From Athena’s enigmatic Acropolis to Santorini’s beguiling sunsets, Greece will be waiting eagerly as the cruising world shakes off its Covid doldrums and returns to deliver great vacations.
This is a power-packed destination. So much of Western Culture has its roots here, beginning with the 
poetry and epic tales of 700-800 BC. To know Greece is to know her Gods, Heroes, and Warrior States. So fire up your Kindle or Kindle app. The good news is that many of the most important books are practically free.
If you read just one book before you go, make it The Parthenon Enigma: a New Understanding of the West’s Most Iconic Building and the People Who Made It.. This re-interpretation of the spectacular temple brings everything into context. It will also give you a deepened appreciation for the concept of Democracy and what it means to be part of a committed community.
For a bigger picture, you’ll want to start with an annotated version of Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford World’s Classics). This is our source for the Greek creation myth. Written sometime in the 8th century BC, it starts in Chaos and chronicles the rise of Zeus and the start of the Heroic Age. Lots of monsters and inbreeding with “fair-ankled” nymphs.
Homer takes over with the famous 7th Century BC adventure epics of The Iliad (The Trojan War) 
and The Odyssey, (the ten-year Mediterranean adventure cruise of Odysseus). The interplay of immortals, heroes, and mortals provides some of the most enduring mythical yarns of our literature: golden apples, Trojan horses, Achilles’ heel. More monsters and ravenishly beautiful temptresses.
Sometime around the 1st or 2nd Century AD, Apollodorus compiled the The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World’s Classics)
. It is the single most complete surviving text with a comprehensive catalog of these stories. Without it, much of this body of work would be lost forever. For a lighter treatment of the basic stories, pick up D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths
. I read these tales to my kids so often, our copy is falling apart.
The three most famous city-states of Ancient Greece were Athens, Thebes, and Sparta. 
Most of Grecian history, from 600 BC to 300 BC, amounts to these three armies fighting a) Persians, or b) each other. Pick up Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece
and The Spartans
to round out your history lesson.
The most famous battle ever won was at Marathon, in 490 BC, when the Athenian general, Miltiades stopped the Persians of Darius the Mede. The most famous battle ever lost was the suicidal heroism of Spartan general Leonidas and his 300 warriors at Thermopylae in 480 BC, against the Persian, Xerxes II. The battle was lost by treachery, but the Greeks eventually won the war.
There are heroes you’ve never heard of, like Erechtheus, (Athens), Epanimondas, (Thebes), and Lycurgus, 
(Sparta), as well as 
ones you know, like Pericles. It all provides context for the famous philosophers, playwrights, monuments, vistas, and lifestyle that make Greece so alluring.
Get ready for Greece is 2021. Opa!
