Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays"

Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays" (Greek: Lysistrátē/Λυσιστράτη) - 411 BC

For the Classics Spin #41, we received #11 and this was my novel.

I had found this book a while ago in a used book sale. I am grateful for that because that way, I only paid €1 for it.

My edition included not just "Lysistrata" but also "The Acharnians" (Acharnes) and "The Clouds" (Nephelai).

As you can see in the description, they praise the author's "ribald humour". Ribald it was indeed but I couldn't find humour in that, it was far too rough, coarse and crude. Probably the times. I wouldn't be surprised if this book was on the banned book list in the States.

But the stories itself also weren't too interesting. I think one must see this and not read it. Someone told me that the play is indeed hilarious and that the costumes added a lot to that. Well, Aristophanes didn't explain that. LOL

Book Description:

"Writing at the time of political and social crisis in Athens, Aristophanes was an eloquent yet bawdy challenger to the demagogue and the sophist. The Achanians is a plea for peace set against the background of the long war with Sparta. In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war. The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged.

For this edition Alan Sommerstein has completely revised his translation of these three plays, bringing out the full nuances of Aristophanes’ ribald humour and intricate word play, with a new introduction explaining the historical and cultural background to the plays."

Here are all the books on my original Classics Club list.
And here is a list of all the books I read with the Classics Spin.

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine"

Hislop, Victoria "The Figurine" - 2023

I have been a fan of Victoria Hislop since I read her first book "The Island". I have only been to Greece once, and not even to the mainland but to Crete. But through this author, I have come to love the country and this one is one of her best.

The heroine of the book, Helena, has a Scottish father and a Greek mother. And her family does the best thing one can do to a bi-cultural child, they send her to her grandparents for the holidays so that she becomes a fully bilingual child.

The story is so exciting, not just from the language or the Greek point of view, there is so much going on and we can follow Greek history recent and ancient in this one novel. Fantastic.

I don't know which one is my favourite, "The Island" or this one but it certainly is one of the two. Such a beautiful story.

From the back cover:

"'Her love for Greece shines through and transports readers to a brilliantly drawn world' Independent

'Family turmoil, unanswered questions, romance and betrayal, all served up against the backdrop of Greece and its enchanting history' Daily Express

An unputdownable read with a family's dark history giving a unique glimpse into Greece's troubled past. Athens sparkles in Victoria Hislop's imagination. Concealed beneath the dust sheets in the Athens apartment she has inherited from her grandparents, Helena McCloud discovers a hidden hoard of rare antiquities, amassed during a dark period in Greek history when the city and its people were gripped by a brutal military dictatorship. Helena's fascination for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent on a dig on an Aegean island, tells her that she must return these precious artefacts to their rightful place. Only then will she be able to allay the darkness of the past and find the true meaning of home - for cultural treasures and for herself."

Hislop, Victoria "Maria's Island"

Hislop, Victoria "Maria's Island" - 2021

If you've read "The Island" and its follow-up, "One August Night", you might want to consider this. Or, if you have children who like to read.

This is Maria's story, the girl growing up in the village near the Spinalonga, the Greek island where they would send people with leprosy before they found a cure.

Not only had Victoria Hislop retold the story in such a lovely way that it will be perfectly understood by children, she also found a wonderful illustrator, Gill Smith, who brings the people and the island to life. I have been to Spinalonga a long time before the books were written, and reading her books takes me back to this beautiful little place. It is just as described by this brilliant author.

From the back cover:

"A dramatic and moving story set in the same world as the international bestseller The Island from the celebrated novelist Victoria Hislop.

The absorbing story of the Cretan village of Plaka and the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece's former leper colony - is told to us by Maria Petrakis, one of the children in the original version of The Island. She tells us of the ancient and misunderstood disease of leprosy, exploring the themes of stigma, shame and the treatment of those who are different, which are as relevant for children as adults.

Gill Smith's rich, full-colour illustrations will transport the reader to the timeless and beautiful Greek landscape and Mediterranean seascape."

Highsmith, Patricia "The Talented Mr. Ripley"

Highsmith, Patricia "The Talented Mr. Ripley" - 1955

This is my seventh Classic Spin and we were given #12.

