Chasing Zeus

In CHASING ZEUS, Tom Stone and his wife follow the god of gods and his trail of myths across the length and breadth of Greece. Among the places they visit are the island of Santorini, site of the massive volcanic eruption that heralded Zeus’ coming; Crete and the mountaintop cave where the infant Zeus was said to have been born, murdered, and resurrected; Dodona and Delphi, the remote sanctuaries to which kings and politicians trekked to hear oracles utter the Great Thunderer’s cryptic pronouncements; and lightning-browed Olympus, Greece’s tallest mountain, abode of the gods and, locals still say, a landing strip for visitors from outer space.

Along the way, Stone entertains the reader with a feast of myths and legends, famous and infamous, all born out of Zeus’s tempestuous wanderings. At the same time, set as they are against the human history behind the god’s 4,000-year reign—from his beginnings as an amorphous sky god on the Russian steppes to his ultimate assumption into the Christian firmament as the model for Byzantium’s Christ Pantocrator, Lord of the Universe—the stages of the journey offer a wondrous excursion deep into the heart and soul of the Greek people.

A perfect blend of myth, memoir, and travel, CHASING ZEUS: A Journey Through Greece in the Footsteps of a God will appeal to fans of Walking the Bible.

A graduate of Yale and life-long enthusiast of mythology, Tom Stone is the author of The Summer of My Greek Tavérna, a memoir of his time on Patmos, which was selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club and Quality Paperback Club. His most recent effort, The Curse of the Minotaur: An Annotated Tale of Ancient Greece, is available as an ebook.

Praise for ZEUS:

"The supreme deity of Greek mythology has his lusty, tempestuous story recast in engaging fashion by Stone...As a guide, Stone is informed, enthusiastic, and entertaining, the very qualities needed to ignite interest in the timelessness of Greek mythology.”—Booklist

“[Stone is] a genial, self-deprecating and often felicitous docent…he intercuts his complex narratives of theogony, theology, history and hysteria with descriptions of his recent travels to many of the sites long associated with Zeus...A lucid and lucent retelling of those most marvelous tales.”—Kirkus