An Odyssey : A Father, A Son and an Epic

London: William Collins. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket. (2017). Hardcover. Sticker on front panel of dust-jacket. "The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2017 : Shortlisted". Dust-jacket protected in archival mylar cover.; UK edition. [viii], 306, [3], [3 (blank)] pages. Blue boards with gilt lettering on spine. Page dimensions: 233 x 151mm. The author's elderly father sits in on the author's seminar class on Homer's Odyssey, and joins in discussions with the students. Afterwards they join a Mediterranean cruise visiting sites associated with the Odyssey. "When eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enrol in the undergraduate seminar on the Odyssey that his son Daniel teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, a retired research scientist who sees the world through a mathematician's unforgiving eyes, this return to the classroom is his 'one last chance' to learn about the great literature he'd neglected in his youth - and, even more, a final opportunity to understand his son.But through the sometimes-uncomfortable months that follow, as the two men explore Homer's great work together - first in the classroom, where Jay persistently challenges his son's interpretations, and then during a surprise-filled Mediterranean journey retracing Odysseus' legendary voyages - it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: for Jay's responses to both the text and the travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last. As this intricately woven memoir builds to its wrenching climax, Mendelsohn's narrative comes to echo The Odyssey itself, with its timeless themes of deception and recognition, marriage and children, the pleasures of travel and the meaning of home." .