I found this book on a swap shelf, otherwise I probably wouldn't have even looked at it, I'm not much into crime stories. I had heard of Mr. Ripley through the film of the same name with Matt Damon and Jude Law but never watched it, for the same reason as I normally wouldn't have read this book.

However, Patricia Highsmith is an author with a high reputation and I thought I ought to read at least one of her books. And I'm glad I did. Not because I really enjoyed the story all that much but because she was a talented author.

The characters reminded me a little of "The Great Gatsby", those young people living without any aim or task, only thinking about themselves.

I know there are a lot more books about Tom Ripley but I doubt I'll read any of them, even though the story was well written, this is not my kind of thing.

From the back cover:

"Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law, when an unexpected acquaintance offers him a free trip to Europe and a chance to start over. Ripley wants money, success and the good life and he's willing to kill for it. When his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking."

Hislop, Victoria "One August Night"

Hislop, Victoria "One August Night" - 2020

I absolutely love Victoria Hislop. My first book by her was "The Island" and I have read all her subsequent novels (see here). All of them were fantastic, great stories with a lot of information mainly about Greece but also some other Southern European countries (Cyprus, Spain, Turkey).

Fourteen years after her first novel, the sequel to it was published. It is the end of the leper colony in Greece since they found a cure. That is great news for some since their loved ones return, not so good news for others who fear their lives will change. And they do.

A drama that occurs on the return changes the life of everyone whom we got to know in the first book. It would have been nice to learn more about other inhabitants of Spinalonga but we learn more about Maria who spent a long time of her life there.

As in all her novels, Victoria Hislop tells us a lot about her beloved country Greece. She has been made an honorary citizen in the meantime, a well-deserved recognition. I always love her describing the Greek whom I got to know as a warm and loving people. And her stories always have a feeling of truth, you can believe the people really existed, they led this life. She always brings me back to Crete which I really love.

I am already looking forward to her next book which she will hopefully write soon.

From the back cover:

"25th August 1957. The island of Spinalonga closes its leper colony. And a moment of violence has devastating consequences.

When time stops dead for Maria Petrakis and her sister, Anna, two families splinter apart and, for the people of Plaka, the closure of Spinalonga is forever coloured with tragedy.

In the aftermath, the question of how to resume life looms large. Stigma and scandal need to be confronted and somehow, for those impacted, a future built from the ruins of the past.

Number one bestselling author Victoria Hislop returns to the world and characters she created in The Island - the award-winning novel that remains one of the biggest selling reading group novels of the century. It is finally time to be reunited with Anna, Maria, Manolis and Andreas in the weeks leading up to the evacuation of the island... and beyond."

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

Rhoides, Emmanuel "The Curious History of Pope Joan"

Rhoides, Emmanuel (Emmanuel Roidis) "The Curious History of Pope Joan" (Greek: Πάπισσα Ιωάννα/Papissa Ioanna) - 1866

With my book club, I read "Pope Joan" by Donna Woolfolk Cross twenty years ago (my, how time flies!) At some point, I bought this older book about the same subject because it was on a reduced shelf in my bookshop.

Same as the first book I read, this didn't really impress me that much. Granted, there might have been a female pope, I can well believe that but the story itself wasn't too exciting. Also, I couldn't detect the humour that some people loved so much.

However, there is some information about life in the 9th century. That's always nice.

Since this was a Greek book, I read it in German. "Die Päpstin Johanna von Ingelheim"

From the back cover:

"'Pope Joan' or 'Papissa Joanna' was originally published in 1886 by the Greek author Emmanuel Royidis. It tells the story of Pope John VIII, the purported ruler of Xendom for a period of two years, five months & four days in the middle of the 9th century. 'Pope Joan' is a comic masterpiece of irreverence towards the medieval Church & the accepted pieties of its revisionist historians. Indeed, insofar as Royidis continued to propagate the legend of Pope Joan, to claim that the work contained only 'facts & events proved beyond discussion', the text itself ingeniously combines history, legend & wit to subvert claims of authority. As Durrell notes in his Preface to his English translation & adaptation, 'the authorities of the Orthodox Church were horrified by what seemed to them to be the impious irony of its author - & no less by the gallery of maggot-ridden church fathers which he described so lovingly.' Not suprisingly, Royidis was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church, his book banned in Greece.

