Book picks similar to
Tower of Birds by Holly SmithSergei Abramov
greece
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The Long Shadow
Loretta Proctor - 2013
As the sun rose we began to see the sprawl of little Turkish houses clambering the steep slopes, painted in rosy pink, mauve, white, yellow, blue. The white domes of the Greek churches glistened in the fresh morning sunshine. The Long Shadow is compelling historical novel which tells the human story of the Eastern campaign in Salonika and will appeal to readers of The Island and The Thread. Fourteen-year-old Andrew discovers his mother's hidden diary at his grandmother's house during a Christmas holiday. His eyes are opened to a family secret when he reads about her time as a nurse on Salonika during the First World War, and the tragic love affair she had with his father, a Greek officer, who died in battle. Four years later Andrew is compelled to visit his father's country and trace his roots. What - and whom - he meets there will change his life forever. The Long Shadow is filled with descriptions of Greece and its people, dramatic images of battles and the terrible conditions endured by the allied armies fighting around Salonika. The Long Shadow illuminates a period of history not often featured in fiction and is highly topical as we approach the centenary of WW1 in 2014.
Scorpionfish
Natalie Bakopoulos - 2020
On her first night back, she encounters a new neighbor, a longtime ship captain who has found himself, for the first time in years, no longer at sea. As one summer night tumbles into another, Mira and the Captain’s voices drift across the balconies of their apartments, disclosing details and stories: of careers, of families, of love.For Mira, love has so often meant Aris, an ex-boyfriend and rising Greek politician who has recently become engaged to a movie star. There is, too, her love for her dear friend Nefeli—a well-known queer artist who came of age during the military dictatorship—as well as Dimitra and Fady, a couple caring for a young refugee boy. Undergirding each relationship is the love that these characters have for Athens, a beautiful but complicated city that is equal parts lushness and sharp edges.Scorpionfish is a map of how—and where—we find our true selves: in the pull of the sea, the sway of late-night bar music, the risk and promise of art, and—perhaps most of all—in the sparkling, electric, summertime charge of endless possibility. Award-winning author Natalie Bakopoulos weaves a story of vulnerability, desire, and bittersweet truth, unraveling old ways of living and, in the end, creating something new.
Protogenesis: Before the Beginning
Alysia Helming - 2015
One fateful day, life as she knows it comes to a grinding halt. There was a fire. Her mother is gone. But something is not right... The Greek Mafia may be involved. Vivid dreams of ancient deities consume her sleep. A maze of clues leads her to believe that her mother is still alive... She must go to Greece. The answers to her perilous quest lie there, as Helene braves into the unknown of a new life, torn between two Greek guys and a new world that literally awaits her. And who knows, maybe the Greek gods and goddesses are on her side... or maybe not. After all, nothing is as it seems. Over 500 people in Greece have contributed to the Author’s research for the Protogenesis novel, including renowned Greek archeologists, cultural and mythology experts, and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Due to the overwhelming support Alysia has from so many in Greece, Protogenesis has been selected to be featured as part of the United Nations’ (UNESCO) 2018 World Book Capital event in Athens. The book features theme song “Forever & Tonight” by Platinum Greek Singer, Kostas Martakis.
Deep Purple
Parris Afton Bonds - 1982
Some say she haunted that area of Cristo Rey because she was a tormented wraith looking for the lover denied her in life. And others say she rode the area, its barren deserts and rock-clad mountains and lush, grassy valleys, because her soul was condemned to wander Cristo Rey until the fifty thousand acres—and the Stronghold—were at last returned to her heirs. Of course, I preferred to believe the latter . . . perhaps because at that young age my childish mind could not conceive of a love so great that it would transcend time and space. I had yet to taste of love’s binding passion. But in all likelihood I chose to believe that version of the tale because even then I knew, like my Ghost Lady, my soul would know no peace until I possessed what rightfully belonged to me . . . Cristo Rey.
Complete Poems
George Seferis - 1986
Truthful and magical, his poetry has captivated both Greek and foreign readers. Aptly described by Charlotte Du Cann as 'the unlocker of ancient stones and sea voyages', Seferis was for Peter Levi 'one of the greatest writers in this century in any language...From Seferis it was possible to learn...what seriousness about poetry is'.
Secrets of Santorini
Patricia Wilson - 2019
. . Sent away to convent school at the age of six, Irini McGuire has never really known her celebrated archaeologist mother, Bridget, who lives on the paradise island of Santorini. So, when Irini receives news that Bridget has been injured at a dig and is in coma she knows it is time to return to the island of her birth. Discovering her mother's notes, and driven by rumours that her mother's injury was no accident, Irini starts to reveal the dark secrets behind her family's separation.Can she unearth the truth about her parents and her past before it is too late?
Outline
Rachel Cusk - 2014
Though her own circumstances remain indistinct, she becomes the audience to a chain of narratives, as the people she meets tell her one after another the stories of their lives.Beginning with the neighbouring passenger on the flight out and his tales of fast boats and failed marriages, the storytellers talk of their loves and ambitions and pains, their anxieties, their perceptions and daily lives. In the stifling heat and noise of the city the sequence of voice begins to weave a complex human tapestry. The more they talk the more elliptical their listener becomes, as she shapes and directs their accounts until certain themes begin to emerge: the experience of loss, the nature of family life, the difficulty of intimacy and the mystery of creativity itself.Outline is a novel about writing and talking, about self-effacement and self-expression, about the desire to create and the human art of self-portraiture in which that desire finds its universal form.
