Blue Skies and Black
Olives, by John Humphrys
In a moment of mad
impulse, newsreader John Humphrys decided to buy a
semi-derelict cottage with stunning views over the Aegean.
What could possibly go wrong?
It's All Greek
to Me!, by John Mole
A beautiful view
and a persuasive local prompted the Mole family’s
impulsive purchase of “a tumbledown ruin on a hillside
with no water, no electricity, no roof, no floor, no
doors, no windows and twenty years of goat dung!”
Greece on my
Wheels, by Edward Enfield
Mounted on his
trusty steed, Edward Enfield (father of comedian, Harry
Enfield) explores the beauty and history of the
Pelopponese in a travelogue that combines wit, charm, and
scholarship.
Crying Blue
Murder, by Paul Johnston
Originally
released under the title Deeper Shade of Blue, this is the first in
a series by Scottish author Paul Johnston, who struck on
the ingenious idea of inventing the character of Alex
Mavros, an Athens-based private investigator who is half
Scots and half Greek, and these books are detective
stories, a genre almost totally unknown in Greek
literature: The whitewashed walls of paradise hide acts of
chilling depravity. When Alex Mavros is hired to find
American tourist Rosa Ozal, it looks like a
straightforward missing person case for the Athens-based
private detective. Arriving on the Greek island where Rosa
was last seen, he finds something deeply wrong. As he
begins to unravel the mystery, Mavros discovers an island
steeped in horrors beyond his wildest imaginings.
The Last Red
Death, by Paul Johnston
Now they’re back and
ready to take their final revenge. In the 1970s, Iraklis
was a Greek terrorist group targeting capitalist
politicians in a spate of gruesome ritualistic slaughters.
Now two high-profile businessmen have been dispatched with
deadly efficiency. Athens’ wealthy elite fear Iraklis is
back .
"With
this
gripping, vicious thriller, Paul Johnston proves yet again
why he deserves his place on the crime-writing pedestal
beside Ian Rankin and Quintin Jardine" Daily Record
The Golden
Silence, by Paul Johnston
The Father and Son
are back – and in demand In an explosion of gang rivalry,
brutally tortured bodies have been turning up all over
Athens. Nobody dares speak the names of the Father and
Son, but it appears the deadly duo of enforcers is back
and more ruthless than ever.
Silver Stain, by Paul Johnston
Hired by a
Hollywood film company to trace a missing employee in
Crete, private investigator Alex Mavros is plunged into a
vortex of hatred. The company is shooting a movie about
the invasion of Crete by the Germans in 1941 – and their
activities are stirring up old resentments among the
islanders.
The Green Lady, by Paul Johnston
Set against a
glorious Greek backdrop, an intriguing new mystery
featuring half Greek, half Scots PI, Alex Mavros. Hired
by the wife of one of Greece’s richest men to find her
missing fourteen-year-old daughter, Mavros faces an
uphill battle.
The Black Life, by
Paul Johnstone
" powerful novel on many levels…harrowing in places,
it’s a gripping private eye-novel that offers a chilling
snapshot of modern Greece" - Declan Burke, Irish
Times
The White Sea,
by Paul Johnstone
"Multifaceted…all these separate strands come
together in a tremendously exciting conclusion which was
worth waiting for…" - Eurocrime
The Illegal
Gardener, by Sara Alexi
Driven by a need
for some control in her life, Juliet sells up on impulse
and buys a dilapidated farmhouse in a tiny Greek village,
leaving her English life behind. The house is liveable by
local standards, but the job of restoring the garden is
too big. She needs help.
Black
Butterflies, by Sara Alexi
At thirteen Marina
meets the love of her life. At fourteen she is married off
to a man twice her age whom she has never met. But Marina
has a dark secret that she has kept closely guarded for
most of her life. Not even her daughters know that as a
young girl she spent a lonely and deeply disturbing summer
on an island, and the events that unfolded then have
haunted her ever since.
The Explosive
Nature of Friendship, by Sara Alexi
Mitsos has spent
the last twenty years trying to comes to terms with the
events of a single day and all that led up to it. In his
twilight years a suprising turn of events gives him a
chance to rectify his biggest wrong and give himself the
peace he is seeking. But is what he has wanted for the
last twenty years what he still wants now?
Captain
Corelli's Mandolin, by Louis de
Bernières
A classic love
story set on Kefalonia during the Second World War and the
subsequent Greek Civil War. Read it and shed a tear - for
the heroine, for the heroes, for humanity.