The first three parts of 'Pope Joan' tell of Joanna prior to her arrival in Rome, before she became an historical personage. Set in the 9th century, the narrative captures Europe after the death of Charlemagne, a time when civilization was tenuous & the Church provided one of the few viable social structures. This part is the imagined story of Joanna's life in Germany & then in Greece. After her parents die, Joanna clandestinely enters a monastery where she meets the monk Frumentius & develops a romantic relationship with him. When her gender is surmised, Joanna & Frumentius flee one monastery & then another, eventually ending up in Greece. Joanna soon becomes tired of romance & her intellectual brilliance attracts the attention of Church leaders thruout Greece. She leaves Frumentius & departs alone for Rome, where the legend, some say the history, of Pope Joan begins. She becomes a papal secretary renowned for her intellect &, when Pope Leo IV dies, she ascends to the papacy. Pope Joan becomes pregnant & dies after giving birth during a procession thru Rome.

While the general outline of the narrative may seem only mildly interesting, the translation of Lawrence Durrell, together with the biting, irreverent wit of Royidis, make 'Pope Joan' a work of comic genius. A flavor for this wit & style can be found in a passage describing what ensued after Joan gave birth: 'Great was the consternation when a premature infant was produced from among the voluminous folds of the papal vestments...Some hierarchs who were profoundly devoted to the Holy See sought to save the situation & change horror & disgust to amazement by crying out A miracle! A miracle! They bellowed loudly calling the faithful to kneel & worship. But in vain. Such a miracle was unheard of; & indeed would have been a singular contribution to the annals of Xian thaumaturgy which, while it borrowed many a prodigy from the pagans, had not yet reached the point where it could represent any male saint as pregnant & bringing forth a child.'

While the apologist position has denied the historicity of Pope Joan, there is some suggestion that the legend is factual. As Durrell suggests in his Preface, one telling point is that Platina includes a biography of Pope John VIII in his 'Lives of the Popes'. The Catholic Encyclopedia states: 'Platina's Lives of the Popes is a work of no small merit, for it is the first systematic handbook of papal history. ' Historical disputation aside, however, 'Pope Joan' stands as a brilliant work of comic writing & translation."

Hislop, Victoria "Those Who Are Loved"

Hislop, Victoria "Those Who Are Loved" - 2019

I have read a few books by Victoria Hislop and also quite a few about Greece. Next to those by the same author, "Modern Greece" by C.M. Woodhouse is probably the best if you want information about (especially the modern) the history of this interesting country. Victoria Hislop also recommends this book in her list of "Suggested Reading".

Victoria Hislop's stories about life in Greece are so informative and gripping, no wonder the Greek granted her honorary Greek citizenship for promoting modern Greek history and culture. Definitely deserved.

While we have learned i.a. about the history of Greece during the Ottoman Empire, this is a story about Greece during and after WWII. A lot of people always assume that with the end of that awful war, on VE Day, there was peace everywhere in the world except for the Pacific region. But it carried on in Europe in many areas. Like here in Greece where they felt the wounds of what was started during the occupation even more when it came to starting fresh. The country was just as divided as Germany, albeit in a different way.

In this book, we meet a normal family who has different opinions on politics. Sounds familiar? Yes, it happens all the time. There are people who are willing to fight for the freedom of their country, others who don't see a problem where there is a huge one. If this kind of different people are in one family, it can cause a lot of heartbreak and chaos.

As usual, Victoria Hislop manages to describe the different individuals, their feelings and their beliefs true to detail and possible to empathise with.

While searching for the places where this book takes place (mainly Athens and the prison islands Makronisos and Trikeri), I found an interesting website/blog about different books and their locations. Have a look here. I thought it might show some pictures but I quite liked that at least we can see where exactly the places are.

I can't wait for Victoria Hislop's next book.

From the back cover:

"Athens 1941. Nazi forces occupy Greece … and a nation falls apart.

