Jean Menzies' All The Violet Tiaras is quite short, more a long essay than a book really, which means it doesn't waste much time, plunging straight in to discussing the modern takes on Greek myths, and the way that queer people in particular have adopted and adapted them, seeing ourselves in them, etc.

Menzies discusses some books/stories I was aware of, and some I wasn't, which means I now have a little wishlist of books/stories I want to look into (oh no). I think she handles well the line between what we think of as queerness now and how identities worked in Ancient Greece, without trying to project that kind of thing backwards.

It is a bit weird to have a book that so relies on Twitter/X as an institution that @usernames are included just like that (not "@username on X", just "@username"). It feels especially weird for a book published in 2024, as X crumbles and every week there's a new spurt of users heading off to Mastodon, Bluesky, and other alternatives. This might look very strange in a couple more years. It already feels weird to me; not having used it for two years makes me very conscious how inessential it actually is. The book could also use a solid proofread.