Here are 89 books that The Messenger of Athens fans have personally recommended if you like
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I fell in love with all things Greek around the same time I fell in love with my Greek Cypriot husband about 30 years ago. That was when I started reading books about Greece as well as fiction set in Greece. I also learned to cook Greek food, which made both my man and me happy. I traveled to as many Greek islands, and of course, Cyprus, as time would allow. Eventually, I started writing books set in Greece myself. I went to a Greek Orthodox church and took Greek language evening classes. I feel at this point and have been told by Greek islanders, that I am now essentially Greek.
I love Greece and Greek life, and I love animals and nature, so this book set in Corfu, which is the story of how Gerald Durrell spent his early childhood when his mother decided to move the entire family to Corfu, really hit all the buttons for me.
In my opinion, the book is even better than the television series. Gerald Durrell’s love of fauna and flora possibly began in the White House on Kalami Bay in Corfu. I was so excited when I arranged a holiday in Corfu and actually stayed in Kalami Bay myself. I ran around looking at lizards, birds, and plants, thinking of Durrell as a wild child, swerving away as far as possible from conventional education. What an idyll I found it truly was.
The inspiration behind ITV's hit family drama, The Durrells.
My Family and Other Animals is Gerald Durrell's hilarious account of five years in his childhood spent living with his family on the island of Corfu. With snakes, scorpions, toads, owls and geckos competing for space with one bookworm brother and another who's gun-mad, as well as an obsessive sister, young Gerald has an awful lot of natural history to observe. This richly detailed, informative and riotously funny memoir of eccentric family life is a twentieth-century classic.
Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics…
I fell in love with all things Greek around the same time I fell in love with my Greek Cypriot husband about 30 years ago. That was when I started reading books about Greece as well as fiction set in Greece. I also learned to cook Greek food, which made both my man and me happy. I traveled to as many Greek islands, and of course, Cyprus, as time would allow. Eventually, I started writing books set in Greece myself. I went to a Greek Orthodox church and took Greek language evening classes. I feel at this point and have been told by Greek islanders, that I am now essentially Greek.
I loved this book because it made me feel like I was there, living in the Cretan White Mountains in the 1960s on a very tight budget, surrounded by magnificent Greek countryside, and eating local foods. I have visited Crete several times and found the kindness, friendliness, and philoxenia- hospitality shown to strangers by the locals is still true of the Cretan people today.
This is a beautiful and truly memorable read. If you ever wondered what it would be like to go and live in the mountains of Greece, this book will make you feel like you have done just that. I want to go back just thinking about it.
I fell in love with all things Greek around the same time I fell in love with my Greek Cypriot husband about 30 years ago. That was when I started reading books about Greece as well as fiction set in Greece. I also learned to cook Greek food, which made both my man and me happy. I traveled to as many Greek islands, and of course, Cyprus, as time would allow. Eventually, I started writing books set in Greece myself. I went to a Greek Orthodox church and took Greek language evening classes. I feel at this point and have been told by Greek islanders, that I am now essentially Greek.
To me, married to a Greek Cypriot, Cyprus is always part of Greece, too, and so I include it twice in this list. I love the literary genius of Lawrence Durrell. Bitter Lemons of Cyprus is set in 1950s Cyprus when the Cypriots were struggling for independence from British colonialism. I have been to Cyprus many times, staying with family in an apartment in town or renting a house in the mountains for months at a time.
Durrell brings the past of this beautiful but troubled island to life for me in a new way. Though I see a completely different Cyprus, I love to have its complicated past laid open for me, and this book delivers.
Lose yourself in this classic prize-winning memoir of life in 1950s Cyprus on the brink of revolution by the legendary king of travel writing and real-life family member of The Durrells in Corfu.