Fifteen-year-old Themis comes from a family polarised in its political views. The Nazi occupation only deepens the faultlines between those she loves while it reduces Greece to destitution.

In the civil war that follows the end of the occupation, Themis joins the Communist army to fight for her beliefs. Ultimately imprisoned on the infamous islands of exile, Makronisos and then Trikeri, Themis encounters another prisoner whose life will entwine with her own in ways neither can foresee. And finds she must weigh her principles against her desire to escape and live.

As she looks back on her life, Themis realises how tightly the personal and political are entangled. While some wounds heal, others deepen.

Already a Number one bestseller, this gripping new novel sheds light on the complexity and trauma of Greece’s past and weaves it into the epic tale of an ordinary woman compelled to live an extraordinary life."

Fry, Stephen "Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold"

Fry, Stephen "Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold" - 2017

I have never been a huge fan of all those Greek gods and their myths and I have always thought that's because I don't know enough about them. So, when I found this book by Stephen Fry, whom I really admire, I thought, okay, I'll give it another go.

Do I know more about the gods, titans, and all the other mythical creatures? Well, yes. Will I remember who is who and in which stories they appear? Mmmmh … probably not. And this has nothing to do with the brilliancy of Stephen Fry's way of telling those myths. No, he's as great as ever. But I have decided that those stories are not for me. There are a few stories that are not too bad but on the whole, they don't really interest me. Not even when someone as fantastic as Stephen Fry tell them. Probably too much like fantasy for me.

From the back cover:

"No one loves and quarrels, desires and deceives as boldly or brilliantly as Greek gods and goddesses.

In Stephen Fry's vivid retelling we gaze in wonder as wise Athena is born from the cracking open of the great head of Zeus and follow doomed Persephone into the dark and lonely realm of the Underworld. We shiver when Pandora opens her jar of evil torments and watch with joy as the legendary love affair between Eros and Psyche unfolds.

Mythos captures these extraordinary myths for our modern age - in all their dazzling and deeply human relevance."

Bollen, Christopher "The Destroyers"

Bollen, Christopher "The Destroyers" - 2017

Our latest book club read. I had never heard of this author and I'm not totally surprised. "Mystery" and "thriller" usually doesn't come up in my books.

I only had a couple of days to read this book because it arrived very late from the library. But I think that was a good thing, this is probably not the kind of story you want to spread out.

Not a bad novel, the characters are pretty well drawn, you can imagine they actually exist. The story itself, well, I've never been rich but I can imagine it hits you harder when you don't have any money all of a sudden than when you never had it. People make different decisions in such a situation.

I don't completely agree with the title, the game the "Destroyers" the boys used to play as children, contributed nothing to the story in my opinion.

However, it was an interesting book.

From the back cover:

"Arriving on the Greek island of Patmos broke and humiliated, Ian Bledsoe is fleeing the emotional and financial fallout from his father’s death. His childhood friend Charlie - rich, exuberant, and basking in the success of his new venture on the island - could be his last hope.

At first Patmos appears to be a dream -long sun-soaked days on Charlie’s yacht and the reappearance of a girlfriend from Ian’s past - and Charlie readily offers Ian the lifeline he so desperately needs. But, like Charlie himself, this beautiful island conceals a darkness beneath, and it isn’t long before the dream begins to fragment. When Charlie suddenly vanishes, Ian finds himself caught up in deception after deception. As he grapples with the turmoil left in his friend’s wake, he is reminded of an imaginary game called Destroyers they played as children - a game, he now realizes, they may have never stopped playing.

An enthralling odyssey and a gripping, expansive drama, The Destroyers is a vivid and suspenseful story of identity, power and fate, fathers and sons, and self-invention and self-deception, from a writer at the very height of his powers."

We discussed this in our book club in April 2018.

Michaels, Anne "Fugitive Pieces"

Michaels, Anne "Fugitive Pieces" - 1996

I really wanted to like this book. It is absolutely my genre and it was praised a lot. However, I wouldn't call this a tough read but nevertheless, I didn't find a closeness to the characters. A lot of things happened, obviously, but there seemed to be no action and no continuance.

