My favorite book is thousands of years old. My favorite translation of that book is only 12 years old.

I grew up hearing Greek myths as bedtime stories. It’s no surprise that my favorite book/poem/awesome adventure story is “The Odyssey,” written by the ancient Greek author Homer. The story is set around 1100 CE, but the story was first put together about 300 years after that. Despite its age, there’s a certain timelessness to the story of Odysseus’ homeward journey after the fall of Troy.

So here’s the story so far: the Greeks attack Troy for 10 years to steal Helen back. They win. They go home … or at least try to. One Greek leader gets sidetracked in Egypt. Another is killed by his own wife when he makes it back to his city, and a few others die at sea. Odysseus tops them all.

He started home from Troy with the rest, but then stops off to attack the Cicones (former Trojan allies) and do a bit more plundering — I mean, he’s already been away from his home in Ithaca for 10 years at this point. He might as well score a lot of treasure. The Cicones turn around and fight back, so Odysseus and his crew leave in a hurry.

Not a great ending for Odysseus, but not too bad, right? WRONG. He ends up on the island of the Cyclopes (yes, the one-eyed, freakishly strong Cyclopes). The Cyclops he talks to, Polyphemus, starts eating his crew, two by two. Odysseus won’t stand for this —- he waits until Polyphemus falls asleep, and then he drives a wooden stake through his eye, blinding the monster. Odysseus then uses his gift for trickery to escape from Polyphemus (he tells the Cyclops his name is “Noman;” when the other Cyclopes ask Polyphemus who attacked him, he says, “No man attacked me!”).

So, many of his companions were eaten by a scary humanoid monster —- that’s got to be the worst of it, right? Wrong again! After several more adventures, Odysseus is the only one left; the rest of his crew has been killed off. Odysseus’ ship gets wrecked and he ends up spending the next seven years on an island with a sea nymph.

Nymph girl is okay to kill time with, but all Odysseus really wants is to get home to his equally clever wife, Penelope, and their son, Telemachus. He _finally_ makes it home — 10 years after leaving Troy, and 20 years after leaving Greece — only to find that everyone thinks he’s dead, and half his island is trying to marry his wife. The rest of the book consists of some quality father-son bonding as Odysseus and Telemachus come up with a plan to get rid of Penelope’s suitors.

Stanley Lombardo’s 2000 translation of “The Odyssey” makes the story more accessible to modern readers. It’s Homer, but with some updates to make it 21st-century compatible. It’s a perfect translation of a classic story for current audiences. From the opening line, his translation just grabs you and doesn’t let go —- he manages to make a 3,000-year-old poem fresh. I love Lombardo’s version so much that I’ve even managed to forgive him for teaching at the University of Kansas.

Odysseus is my favorite character in the entire field of literature. He’s such a good role model —- he uses his brain instead of just resorting to brawn. Yes, he does end up killing pretty much all of his enemies, but at least he does it in a creative way. His wife, Penelope, is pretty inspirational too. She’s a strong woman in a time when most women were just kind of pretty decorations. Most men took wives to ensure children, but Odysseus and Penelope have a real partnership. He sees her as more than just a walking womb —- her cunning rivals his own. She held off her suitors by herself for years before he made it home again.

“The Odyssey” is epic in every sense of the word. It’s a long oral poem, and it is totally _awesome_.