I’m a food and travel journalist, raised by a Greek father and a British mother. I’ve always been obsessed with the fostering of my Greek culture, heritage, and identity and have been particularly interested in the duality of my two identities, since moving to England from Greece as a young girl. During my teenage years in grey and drizzly England, the food we ate as a family transported me to my grandmothers’ white-washed alleyway, dotted with geraniums and bursting with the colours and flavours of Greece. Since then I’ve become obsessed with what food and time-perfected recipes can tell us about our heritage.
I wrote
Yiayia: Time-perfected Recipes from Greece's Grandmothers
Yiayia: Time-perfected Recipes from Greece’s Grandmothers showcases regional Greek cookery and features sharing and feasting dishes, mainly vegetarian, straight from…
The Colossus of Maroussi is a book all wanderers and visitors of Greece should dip into at least once.
It’s a travelogue that drips with humour from the brilliant Henry Miller. It is a collection of fantastic prose inspired by the islands and mainland that Miller visited in the early 20th Century. It offers great wit and wisdom as well as cultural insights that still feel incredibly relevant to Greece today, despite the book being published in the 1940s.
When I think of great travel literature, this book is a classic. It speaks on the Greek people - their strength, stoicism, and humour - and chronicles a time in Greece before mass tourism descended and changed the islands forever.
Like the ancient colossus that stood over the harbor of Rhodes, Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi stands as a seminal classic in travel literature. It has preceded the footsteps of prominent travel writers such as Pico Iyer and Rolf Potts. The book Miller would later cite as his favorite began with a young woman's seductive description of Greece. Miller headed out with his friend Lawrence Durrell to explore the Grecian countryside: a flock of sheep nearly tramples the two as they lie naked on a beach; the Greek poet Katsmbalis, the "colossus" of Miller's book, stirs every rooster within…
This is a book that still makes me sob, even on the third, fourth, and fifth read.
Louis de Bernieres’ love story set during the second world war on the island of Kefalonia is more than just another beach read. It chronicles the tragedy of the events of the second world war, holding a microscope over the island of Kefalonia and homing in on an imagined love story between Pelagia, a local girl, and Captain Corelli, an Italian soldier stationed on the island as part of the Italian occupation of Greece.
Yes, this is a piece of fiction but I love that also it manages to paint a picture of life under occupation in Greece during the 1940s. De Bernieres captures the light, the scent, the very essence of this Greek island, and the fire of an incredible love affair in his beautiful prose, while also commenting on the atrocities of war and those that have the power to stop it.
25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION - WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR
'A true diamond of a novel, glinting with comedy and tragedy' Daily Mail
It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals but over time he proves himself to be civilised, humorous - and a consummate musician.
When Pelagia, the local doctor's daughter, finds her letters to her fiance go unanswered, Antonio and Pelagia draw close and the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable.…
The Greek myths are given a brilliant make-over by Stephen Fry, a master of words and story-telling.
Pouring soul and colour into tired old stories that I read once-upon-a-time in school here in Greece, Fry re-invents the Titans, gods, goddesses, muses, and heroes of ancient Greek mythology, giving flesh and personality to each and every one of them.
This book made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions - Fry’s tongue-in-cheek take on the myths is pure hilarity. What is most impressive is the research that has gone into creating a book that presents the hundreds of characters, complex storylines, and bizarre, incestuous criss-crossing narratives as refreshingly as Fry does here.
STEP INTO ANOTHER WORLD - OF MAGIC, MAYHEM, MONSTERS AND MANIACAL GODS - IN STEPHEN FRY'S MOMENTOUS SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, MYTHOS
'A romp through the lives of ancient Greek gods. Fry is at his story-telling best . . . the gods will be pleased' Times ___________
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.…
This book is pure poetry to me. It follows the lives of three sisters on the precipice of adulthood during 1930s Greece.
I love that when it was published in the 1940s here in Greece, it was seen as a scandalous piece of literature. I can see why - Liberaki writes fervently and openly about the trials and tribulations of female teenhood, detailing gossip, romance, and even the loss of virginity with such poise and vim that it is still relevant and relatable to women today.
It was the kind of book that my own Greek Yiayia (grandmother) was absolutely not allowed to get her hands on. This book, for me, has it all. It’s bucolic, romantic, and oozes beautiful imagery of the hot, dry summers in Athens and the surrounding countryside. A perfect character study.
A tender story about three sisters coming of age in Greece over the course of three summers, now available after being out of print for over twenty years.
Three Summers is the story of three sisters growing up in the countryside near Athens before the Second World War. Living in a big old house surrounded by a beautiful garden are Maria, the oldest sister, as sexually bold as she is eager to settle down and have a family of her own; beautiful but distant Infanta; and dreamy and rebellious Katerina, through whose eyes the story is mostly observed. Over three…
My current can’t-put-this-down read, The Island of Missing Trees is set between present-day London and Cyprus in the 1970s during the break-out of the civil war on the island.
It’s a family drama told in third person but interspersed between chapters following the lives of Ada and her star-crossed parents, a Greek man and a Turkish woman, there are whole sections of this book told from the perspective of a fig tree.
I particularly enjoy all of these sections because I never thought I might find myself one day sympathising/empathising with a tree and yet somehow, Shafak is really able to make me feel for that lonely fig tree whose comments on the world and human nature are so profound and thought provoking, they’ve invaded even my dreams.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2022 A REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD 2021
A rich, magical novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - now a top ten Sunday Times bestseller
It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened…
Yiayia: Time-perfected Recipes from Greece’s Grandmothers showcases regional Greek cookery and features sharing and feasting dishes, mainly vegetarian, straight from the kitchens of Greece’s grandmothers. Despite its popularity, what people know of Greek cuisine is still fairly limited when considering the breadth and diversity of dishes you can find in homes across its 6,000 islands. Yiayia maps out the lesser-known dishes of Greece through the recipes and fascinating stories of its Yiayiades.
Greek author and food writer, Anastasia Miari, embarked on a year-long odyssey across Greece with photographer Marco Arguello. In the book she delves explores Greek history and cuisine through the matriarchs that know it best – each yiayia flavouring her time-perfected dish with her heritage.
My book is fantastical historical fiction about two characters who're wrestling with the monstrosity of their grief.
It takes you into London high society, where Ambrose tries to forget about how much he misses Bennett and how much he dreads becoming as cold as their Grandfather. It takes you to the family's country manor house, where Mattie isolates and old ghosts start to come out of the woodwork.
It's a story about loss and depression; it's a story about friends who don't let you walk through the valley of death alone.
Ambrose Bancroft returns to London society with his younger sister, hoping they'll leave ghosts of memory behind. They have only each other left. While Ambrose attempts to draw Mattie out, dragging her to balls and threatening to seek suitors for her, his sister recoils from his meddling. Finally, when Ambrose compels her to attend art class before she's ready, Mattie paints something horrific enough to banish them from society in public disgrace.
At Linwood Manor, Mattie and Ambrose aren't as alone as they think. Taking advantage of Mattie's desperate need to find freedom, a vanishing room lures Ambrose's sister into…