More fleeing fragmented thoughts, bits and pieces thrown together. Someone trying to bring their thoughts in order but not being very lucky with it. Such a shame. This could have been a great book, the story is very promising.

What annoyed me most was that you hardly know who is talking if you don't read the introduction. But if you do read the introduction, you are given spoilers that can ruin the whole story. I hardly ever read the introduction but noticed halfway through the lecture that it was necessary in order to understand what this was all about.

I think a lot of people like it for it's poetic writing but then it shouldn't be classified as a novel.

Definitely not my book.

There were a few quotes I did like, though, the final sentence under "Anne Michaels' favourite books":
"When I was young I felt there was a mystery contained in the fact that the word 'read' was two words - both past and present tenses. This time travel is one way we hold our life in our hands."
and a quote, a Hebrew saying:
"Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city."

From the back cover:

"Jakob Beer is seven years old when he is rescued from the muddy ruins of a buried village in Nazi-occupied Poland. Of his family, he is the only one who has survived. Under the guidance of the Greek geologist Athos, Jakob must steel himself to excavate the horrors of his own history.

A novel of astounding beauty and wisdom, Fugitive Pieces is a profound meditation on the resilience of the human spirit and love's ability to restore even the most damaged of hearts."

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."

Hislop, Victoria "The Last Dance and Other Stories"

Hislop, Victoria "The Last Dance and Other Stories" - 2012

I have read all of Victoria Hislop's three novels and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Therefore, I bought this one in the hope that it would be just as great.

However, this is not a novel like her other books, it's a collection of short stories and I'm not a big fan of short stories. And, she mentions this herself in the afterword, her Greek readers have criticized her before for seeing their country through rose-tinted lenses, and she is trying to adjust that in her stories.

So, quite a change to her previous books one would say.

Nonetheless, I loved this book. Even though her previous stories also tell about historic problems, these here talk about the life in Greece today, about the life of modern Greeks in an ever changing world.

I loved these stories, whether they were about an abandoned kafenion, fighting brothers, a love lost or political protests. And I am looking forward to this author's next story.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In ten powerful stories, Victoria Hislop takes us through the streets of Athens and into the tree-lined squares of Greek villages. As she evokes their distinct atmosphere, she brings vividly to life a host of unforgettable characters, from a lonesome priest to battling brothers, and from an unwanted stranger to a groom troubled by music and memory.

These bittersweet tales of love and loyalty, of separation and reconciliation, captured in Victoria Hislop's unique voice, will stay with you long after you reach the end."

Find the other Victoria Hislop books I read here. 

Karystiani, Ionna "The Jasmine Isle"

Karystiani, Ionna (Ιωάννα Καρυστιάνη) "The Jasmine Isle" (Greek: Μικρά Αγγλία/Mikra Anglia) - 1997 

This is one of the examples where you find several different titles for the same book and you wonder why. The original title "Μικρά Αγγλία" (Mikra Anglia) means "Little England" which is what they call the island in the story, the Spanish have translated that word by word "Pequeña Inglaterra", the German title "Die Frauen von Andros" means "The Women of Andros" which is the name of the island the women live on whereas the Italians and the British call it "The Jasmine Isle" or "L'isola dei gelsomini" respectively. Why? I doubt that even the people responsible for this know the real reason.

I liked the story about the seafaring Greek guys before and during World War II and the women they leave behind on their little island. It is definitely (as mentioned in the German title), the women's story. Ioanna Karystiani describes the protagonists so well, she has an interesting way of introducing both characters as well as incidents. I like her style even though it seems a little confusing at times. But I read somewhere that it is a good recollection of life on the islands at the time. I can imagine since the author herself was born on Crete, larger than Andros but still, a Greek island. When I visited it in the early 2000s, it still seemed stuck in the middle of the past century. Very alluring, very charming but still, life was not as modern as I know it from my part of Europe, so I can imagine that this story is close to reality.

Definitely a Stream of Consciousness novel, worth a read.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"A modern love story with the force of an ancient Greek tragedy. Set on the spectacular Cycladic island of Andros, The Jasmine Isle one of the finest literary achievements in contemporary Greek literature, recounts the story of the beautiful Orsa Saltaferos, sentenced to marry a man she doesn't love and to watch while the man she does love weds another."

