100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Overnight NZ-wide delivery on in-stock orders πŸš€

How to Be Queer

An Ancient Guide to Sexuality
By Sappho
3.66 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 101 ratings, 29 reviews)
Brief Description
An irresistible anthology of ancient Greek writings that explore queer desire and love 'Eros, limb-loosening, whirls me about again, that bittersweet, implacable creature.' Sappho The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about... Read More
Format: Hardback
$3499
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

An irresistible anthology of ancient Greek writings that explore queer desire and love

'Eros, limb-loosening, whirls me about again,
that bittersweet, implacable creature.'
Sappho

The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. How to Be Queer is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between women, and between humans and gods, in lucid and lively new translations. Filled with enthralling stories, this anthology invites readers of all sexualities and identities to explore writings that describe many kinds of erotic encounters and feelings, and that envision a playful and passionate approach to sexuality as part of a rich and fulfilling life.

How to Be Queer starts with Homer's Iliad and moves through lyric poetry, tragedy, comedy, philosophy, and biography, drawing on a wide range of authors, including Sappho, Plato, Anacreon, Pindar, Theognis, Aristophanes, and Xenophon. It features both beautiful poetry and thought-provoking prose, emotional outpourings and humorous anecdotes. From Homer's story of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, one of the most intense between men in world literature, to Sappho's lyrics on the pleasures and pains of loving women, these writings show the many meanings of what the Greeks called eros.

Complete with brief introductions to the selections, and with the original Greek on facing pages, How to Be Queer reveals what the Greeks knew long agoβ€”that the erotic and queer are a source of life and a cause for celebration.

Series: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers

View all
  • How to Be Healthy
    The second-century Greek physician Galen, the most famous doctor in antiquity after Hippocrates, is a central figure in Western medicine. A talented doctor, surgeon, writer, philosopher, teacher, pharmacologist, and inventor, Galen attended the court of Marcus Aurelius, living through outbreaks of plague (likely smallpox) that devastated the Roman Empire. He also served as a physician for professional gladiators, boasting that...
    By Galen
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Care about Animals
    An entertaining and enlightening anthology of classical Greek and Roman writings on animals - and our vital relationships with them. How to Care about Animals is a fascinating menagerie of passages from classical literature about animals and the lives we share with them. Drawing on ancient writers from Aesop to Ovid, classicist and farmer M. D. Usher has gathered a...
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Do the Right Thing
    There are times when we've all felt that we haven't been treated as we deserveβ€”that we've been misjudged, shortchanged, or given a raw deal. And, at one time or another, other people have probably felt that we've treated them just as unfairly. How to Do the Right Thing draws on the principles of ancient Stoicism as articulated by the Roman...
    By Seneca
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Flourish
    Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is one of the greatest guides to human flourishing ever written, but its length and style have left many readers languishing. How to Flourish is a carefully abridged version of the entire work in a highly readable and colloquial new translation by Susan Sauve Meyer that makes Aristotle's timeless insights about how to lead a good life...
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Focus
    Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful...
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Stop a Conspiracy
    In 63 BC, frustrated by his failure to be elected leader of the Roman Republic, the aristocrat Catiline tried to topple its elected government. Backed by corrupt elites and poor, alienated Romans, he fled Rome while his associates plotted to burn the city and murder its leading politicians. The attempted coup culminated with the unmasking of the conspirators in the...
    By Sallust
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Win an Argument
    Timeless techniques of effective public speaking from ancient Rome's greatest orator All of us are faced countless times with the challenge of persuading others, whether we're trying to win a trivial argument with a friend or convince our coworkers about an important decision. Instead of relying on untrained instinctβ€”and often floundering or failing as a resultβ€”we'd win more arguments if...
    Hardback
    $3999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Be a Bad Emperor
    What would Caligula do? What the worst Roman emperors can teach us about how not to lead If recent history has taught us anything, it's that sometimes the best guide to leadership is the negative example. But that insight is hardly new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, Suetonius wrote Lives of the Caesars, perhaps the greatest negative leadership book of all...
    Hardback
    $4499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Be a Farmer
    Whether you farm or garden, live in the country or long to move there, or simply enjoy an occasional rural retreat, you will be delighted by this cornucopia of writings about living and working on the land, harvested from the fertile fields of ancient Greek and Roman literature. An inspiring antidote to the digital age, How to Be a Farmer...
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Be a Friend
    A splendid new translation of one of the greatest books on friendship ever written. In a world where social media, online relationships, and relentless self-absorption threaten the very idea of deep and lasting friendships, the search for true friends is more important than ever. In this short book, one of the greatest ever written on the subject, the famous Roman...
    Hardback
    $4499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Be Content
    What are the secrets to a contented life? One of Rome's greatest and most influential poets, Horace (65-8 BCE), has been cherished by readers for more than two thousand years not only for his wit, style, and reflections on Roman society, but also for his wisdom about how to live a good lifeβ€”above all else, a life of contentment in...
    Hardback
    $5499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • How to Be Queer
    An irresistible anthology of ancient Greek writings that explore queer desire and love 'Eros, limb-loosening, whirls me about again, that bittersweet, implacable creature.' Sappho The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. How to Be Queer is an...
    By Sappho
    Hardback
    $3499
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780691248615

