Aesop - The Complete Fables

So many ways to start a conversation with irritating people that you want to get away from..."well that reminds me of a fable". Just kidding, I love the more popular fables and have enjoyed looking in to the lesser known ones also.

Really interesting and very well written, provides an incredibly useful view of one of the world's most important and influential writers.

A thought provoking and sometimes moving set of moral lessons and stories, they are genuinely inventive and relate to many issues even today. This particular edition is great because it provides an interesting introduction, a spot-on translation, and useful footnotes explaining the historical references in the text. Oh, and this is NOT a children's book, although doubtless a child would appreciate the animal tales at face value.

This review is of the Penguin Classics edition, on Kindle. This complete works - 358 fables, most less than a page long - is simply written and nicely annotated, including a "This fable means..." summary for your kids. But the stories themselves resonate much more deeply, being about timeless themes of honour and jealousy, and are worth reading even if you're alone as an adult. After all, these ancient Greeks shaped the way many of us in the West think today. Problems: on Kindle, the table of contents is nonexistent. A persistent problem with texts converted to Kindle; it seems to happen in around a third of Penguin Classics. More attention to detail would be welcome here, especially since the Kindle versions aren't cheap.

Just as many political and sociological strategies utilized in modern language have their roots in Roman history (such as divide et impera), the philosophical fables penned by Aesop continue to play a significant role in our daily lives as we navigate and question the world around us.

Inspiring fables for any day use. Different ones containing morals to follow and ensure right choices are made in life.

Love my book of fables. Stories to live by.

It seems a very good translation of the original. I really enjoy it. Aesop fables should not miss from our library. The stories are short really good wit let alone that are didactic. A good starting point so for kids as adults.

This version of Aesop's Fables is a good book to read. Lots of valuable information on life and how to apply the lessons from the morals stated in the book, after each story. I am happy to know that each fable was numbered, but no index is in this book. I was able to follow along with the writing style of the book. I was also looking to match up the title of one fable, "The Runaway Slave", but the title was changed to "The Jackdaw Who Escaped". This one is fable 164. The story is the same with the wording changed to remove references to slavery and escaping. I don't condone slavery or anything of the like, but the reason I brought this up is because things change as the moods of the times change, hence the re-wording of fable 164. I also noticed that some fables go by different names in this book, although we may know it by a certain name. What we call "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is titled the "The Joking Shepherd" in this book. The other well known fables have the same title by which most people know them as. I did enjoy reading the "The Hen That Laid The Golden Eggs" though it's more known as "The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs". I have to mention the footnote written in fable 4 requires a little warning into how the author of the book wrote the commentary on comparing gods to Catholic saints, because it is an inaccurate statement. In no way can it be compared praying for the help of a saint, as to praying to a god for a certain cause and then to compare them to each other for which one is the greater one. There's no comparison from opposing gods invented for different reasons, to that of Catholic saints who all worship the same God, and who's overall mission is that of following the Lord Jesus Christ. This is where the confusion must stop in order to overcome this misapplication of religious disparity. The disparity of the gods should be more taken as the differences between two opposing figures who's cause is for different reasons and can't come to an agreement amongst themselves. This is how it is supposed to be applied when referencing ancient deities, regardless of some random similarities between religions. All in all, I do enjoy browsing through the various fables in the book. Each fable has it's own reason for being there. The lessons are valuable to be applied to one's personal life for all ages, from young to old. These are perennial lessons that don't change with the times, regardless of what we do in history. This book, like the Bible, is useful as a blueprint for how to lead our lives, and how to live in peace with one another. May you all enjoy a pleasant read from this book.

Nice. Paper is a bit cheap feeling. But it’s a nice size.

This is a book of 358 fables... and Penguin have been so lazy that there is NO INDEX, and there is NO TABLE OF CONTENTS. So if you want to find "The Tortoise and the Hare" as I just did, you would have to flick through 257 pages manually scanning for it! Aesop assigned character types to his animal designations which makes it easy to find fables covering a particular theme. That is, unless some penny pinching publisher comes along and publishes the fables like a novel - with no index and no table of contents. I'm appalled that the once great Penguin Publishing could fall this low.

Aesop's Fables (Dover Children's Thrift Classics) 話を読むだけならば、上の薄い本でも充分ですが イソップ寓話の由来について作者とその後の翻訳や継ぎ足しなどについての情報が Aesop's Fables (Oxford World's Classics) この本より控えめに掲載されています ひとつのお話の後に、この話の道徳的考察とその話が英語の単語の語源や由来や 慣用句となった場合それが掲載されているので、とても好感が持てました 目次がないので、話を探すのには苦労しますが概ねアルファベット順です

Good luck trying to find the fable you are looking for without wading through over 200 pages of over 300 fables.