Frisch, Max "Homo Faber"

Frisch, Max "Homo Faber" (German: Homo Faber) - 1957

I have no idea why I never read this. Maybe because most students in Germany hated any kind of classic literature, classic meaning written about ten years before we went to school.

So many issues in this book. Max Faber is Swiss and works around the world as an engineer. His colleagues call him Homo Faber as in the man who makes things, a direct translation from Latin.

You can tell he is a logic thinker but is world is everything but logic. His thoughts travel from World War II to the love of his youth or maybe even the love of his life, His trip to Mexico ends in a massive amount of coincidences which, would they happen to us in real life, we would never believe. Neither does Max. And that's what blinds him, makes him ignore the obvious.

Anyway, this book is a philosophical one, a thinker. We travel through time and space alongside Walter but also accompany him on his way into wisdom, into the "he who can see" part of his life.

Interesting story, good read, great writing.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Walter Faber, engineer, is a man for whom only the tangible, calculable, verifiable exists. Dubbed Homo Faber (Man the Maker) by associates, he is devoted to the service of a purely technological world. This devoted service is not, however, without cost: on a flight to South America Faber succumbs to what he interprets as "fatigue phenomena," and we see him lose touch with reality. A return to New York and to his American mistress only convinces him of a need for further rest. Accordingly he boards a ship for Europe, where he encounters a girl who, for reasons of which he is unaware, strongly attracts him. They travel together to France, Italy, and finally Greece, where chance and fate, in an ironic twist on a theme of classic tragedy, make a blind man see."

Max Frisch received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 1976. 

I also read "The Arsonists" (Biedermann und die Brandstifter) by the same author.

Woodhouse, C.M. "Modern Greece. A Short History"

Woodhouse, C.M. (Christopher Montague) "Modern Greece. A Short History" - 2000

Great overview over Greek history. But not just Greek history. If you are at all interested in the history of the world, this is an excellent account of Ancient and Modern Greece and how it developed into the country it is today.

The title might be a little misleading as it says both "modern" as well as "short". It starts in the year 324, so not exactly just a decade ago. And it stretches over almost 400 pages (although I wouldn't have minded if it had been twice as long). However, the book is interestingly written and we get to understand modern Greece a lot better through its history - as we do with almost anything. It contains a few maps that make us realize how much the world as changed in that part of the world throughout the centuries. Great analysis of a people that formed our modern day world.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Acclaimed for its penetration, balance, and insight, Modern Greece tells the story of Greece and its people, from the founding of Constantinople to the eclipse of socialism in the late twentieth century. C. M. Woodhouse is uniquely qualified to write the history of Greece, having served there in the Allied military and the British embassy during and after World War II before writing several books on Greece. In this classic work, which Woodhouse has updated five times to create a truly comprehensive history, the depth of his knowledge and understanding of the country and its citizens comes through clearly in every chapter, as he ranges from the ascendancy and eventual fall of the Byzantine Empire through the emergence for the first time of a unified Greek kingdom in the 1800s to the political turmoil of twentieth-century politics. This is a book for readers and travelers who wish to understand the history and culture behind the beauty that is eternal Greece."

Bernières, Louis de "Birds without Wings"

Bernières, Louis de "Birds without Wings" - 2004

Years ago, Louis de Bernières' first novel "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" was the first book I read with a book club. We had different opinions about it and even I wasn't sure I would not necessarily put it on my list of favourite books.

So it took me a while to tackle another book by this author. What a mistake. I absolutely loved this novel. Greece and Turkey at the beginning of the last century with a lot of information about their history, a great addition to Victoria Hislop's "The Thread" which I read earlier this year.

Same as in the other novel, Turkish and Greek people live peacefully alongside each other, Christians, Muslims and Jews. They have no problems with their neighbours, even agree to their children getting married to each other or asking someone from the other faith to pray to their saints, for example. Until the fall of the Ottoman empire when all Christians are relocated to Greece and all Muslims to the newly founded Turkey. We also learn about the childhood and the early days of Mustafa Kemal, better known to the rest of the world as Atatürk.