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 04 June 2024

Country: United States

Imprint: Princeton University Press

Contributors:

  • Translated with commentary by Sarah Nooter
  • Edited and translated by Sarah Nooter

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 114.0mm

Height: 171.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 264

About the Author

Sarah Nooter is professor of classics and theater and performance studies at the University of Chicago. She is the author of Greek Poetry in the Age of Ephemerality, The Mortal Voice in the Tragedies of Aeschylus, and When Heroes Sing: Sophocles and the Shifting Soundscape of Tragedy.

Also by Sappho

View all
  • Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments of Sappho
    For the first time in Penguin Classics, a new translation of Sappho's complete poetry. More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is present-day Turkey. Little remains today of her writings, which are said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library at Alexandria some...
    By Sappho
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Sappho
    These hundred poems and fragments constitute virtually all of Sappho that survives and effectively bring to life the woman whom the Greeks consider to be their greatest lyric poet. Mary Barnard's translations are lean, incisive, directβ€”the best ever published. She has rendered the beloved poet's verses, long the bane of translators, more authentically than anyone else in English.
    By Sappho
    Paperback
    $3399
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • Complete Poems and Fragments
    In this expanded edition of his distinguished Sappho: Poems and Fragments (2002), Stanley Lombardo offers over 100 fragments not included in the original edition, as well as the new poems discovered in 2004 and 2014. His translation of this latter material yields fresh insights into Sappho's representations of old age, two of her brothers, and her special relationship with Aphrodite....
    By Sappho
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Greek Lyric, Volume I
    This volume contains the poetic fragments of the two illustrious singers of early sixth-century Lesbos: Sappho, the most famous woman poet of antiquity, whose main theme was love; and Alcaeus, poet of wine, war, and politics, and composer of short hymns to the gods. Also included are the principal testimonia, the ancients' reports on the lives and work of the...
    By Sappho and Alcaeus
    Hardback
    $9400
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • If Not, Winter
    In this "gorgeous translation" (The New York Times), one of our most fearless and original poets provides a tantalising window onto the genius of a woman whose lyric power spans millennia. Of the nine books of lyrics the ancient Greek poet Sappho is said to have composed, only one poem has survived complete. The rest are fragments. In this miraculous...
    By Sappho
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Come Close
    Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. 'Yes, we did many things, then - all Beautiful ...' Lyrical, powerful poems about love, sexuality, sun-soaked Greece and the gods. Introducing Little Black Classics - 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around...
    By Sappho
    Paperback
    Sold Out

