The Trojan War, Start to Finish

You know the names. Achilles, Hector, Helen, the horse. But every time you try to hear the whole Trojan War, you get a fragment of the Iliad, a dry summary, or a list of gods you can never keep straight.

Press play and the war unfolds as one story, told start to finish in the warm, wry register of a storyteller rather than a scholar. You watch the golden apple roll onto the table at Thetis's wedding, hear Paris choose Helen and set the ships moving, and stand beside Agamemnon and Achilles as their quarrel poisons the camp. Patroclus falls, Hector faces the man he cannot beat, and old Priam walks into the enemy tent to beg for his son's body. Above it all, the gods bicker on Olympus in sharp, funny, jealous dialogue, as flawed as the mortals they toy with.

By the last chapter, Troy is burning and you finally understand how it all fits together. Press play, and let the war begin.