One quote that says so much about the sentiment behind this book: "It is not possible to calculate how many Armenians died on the forced marches. In 1915 the number was thought to be 300,000, a figure which has been progressively increased ever since, thanks to the efforts of angry propagandists. To argue about whether it was 300,000 or 2,000,000 is in a sense irrelevant and distasteful, however, since both numbers are great enough to be equally distressing, and the suffering individual victims in their trajectory towards death is in both cases immeasurable."

I have always said that about the deaths in any war but particularly in World War II, people start discussing how many Jews were really killed. Even if we knew the exact number, we would never know about the amount of grief behind that number. Any number is too much, even one person being killed through a war is not worth whatever the people who started the war think it is for. And it is true, whether there are a thousand or a million, it just means there are more people grieving about their loved ones. Too many in every case.

Stalin is supposed to have said: "One death is a tragedy; 1,000 deaths are a statistic." No matter who said it, it is unfortunately true.

In "Bird Without Wings", a lot of those numbers get faces. And that's what I love most about reading novels like that, it is so much easier to imagine what people suffered if you hear about individual cases, you can never imagine it really before you haven't heard someone's story.

The characters are completely remarkable, most of them quite lovable. We learn of wonderful friendships and love that lasts forever. We learn about heroism and senseless fighting. We hear about the good and the bad in people. And we can still learn a lot from them today.

In the end, we even see a link to his earlier book, "Captain Corelli's Mandolin".

A wonderful book, one of my favourites.

And this is what the title means: "Man is a bird without wings, [...] and a bird is a man without sorrows".

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters. It’s a place that has room for a professional blasphemer; where a brokenhearted aga finds solace in the arms of a Circassian courtesan who isn’t Circassian at all; where a beautiful Christian girl named Philothei is engaged to a Muslim boy named Ibrahim. But all of this will change when Turkey enters the modern world. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, Birds Without Wings is an enchantment."

Hislop, Victoria "The Thread"

Hislop, Victoria "The Thread" - 2011

This is my third book by Victoria Hislop and it is not going to be the last. I have loved every single line of this.

While a young man visits his grandparents in Greece, they tell him the story of their life and at the same time the story of their town and country. Thessaloniki has gone through a lot of turmoil and so have its inhabitants.

We get to know successful men and unhappy women, determined men who want to save their country as well as people who have given up all hope. We go through the German occupation and follow the resistance fighters into the mountains. We meet a young seamstress who is determined to work hard to get through life. Her love to the man she shouldn't fall in love with has to overcome many obstacles but since we meet them as the grandparents of the young man at the beginning, we already know that they will finally have a happy end.

This is a story about love and a story about survival. How do people, especially women, get through tumultuous times. Even in wartime, some people seem to try to hold up a class system whereas for others it just seems to became unimportant. We learn how families react differently in difficult situations as well as how relationships are formed - or not - and how different marriages function - or not.

There is so much history in this book, so many details that make history interesting even to people who are not interested in history at all. Victoria Hislop has earned her place on my list of favourite authors. She usually starts with a prologue taking place today and then goes back into the history when finally coming back to modern times in her epilogue. I especially loved the title of this book, a light allusion to the job of a seamstress as well as to all the different people in the story whose lives are linked together.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"Thessaloniki, 1917. As Dimitri Komninos is born, a devastating fire sweeps through the thriving Greek city where Christians, Jews and Muslims live side by side. Five years later, Katerina Sarafoglou's home in Asia Minor is destroyed by the Turkish army. Losing her mother in the chaos, she flees across the sea to an unknown destination in Greece. Soon her life will become entwined with Dimitri's, and with the story of the city itself, as war, fear and persecution begin to divide its people.

Thessaloniki, 2007. 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 this city his home?"

Find the other Victoria Hislop books I read here.

Hosseini, Khaled "And the Mountains Echoed"

Hosseini, Khaled "And the Mountains Echoed" - 2013

So far, I have read three books by Khaled Hosseini, the three books he has written so far. I liked "The Kite Runner", I loved "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and I thought that this one was one of the best books I have read in a long time (and I read a lot). One proof how much I was looking forward to this is that I even read it before it was out in paperback. I prefer those editions, they are easier to hold and to carry around.