More from Philosophy & Psychology

View all
  • New Release
    The Winner's Formula
    The Neuroscience of Peak Performance, Success, and Happiness Why do some people win all the time? Why do others languish? From Olympians to Formula 1 drivers, addicts to billionaires, cognitive neuroscientist Dr Kerry Spackman has spent decades working to help people understand how to succeed. In The Winner's Formula, Kerry explains what goes on in your brain when you are...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Eat Your Ice Cream
    New Release
    Eat Your Ice Cream
    The New York Times bestseller that presents a bold new vision for living well and ageing with purpose from a world-renowned health expert THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From a leading doctor and world-renowned health expert, the simple, uplifting and practical guide to cutting through the wellness noise, living well and ageing with purpose. β€˜Essential reading for anyone who...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Man's Search For Meaning
    Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is a profound, thought-provoking memoir and psychological exploration that delves into the harrowing experiences of life in Nazi concentration camps, intertwined with the author’s groundbreaking theories on existential psychology. The book is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, offering a beacon of hope and a roadmap for finding purpose...
    Paperback
    $1800
    Elsewhere:
    $2100
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Inside the Box
    How to do more with less and use limits to stimulate creativity, innovation and collaboration, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Range. We live in a world that gives us seemingly infinite choices and values freedom above all else. We have an unprecedented number of options regarding what to do, who to be and how to spend our time....
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3900
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Atomic Habits
    Atomic Habits by James Clear is a transformative guide that demonstrates how tiny, incremental changes in behaviour can fundamentally reshape your life. Rather than urging sweeping transformations, Clear advocates for the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions. Whether it’s performing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes earlier, or making a brief, focused phone call, these minuscule adjustments,...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Body Keeps the Score
    The Body Keeps the Score by Dr Bessel van der Kolk is a compelling and compassionate exploration of the deep-seated impact of trauma on the human body and mind. This groundbreaking work delves into the complex causes of trauma and paints a vivid picture of the revolutionary treatments that are enabling countless individuals to reclaim their lives filled with purpose...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Tell Me Where It Hurts
    Leading expert Rachel Zoffness bridges the gap between medicine and psychology to get to the heart of treating pain We can move the dial on pain Every one of us will experience pain, be it back pain, the pain of childbirth, or living in an ageing body. Not a single one of us will escape. But what if everything you...
    Hardback
    $6500
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Book of Awakening
    A new edition of the #1 NYT's bestseller by Mark Nepo, who has been called "one of the finest spiritual guides of our time" and "a consummate storyteller." Immerse yourself in The Book of Awakening, a compelling spiritual daybook by philosopher-poet and cancer survivor, Mark Nepo. This remarkable work is a profound manual for living a more deeply connected and...
    Paperback
    $3999
    Elsewhere:
    $4499
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Strangers
    The must-read memoir of the end of a marriage and the start of a personal revolution, based on the iconic Modern Love essay in the New York Times and perfect for fans of Glennon Doyle. "A beautifully written eulogy for the loss of a relationship" β€” Joyce Carol Oates How do we go on when a loved one betrays us?...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Strong Ground
    #1Β New York TimesΒ bestselling author BrenΓ© Brown returns with an urgent call to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership. In a time when uncertainty runs deep and bluster, hubris and even cruelty are increasingly framed as acceptable leadership, Brown delivers practical, actionable insights that illuminate the mindsets and skill sets essential to reclaiming focus and driving growth through connection, discipline and...
    Hardback
    $4000
    Elsewhere:
    $5500
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Anxious Generation
    A powerful argument for reclaiming childhoodβ€”and all human relationshipsβ€”from the online world, from the influential social psychologist and international bestselling author. Jonathan Haidt has spent his career speaking truth and wisdom in some of the most difficult spacesβ€”communities polarised by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the mental health emergency hitting teenagers today in many countries around...
    Paperback
    $2299
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Stimulated Mind
    A practical, empowering plan to boost your day-to-day brain function and prevent dementia - by a renowned neuroscientist and performance coach. 'From day one I was always blown away by Dr Tommy Wood's command of the science from which he communicates.' - Dr Peter Attia, bestselling author of Outlive- The Science and Art of Longevity 'As global health declines, Dr...
    Paperback
    $3800
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 80,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.