Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer

This is a really good book about Inanna. I goes into the history, literature, religion and culture of Sumer and discusses her poetry and stories. The poetry is of a very old type with numerous repetitions with only a word or two changed from one sentence to another. It also goes into how all these stories about Inanna were found and just how difficult it was to piece them together from the various clay tables that had the cuneiform writing on them.

It show that the 'ancient' civilization of Sumer was not composed of ignorant people but of excellent story tellers, astronomers, writers and so on. It also shows just how strong a character Inanna was, perhaps one of the most positive images of a woman that there ever was, especially in modern times when so many countries look down on women and try hard 'to keep them in their place.'