Khaled Hosseini is a wonderful author. Such beautiful penmanship, such a gift for telling a story of his war-torn home country. He is an author where you don't think another great book like this will come along anytime soon. His book leaves you with a feeling that it can't be over yet, why are there only 400 pages?

"So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one..." This is how the story begins. Abdullah's and Pari's father Saboor loves telling stories and the children love listening to him. What they don't know, his stories are often parables that shine into their own lives, good or bad. The novel tells us about town and village life in Afghanistan but also about the lives of Afghan expatriates in France and the United States of America as well as that of foreigners living in Afghanistan. He mentions them all. We meet rich people and poor people, good and bad ones. We learn about siblings, sibling rivalry and sibling love. About friendship, marriage, sickness and health, this is a novel about everything. The story spans over several generations and more than half a century, starting in the 40s in Afghanistan and ending at the beginning of this century in California. I don't want to give away too much and I would have to do that if I delved deeper into the story. I just want to add that this books raises so many questions about the why and how we live, what kind of decisions people make and what the implications are on the lives of so many. I would say it is quite philosophical in that respect but also tells a gripping story you don't want to put away until you're finished.

What I specifically loved about this book, it starts immediately, no long introduction to get used to the characters, no description of any kind what was before (that comes later), I love how he starts with a splash. You don't have to read about fifty pages to know whether you will like this book. You will like it from the beginning.

If you only read one new book this year, "And the Mountains Echoed" should be it!

The only disappointment, now that I read his newest book so fast, it will take even longer to wait for the next one.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one...
 
Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and stepmother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Abdullah, Pari, as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named, is everything. More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. Each night they sleep together in their cot, their skulls touching, their limbs tangled.
 
One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father. Pari and Abdullah have no sense of the fate that awaits them there, for the event which unfolds will tear their lives apart; sometimes a finger must be cut to save the hand.
 
Crossing generations and continents, moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos, with profound wisdom, depth, insight and compassion, Khaled Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways that we help our loved ones in need, how the choices we make resonate through history, and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us."

Homer "Odyssey"

Homer "Odyssey" (Ancient Greek: Ομήρου Οδύσσεια, Odýsseia) - 800-600 BC

This is an epic story. Everyone has heard of "The Odyssey", and I love classics, so I always wanted to read it.

I am not much into poetry but you can read this almost like a novel, the language is very fluent, one line follows the next without those usual interruptions. However, some sentences can get rather long.

Still, it is interesting to follow this man, Odysseus during his journey through this world and the next in order to get home to his wife and son. He meets Gods and heroes, witches, enemies, difficult, life-threatening situations but survives them all. Even when he comes home, the problems are not ended, yet.

This story is over 2,000 years old and it still captures us today. Definitely worth reading.

Book Description:

"The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, along with the Illiad, and is one of the most widely popular anicent texts for reading. Composed around 8th century B.C., it is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the first surviving work of Western literature. The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses) and his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Iphigenia in Tauris”"

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Iphigenia in Tauris" (German: Iphigenie auf Tauris) - 1787

A play by Goethe, one of the books you have to read in the German high school. Iphigenia is the daughter of Agamemnon who offers her to the goddess Artemis. Even though the goddess rescues Iphigenia and takes her to the island of Tauris, a lot of things happen as a consequence.

I am not a big fan of reading plays, I rather watch them. However, this is a very interesting story that teaches a lot about Greek mythology.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Goethe wrote in the early 1800's. His works encompassed poetry, drama, literature, theology, science, painting, and humanism. This romantic play begins in tragedy and progresses through several perilous adventures to its happy conclusion. Iphigenia is sacrificed to the goddess Artemis by her father. Artemis saves her and makes her a priestess. It was Iphigenia's role to consecrate the barbarian victims before they were sacrificed. She wants revenge on the Greeks and waits for one to come to be sacrificed. When a Greek finally arrives she does not initially recognize him as her brother."

I also read "The Sorrows of Young Werther".