Wednesday 12 April 2017

Hislop, Victoria "Cartes Postales from Greece" - 2016


Hislop, Victoria "Cartes Postales from Greece" - 2016

Victoria Hislop has become one of my favourite authors. I loved all of her books so far.  And this one was just another brilliant one by this writer whom I've come to love after reading her other books beginning with the "The Island" until "The Sunrise" and this one is no different. First I was a little apprehensive since it was described as a "collection of short stories" and I don't really like short stories that much. But I had already liked her other collection, "The Last Dance and Other Stories", so I was determined to read this.

And I was not disappointed. Like in all her other books, the author manages to describe her characters so well and makes you want to get on a plane and go visit the place right away.

So does, Ellie, the "reader" of this story who receives postcards from a stranger. Well, they seem to be to a previous person living in her flat but since she doesn't know where S. is now, she has no idea where to send them. She starts loving the places described and goes on a trip to Greece. Quite a lovely story through which we get to know a lot of Greek folk stories and tales of contemporary Greek people.

Great read. If you like Greece or want to know more about it, the authors novels are all brilliant but this one gives you quite an overview since it travels through the country.

From the back cover:
"Week after week, the postcards arrive, addressed to a name Ellie does not know, with no return address, each signed with an initial: A.

With their bright skies, blue seas and alluring images of Greece, these cartes postales brighten her life. After six months, to her disappointment, they cease. But the montage she has created on the wall of her flat has cast a spell. She must see this country for herself.

On the morning Ellie leaves for Athens, a notebook arrives. Its pages tell the story of a man's odyssey through Greece. Moving, surprising and sometimes dark, A's tale unfolds with the discovery not only of a culture but also of a desire to live life to the full once more.

Beloved, bestselling author Victoria Hislop's Cartes Postales from Greece is fiction illustrated with photographs that make this journey around Greece, already alive in the imagination, linger forever in the mind."

3 comments:

  1. Never read any of her books, but this sounds good. Greece is one of our favorite countries. I think my husband's favorite book is Zorba the Greek.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good to know about fiction set in Greece! I have read almost all of Nikos Kazantzakis's novels but reading about current Greeks would be so interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you would both love her books, anyone who is interested in modern Greece probably is. Just click on "Author: Victoria Hislop" under labels and you will find all her books. Only "The Return" is about Spain, the rest is all Greece.

    Under "Greece", you will also find some more books, i.a. "Modern Greece. A Short History" by C.M. Woodhouse. I was given this by a Greek friend and really appreciated, a lot of history in there, well written to understand where modern time Greece comes from.

    Happy Reading,
    Marianne

    ReplyDelete