Most readers interested in the ancient world are familiar with the Iliad, Homer's tale of the Trojan War, set down in writing almost 30 centuries ago. David Malouf first heard the story in 1943 when his primary school teacher read it aloud to his class. "We too were in the middle of a war," he says. "I had immediately connected Miss Finlay's ancient and fictional war with our own." In Ransom, he assumes the reader's familiarity with the Iliad and uses it as a framework to contain a more mystical and intimate story.
Homer is as legendary as his poetry. He was probably Greek, although some historians have suggested that he could be Babylonian. According to the Emperor Hadrian, the Pythia told him that Homer, like his hero, was from Ithaca.
Little is known about his life. Since he was probably alive nearly three thousand years ago, little can be verified beyond the legend which makes him a blind, wandering minstrel.
The very authorship of his main works, the Iliad and Odyssey, is often contested. Even though both books are very similar in style, they could be nothing more than a series of stories told by various authors and later standardised.
Ithaca, a small island in the Ionian Sea, had a troubled history, including periods of occupation by the Romans, the Ottomans and the French. It was first occupied during Neolithic times, but was at its height during the Myceneaan period (1500–1100 BC), when it was the capital of Cephalonia.
Its fame however comes from the central role it plays in Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey as Ulysses’ home and final aim of his travels.
However, the current landscape does not match Homer’s description. The Odyssey says it is “low-lying”, far West and surrounded by the islands of Doulichion and Same, whereas the island is mountainous and more Eastern than other Ionian Sea islands, and some historians doubt it really ever was Ulysses’ home.
BiblioLife, a company based in Charleston, South Carolina, is breathing new life into old tomes by digitising them and printing them on-demand for sale through their own online store, as well as through other web-based retailers, including Amazon.
Of course digitising books is nothing new, with Google's the highest profile project. The search engine giant is working with some of the world's largest libraries – among them the universities of Harvard and Oxford, and the New York Public Library – to scan their collections and make them searchable online.
Of course digitising books is nothing new, with 
