As a committed reader of great literature, I've felt a growing unease at having never read any Homer. The Illiad and Odyssey are both on my to-read list. Problem is I really have very little interest in reading Homer other than to basically get it out of the way and move on.
IOW, I want to have knowledge of Homer but don't want to spend the time. Are there any abridged versions out there? Seems like blasphemy but in the time it would take to do a serious reading of these two works, I could enjoy a good handful of other great books.
Of course, I might end up enjoying Homer, who knows...