Looking to learn about the Greek world in your spare time but don’t know where to start? I had the exact same issue many years ago before pursuing Classics in college and it seems that I wasn’t the only one. After going through the r/GreekMythology Reddit community, I noticed that many people were interested in learning about Greek mythology but just didn’t know where to start. Seeing that this is a common occurrence, I am going to recommend books, YouTube channels, and websites that I found extremely helpful in my journey of gaining mythological knowledge.

Books

The first book that I am recommending is a textbook. Although textbooks has a reputation of being extremely boring, this one talks about Greek Mythology from beginning, such as the origin of the universe, to most stories about the gods, heroes, and villains. In addition to having the stories written in a way that is very easy to understand, it quotes many paragraphs from ancient sources so you know what you should continue to read depending on which story interest you the most. I recommend buying it used because it is a rather expensive book:

Classical Mythology by Mark Morford, Robert J. Lenardon, and Michael Sham

The second book I am recommending is smaller and is very brief compared to the textbook. I wanted to have a summary of key points for each character from mythology and the book did just that. In addition, I really enjoyed how each page included a family tree in an attempt to understand relationships in Greek Mythology because the connection between each figure can get very confusing. This book is much cheaper to buy as well:

100 Characters from Classical Mythology by Malcolm Day

Websites

The first website I recommend is one that I use very often to find pictures or to refresh on a certain story. It has every person you could think of when searching for information an has them sorted in different categories ranging from Greek Gods to Classical Texts to Star Myths:

Theoi.com

The second website is a bit boring but it definitely has a ton of information related to Greek Mythology. It is actually an Encyclopedia so it has information on just about everything and everyone in mythology. If you’re every interested in other mythologies such as Norse Mythology, it has a site for that as well:

Encyclopedia Mythica

YouTube Channel

The best YouTube channel I found has a bunch of videos talking about the different mythological gods and stories as well as videos digging into mythological-based games. In addition to talking about Greek myths, the channel also dives into Norse mythology, Japanese mythology, and others:

Mythology & Fiction Explained

Those are just a few sources that can help introduce you to Greek Mythology and I hope it continues to peak your interest. Mythology is a love of mine and it makes me happy to see others find it intriguing. Out of all the sources that I stated, I recommend the books because they’re fun to read and helped me the most in my journey of learning mythology.

A company of Nereid-nymphs ride across the sea on the backs of fish-tailed Tritons, Hippocamps (fish-tailed horses), Pardalocamps (fish-tailed panthers) and Leocamps (fish-tailed lions). This image was taken from theoi.com

Source for image:

“Nereids & Tritons.” Digital image. Theoi. Accessed August 16, 2019. https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/Z34.10.html.