"The Pig Scrolls," Paul Shipton, Puffin Books; March 2004; 224 pp.

Author Paul Shipton warns us at the outset of his (sort of) Greek-style epic that though every effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the material, the Great Library of Alexandria was closed on the Tuesday afternoon he tried to go there. (Err, actually, it's been closed 24/7 since before Christ was born, so our author was about two millennia too late.)

Without the guidance of the great tomes of Alexandria, what Shipton gives us is the product of an overactive imagination -- the tallest pig tale of them all.

So move aside, Odysseus! Out of the way, Achilles! Gryllus is here! And Gryllus is a pig. Yes, you read that correctly. He's a talking pig with a profound distaste for poetic convention. The invocation of this prose epic doesn't call upon the Greek muses for inspiration. "If the Muses don't like it, they can lump it," he grunts.