Murder in Mykonos
Jeffrey Siger - 2008
And no one notices.That is, until a body turns up on a pile of bones under the floor of a remote mountain church. Then the island's new police chief, the young, politically incorrect, former Athens homicide detective Andreas Kaldisastarts finding bodies, bones, and suspects almost everywhere he looks.Teamed with the canny, nearly-retired local homicide chief, Andreas tries to find the killer before the media can destroy the island's fabled reputation with a barrage of world-wide attention on a mystery that's haunted Mykonos undetected for decades.Just when it seems things can't get any worse, another young woman disappears and political niceties no longer matter. With the investigation now a rescue operation, Andreas finds himself plunging into ancient myths and forgotten island places, racing against a killer intent on claiming a new victim who is herself determined to outstep him.
The Messenger of Athens
Anne Zouroudi - 2007
So when the battered body of a young woman is discovered at the foot of a cliff, the local police - governed more by archaic rules of honor than by the law - are quick to close the case, dismissing her death as an accident. Then a stranger arrives, uninvited, from Athens, announcing his intention to investigate further into the crime he believes has been committed. Refusing to accept the woman's death as an accident or suicide, Hermes Diaktoros sets out to uncover the truths that skulk beneath this small community's exterior. Hermes's methods of investigation are unorthodox, and his message to the islanders is plain - tell the truth or face the consequences. Before long, he's uncovering a tale of passion, corruption and murder that entangles many of the island's residents. But Hermes brings his own mystery into the web of dark secrets and lies - and as he travels the rugged island landscape to investigate, questions and suspicions arise amongst the locals. Who has sent him to Thiminos, and on whose authority is he acting? And how does he know of dramas played out decades ago? Rich in images of Greece's beautiful islands and evoking a life unknown to most outsiders, this wonderful novel leads the reader into a world where the myths of the past are not forgotten and forbidden passion still has dangerous consequences.
A Classical Primer: Ancient Knowledge for Modern Minds
Dan Crompton - 2012
Nietzsche and Postmodernism
Dave Robinson - 1995
In the POSTMODERN ENCOUNTERS series, Dave Robinson explains the key ideas of this Anti-Christ philosopher and then provides a clear account of the central themes of postmodernist thought exemplified by such thinkers as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard and Rorty.
Culinaria Greece: Greek Specialties
Marianthi Milona - 2004
Since 1990, she has been a journalist for regional, national, and international radio and print media. Because of her in-depth knowledge of Greece and the Balkans, she regularly makes extended research trips to all the important areas of southeast Europe. Werner Stapelfeldt began his career as a photographer for travel guides and magazines. After studying photo design he went to work as a freelance photographer, predominantly in the commercial field, working for agencies and institutions. His assignment with the Culinaria series took him to Greece for eight months, where he uncovered unusual wines, fruits, and various Greek dishes. He spent time with people at work and at play and, of course, at the table, all the while endeavoring to capture the country, its specialties, and its atmosphere in the photographs that illustrate this book.
Farewell to Salonica: City at the Crossroads
Leon Sciaky - 2003
This Paul Dry Books rediscovered classic includes many photos courtesy of Leon Sciaky's son Peter, who has also written a short biographical sketch of his father's life in America."Farewell to Salonica is a fresh and charming book that throws a kindly light on a sector of human life unknown to most Americans."—New York Times"A gallery of beautiful and quaint sketches, revealing fascinating aspects of civilization in a strange city where East met West and the ancient past met the future…It creates an atmosphere of expectation and wonder and enjoyment. Most of all, an atmosphere of living."—Christian Science Monitor"An altogether charming book, so simply and truthfully written…The Salonica one reads about is not only a fascinating and complex city in which many national and cultural strains run side by side, but it is a critical city of Aegean politics…The breakdown of the Turkish Empire and its consequences for Balkan affairs are better understood when one has read this book. But it is not the political value of the book that should be emphasized so much as its quiet charm, its unpretentious and easy portrayal of a cultural pattern through an account of an engaging family…A warm and softly luminous book."—The Nation"This is a story of one man's intensely happy boyhood, set against the politically seething years at the turn of the century in the ever-coveted prize city of the Balkans, Salonica…written in a charming and effortless manner."—Philadelphia Inquirer"For the gift of a happy youth, Mr. Sciaky has repaid his city handsomely…it recalls Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon…It is an intensely personal story, yet so completely was [the young Sciaky] of his time and place that it is also the story of Salonica in the final phase of its existence; for the city that Sciaky knew, largely dominated by its 70,000 Spanish Jews, has gone…The author has made Salonica a living town, peopled by men and women of flesh and blood, people with all the human faults and weaknesses, but also with the lovable qualities that may be found in humanity everywhere by the man with skill to pick them out"—New York Herald Tribune"A charming portrait of an era."—Honolulu Advertiser"This picture of a Jewish childhood among rich merchants in Salonica has a glow, the radiant sunshine of a protected childhood."—Chicago SunLeon Sciaky was born in 1894, when the Turkish flag still waved over Salonica. His family left their beloved but turbulent homeland in 1915, settling in New York City. Sciaky lived in America—mainly upstate New York—with his wife, Frances, and son until his death in 1958. He taught at a number of progressive schools and camps and, in his last years, owned and operated a school and camp with Frances.
Cats in the Sun
Hans W. Silvester - 1993
An international favorite since its original hardcover publication in Spring 1994, this spectacular collection of enthralling, full-color photographs portrays an array of serendipitous and thoroughly charming cats against a backdrop of the beautiful Greek Isles. Combining the romantic beauty of the Mediterranean and the delightful behavior of felines, Cats in the Sun will appeal to cat lovers, travelers, and photographers alike.