Lavinia...

I used to think that I never had time to read, but then I started carrying around a book with me to always be able to utilize those wasted moments on the train or in line. It was surprising to see just how much time wasn't being cultivated. I just finished reading Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin, author of A Wizard of Earthsea.

Le Guin pulls the silent character of Lavinia from the lines from Vergil's epic poem, Aeneid, and gives her a voice and expands upon Vergil's unfinished work. The result is rich, woven like a tapestry of words depicting a world before the building of Rome. Flowing like poetry, she masterfully crafts a novel about duty, omens and portents, war, and the various forms of love one can experience.

This is from the book-jacket; it pieces together lines from the novel:

I won't die. Of that I am all but certain. My life is too contingent to lead to anything so absolute as death... And yet if I must go on existing century after century, then once at least I must break out and speak... My mother was mad, but I was not. My father was old, but I was young. Like Spartan Helen, I caused a war. She caused hers by letting men who wanted her take her. I caused mine because I wouldn't be given, wouldn't be taken, but chose my man and my fate.