer! If you do, I wholeheartedly recommend Emily Wilson's new translation, which is gripping and brilliant.(less)

flag

579 likes · like
11 comments

See all 25 answers from Madeline Miller…

Combine Editions
Madeline Miller’s books

Average rating: 4.26 · 3,391,262 ratings · 356,167 reviews · 13 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Song of Achilles 4.31 avg rating — 1,940,515 ratings — published 2011 — 230 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Circe 4.22 avg rating — 1,324,024 ratings — published 2018 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	La collina dei conigli by Richard Adams, Pier Francesco Paolini (Translator), Madeline Miller (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.09 avg rating — 503,476 ratings — published 1972 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Galatea 3.93 avg rating — 120,518 ratings — published 2013 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Circe / The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Goodreads Author) 4.54 avg rating — 2,127 ratings — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Writer's Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives by Nancy Pearl (Goodreads Author) (Narrator), Jeff Schwager (Contributor)(Narrator), Susan Orlean (Goodreads Author) (Introduction) 3.78 avg rating — 1,236 ratings — published 2020 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Heracles' Bow 3.18 avg rating — 1,405 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Song of Achilles / Circe / Galatea 4.46 avg rating — 238 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Untitled #2 4.43 avg rating — 42 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Untitled 3.92 avg rating — 26 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Madeline Miller…

90 posts
Madeline Miller's Blog

Events & Appearances

I’m very excited to announce some of my upcoming 2019 Circe events! More coming soon so be sure to check back. If you would like me to appear at your event please get in touch using my contact page.

July 20th-24th 2019
Sun Valley Writer’s Conference.

September 9th 2019, 7:30PM
Butler University, Visiting Writers Series
Indianapolis, IN.

September 26th-October 1st 2019
Travel Gems, Costa Navarin

Over at Amazon, the book editors are celebrating 25 years of curating the latest and greatest titles for Amazon Books. To mark the...

Polls

Have you read Circe by Madeline Miller?

Haven't read it.

36 votes, 41.9%

It's on my TBR!

27 votes, 31.4%

Yes, I loved it!

11 votes, 12.8%

Never read it, never will.

5 votes, 5.8%

Yes but I didn't like it.

4 votes, 4.7%

Yes, I liked it!

3 votes, 3.5%

Yes but I hated it!

0 votes, 0.0%

86 total votes

5 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Queereaders: * List of group reads	1	1551	Oct 30, 2009 05:04PM
Audiobooks: Winter 2012	644	265	Mar 26, 2012 11:05AM
The Seasonal Read...: Spring Challenge 2012: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2297	778	May 31, 2012 09:02PM
Reading with Style: Summer 2012 Rws Completed Tasks	975	196	Aug 31, 2012 09:01PM
The Seasonal Read...: Summer Challenge 2012: Completed Tasks - DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2637	933	Aug 31, 2012 09:02PM
Fiction Fanatics: Next 5 reads	131	299	Oct 05, 2012 08:33AM