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Fiction
The Battle of Thermopylae, Steven Pressfield, Doubleday,
1998.
A national bestseller, this epic novel is a brilliant telling of a battle
brilliantly waged. The narrator is the gravely wounded sole survivor
of the Battle of Thermopylae, fought in 480 BC between the Persians
and a small number of Spartans under the heroic leadership of King Leonidas.
If you can tolerate or bypass the gory details, you will be rewarded
by the author's masterful recreation of the Spartan way of life.
The Collected Stories and other titles by H. Petrakis.
Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres, Vintage,
1994
A popular book club book that takes patience at the beginning, this
novel seamlessly blends history of WW II in Greece with wit and romance.
Rich and engaging.
A Crowded Heart, Nicholas Papandreou, Picador USA, 1996.
Written by the son of former Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou,
Papandreou creates a young boy whose family is uprooted from their home
in the United States and moves to Greece where the father pursues his
political ambitions. The family is swept up in an avalanche of revolution,
military dictatorship, and exile.
The King Must Die and A Bull from the Sea,
Mary Renault***
A beautiful rendering of the historical facts and myths surrounding
the ancient city-state of Athens and the ancient kingdom of Minoan Crete,
the books bring to life King Minos, Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur.
The Murderess, Alexandros Papadiamantis, Writers and Readers
Publishing, 1983.****
This classic of modern Greek literature is a popular tragedy. Its heroine
confronts "woman's fate" with her own violent solution. A powerful,
disturbing, and haunting story.
The Scorpion and Other Stories, Lili Bita, Pella, 1998.****
These stories are about growing up both Greek and female in a culture
characterized by patriarchal oppression. The author is an important
feminist voice, and her stories about women whose only choices are submission,
madness, or violence have meaning for cultures far removed from Greece.
Tales from a Greek Island, Alexandros Papadiamantis, Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1987.
Twelve stories set in the author's native island of Skiathos capture
the folkways of Greece. The book captivates the reader with its rich
combination of realism and symbolism, sensuality, and mysticism.
Zorba the Greek and other titles by Nikos Kazantzakis.
Non-fiction
The Colossus of Maroussi, Henry Miller, New Directions
Paperbook, 1941.
This book about the author's travels in Greece is incandescent with
his feeling for a great people and their past.
Dancing Girl: Themes and Improvisations in a Greek Village Setting,
Thordis Simonsen, Fundamental Note, 1991.****
In 1982, the author moved to Elika, Greece. The villagers invited the
"American Girl" to participate in every facet of village life,
and they told their stories to her. Dancing Girl is a
collection of 44 warm, spirited vignettes based on stories the villagers
tell about themselves and those the author tells about the village.
Demons and the Devil, Charles Stewart, Princeton University
Press, 1991.
Drawing on an unusual range of sources, from the author's fieldwork
on the island of Naxos to Orthodox liturgical texts, this book pictures
demons and other exotica as figures that enable individuals to navigate
the traumas and ambiguities of life. Stewart examines the social forces
that have alternatively led Greeks to understand these demons as links
with the classical past or to reject them as signs of ignorance.
Eleni, Nicholas Gage, Ballantine Books, 1983.
This is the reconstructed story of the imprisonment, torture, and execution
in cold blood of the author's mother for arranging the escape of her
three children during the civil war in 1948.
The First Fossil Hunters, Adrienne Mayor, Princeton University
Press, 2000.
The author theorizes that creatures once thought to be products of the
imagination of the ancients actually are based in solid paleontological
fact. For example, the picture of the griffin, a lion-size predator
with a strong curved beak and wings, was developed nearly 3000 years
ago by Scythian nomads prospecting for gold in the Gobi desert where
exposed fossil remains continue to occur in abundance. When Greeks first
made contact with the nomads from this area sometime in the 7th century
B.C., they acquired stories about the gold-guarding griffin along with
gold and other exotic goods. Mayor's account of how a ferocious, exotic
creature had been brought to life from bones by the Scythian nomads
is fascinating. Not to mention the Cyclops and other giants and monsters
of whom she writes. The book reads like an adventure mystery. It's a
masterpiece!
Greek Women in Resistance, Eleni Fourtouni, Thelphini Press,
1986.****
From 1940-1950 women, who for centuries had been confined to the home,
joined the Resistance and gained a sense of their human potential. Those
confined to concentration camps were severely oppressed, yet by harnessing
their energy and resources, they resisted tyranny.
Honour, Family, and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values
in a Greek Mountain Community, J.K. Campbell, Oxford University
Press, 1964.**
This book is a fascinating in-depth study of the fundamental values
and institutions of a traditional community of Sarakatsani shepherds
in the Greek mountains.
Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, Patrick Leigh
Fermor, Penguin Books,1958.*
Mani is a glorious fusion of scholarship, imagination,
and history. The Mani was a remote and untouched region of the Greek
Peloponnese where people lived in stone towers and practised the vendetta.
The book is an inspired evocation of the past.
My Story, Elisavet Moutzan-Martinegrou, University of
Georgia Press, 1989.
This first literary work in modern Greek by a woman sheds light on the
restricted life of a genteel 19th century woman of the island of Zakynthos.
She confides her feelings of lonliness and frustration and her longing
for independence.
Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis, Simon and Schuster,
1965.
Autobiography by the author of Zorba the Greek and
other classic works.
The Unwritten Places, Tim Salmon, Lycabettus Press, 1995.**
The author travels into the remote and trackless northern Pindos mountains
to discover the landscape and to become a part of the life of the of
a black-caped Vlach shepherd family. The book is a story of passion
and friendship.
*Of particular interest to participants
in The Peloponnese
**Of particular interest to participants
in Epiros & Thessaly
***Of particular interest to participants in Crete
****Reading for Greek Village
Sojourn
Autographed copies of Dancing Girl can be ordered directly
from astragreece
inc.
Please indicate the number of copies you would like and send a check
or money order made out to astragreece inc. for the amount indicated.
Books will be shipped by U.S.P.S. Priority Mail.
1 copy - $18.50
2 copies - $33.95
3 copies - $50.15
Mail your order and payment to:
Thordis Simonsen
astragreece inc.
P.O. Box 460681
Glendale, Colorado 80246
Most of the titles listed can be ordered from:
Tattered Cover
Book Store tel 800 833-9327 or 303 322-7727
Greece in Print
tel 800 267-6672
Videos
Corelli's Mandolin
Eleni
Mediterraneo
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Shirley Valentine
Zorba the Greek
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