Birds Without
Wings, by Louis de Bernières
Set against the
backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, the Gallipoli
campaign and the subsequent bitter struggle between Greeks
and Turks, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one
small community in south-west Anatolia - a town in which
Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed
peacefully for centuries.
The Island, by Victoria Hislop
The best-selling
fictional drama about the leper colony on the Cretan
island of Spinalonga.
The Thread, by Victoria Hislop
A young
Anglo-Greek hears his grandparents' life story for the
first time and realises he has a decision to make. For
many decades, they have looked after the memories and
treasures of the people who were forced to leave. Should
he become their next custodian and make Thessaloniki his
home?
The House of
Dust and Dreams, by Brenda Reid
A house in ruins.
An island at war. A love affair just beginning… Greece
1936. A young British diplomat and his wife have been
posted to Athens. Hugh loves the life there but his
spirited and unconventional wife, Heavenly, finds it hard
to fit into the whirl of endless parties and socialising.
The Magus, by John Fowles
A classic tale
of passion, pretence and intrigue, perhaps inspired by his
experiences as a master at the Anargyros College on
Spetses.
The Corfu
Trilogy, by Gerald Durrell
The Corfu Trilogy
consists of the popular classic My Family and Other
Animals and its delightful sequels, Birds,
Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods.
All three books are set on the enchanted island of Corfu
in the 1930s, and tell the story of the eccentric English
family who moved there.
The Magic in
the Receiver, by Paul Dillon
Tragedy strikes
the Katros family following the Great Ionian Earthquake
and nine-year-old Ioannis joins thousands in a
mass-evacuation of the Greek island. Sixty years later,
accompanied by his American daughter Elena, Ioannis
returns to attend a mysterious mountain festival and lay
his ghosts to rest. Embracing her Kefalonian roots, Elena
extends her stay on the island. A chance encounter...
Eleni, by Nicholas Gage
An utterly
harrowing and deeply personal account, vividly and
graphically told by the author, of his mother's life and
his discovery of the truth about her execution by the
Greek communist army during the civil war.
North of Ithaka, by Eleni Gage
A follow up to
Eleni by her daughter, it's the story of her return to her
family's old house.
Oil Paint and
Greece, by Peter Hemming
On April 3rd 2001,
part time artist Peter Hemming arrived on the Greek island
of Kefalonia for what was to be a six month painting
holiday, a relaxing summer in the sun! He stayed a little
longer.
The Greek Myths, by Robert Graves
The definitive
interpretation of the classical myths in two volumes, from
The Creation to Odysseas.
Tales of Greek
Heroes, by Roger Lancelyn Green
A slightly
different interpretation of the Greek myths and not as
detailed, but an easier read.
Zorba the Greek, by Nikos
Kazantzakis
This classic
novel, the basis for the Oscar-winning 1964 film of the
same name, vividly portrays the complex and multifaceted
friendship between a young Greek intellectual and Alexis
Zorba, a sixty-year-old swashbuckling Romanian-born Greek
whose bullish charm and self-professed excellence as a
chef, miner, and musician immediately draws the young man
to hire him as a foreman in an ambitious new mining
venture in Crete.
Not (yet) available as ebooks but by local authors
and *may* be found locally:
A Guided Walk
to Old Skala, by Jean Baker
Old
Skala - Memories of the Earthquakes of 1953, by Jean Baker
The
Promised Journey (Pontus to Kefalonia), by Sophia Kappatos
Sophia from Tara
Beach in Skala has written her father's story during and
since the troubled times of the exile of Greeks from
Turkey.
Nagis
- Growing up in Kefalonia 1940-1950, by Panagis
Spiliotis
A local lad from
Ratzakli describes his early life growing up during WW2
and the Civil War that followed. This book is available
from Aeolis Hotel, Skala.
The Roads of
Cefalonia, by Helen Cosmetatos
Helen
Cosmetatos was curator of the Koryialenios Museum and
compiled a fascinating guide to the history of the roads
of Kefalonia.
Point
and Counter Point, by Nicholas Enessee
Two stories run in
parallel - the history of the island of Kefalonia and that
of a remarkable woman, Nicholas' mother, Helen Cosmetatos,
“who had landed on Cephalonia from England in the middle
of the war, armed only with her violin”.
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