'Stunning.' Andre Aciman
'Masterly ... Casts a spell.' Jan Morris
'Invades the reader's every sense ... Remarkable.' Victoria Hislop
'These days I am admiring and re-admiring Lawrence Durrell.' Elif Shafak
'Our last great garlicky master of the vanishing Mediterranean.' Richard Holmes
'Exceptional ... Revelatory ... A master.' Observer
'He writes as an artist, as well as a poet . Profoundly beautiful.' New Statesman
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…
I fell in love with all things Greek around the same time I fell in love with my Greek Cypriot husband about 30 years ago. That was when I started reading books about Greece as well as fiction set in Greece. I also learned to cook Greek food, which made both my man and me happy. I traveled to as many Greek islands, and of course, Cyprus, as time would allow. Eventually, I started writing books set in Greece myself. I went to a Greek Orthodox church and took Greek language evening classes. I feel at this point and have been told by Greek islanders, that I am now essentially Greek.
I was blown away by this book when I first read it. I felt like I was in Famagusta in 1972 with the families that Victoria Hislop focuses on. As the troubles begin, the country is torn apart, and the exclusion zone is created. The Sunrise Hotel, still under construction, has stayed in my mind ever since.
I still wonder if there remains a hotel safe full of all the villager’s valuables, untouched and abandoned though heavily guarded. It is a moving and compelling account that tore at my heartstrings. No side is painted as right or wrong, just people having their lives thrown into total chaos.
In the summer of 1972, Famagusta in Cyprus is the most desirable resort in the Mediterranean, a city bathed in the glow of good fortune. An ambitious couple open the island's most spectacular hotel, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots work in harmony. Two neighbouring families, the Georgious and the OEzkans, are among many who moved to Famagusta to escape the years of unrest and ethnic violence elsewhere on the island. But beneath the city's facade of glamour and success, tension is building. When a Greek coup plunges the island into chaos, Cyprus faces a disastrous conflict. Turkey invades to protect…
Born and raised in New York City, my plans to become an artist got sidetracked by an interest in psychology. While in school, I graduated college, majoring in Fine Arts and Psychology, combining my two interests. I continued my education as a Graphic Designer at The School of Visual Arts. I worked as a freelance graphic artist for a while before starting a career in the creative arts therapies. While I enjoy a dark, brooding, suspenseful mystery, sometimes I need a little humor to round out those dark edges. Despite some bad things happening in the world, most people do silly, goofy, and often stupid things and you have to laugh.
Though David Handler’s The Cold Blue Blood plays out much like a traditional whodunit, it has a dash of East Coast humor. The Berger and Mitry Mysteries have been one of my favorites for years. Handler’s strong descriptive style, unique characters, and colorful book titles always had me searching for the next installment. Handler’s main character, Mitch Berger, a New York City film critic, plays the perfect fish out of water, now living on a wealthy private island called Big Sister. A dead body in his garden introduces him to his other partner in crime, Lieutenant Desiree Mitry. This odd couple is both charming and disarming as they sleuth through the snobs of Big Sister.
Mitch Berger, a top film critic with a major New York newspaper at a surprisingly young age, has become almost a recluse since his wife died one year ago. He spends his time secluded in his apartment or in the dark recesses of a screening room. Although he continues to dazzle moviegoers and the film elite with his criticisms, his editor and good friend is alarmed about him. As a scheme to pull him out of the doldrums of his grief, she gives him a non-film assignment - to do a color story on the wealthy and social homeowners on…
I’ve always been fascinated by the sea. I grew up near the gentle waters of England’s Kent coast, then went to St Andrews University, surrounded by the treacherous North Sea. Finally, I discovered the Devon shores, which inspired Agatha Christie. In island thrillers like hers, the power of the sea becomes overwhelming. It holds suspects at bay, becomes a murder weapon, and constrains both innocent and guilty until justice is done. For me, this is the ‘locked room’ mystery in its purest form: an isolated location and a limited number of suspects–causing unlimited amounts of tension. I hope you love these stories as much as I do.
I have always been a huge fan of PD James’s writing style, and I had the pleasure of meeting her many years ago. She told me one of her earliest memories was hearing the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty at the age of three and immediately wondering, ‘Was he pushed?’
This book was her second-to-last whodunit and is a gripping reworking of the ‘murder on an island’ theme. Her detective, Adam Dalgleish, strives to solve the mystery and unravel his own complex feelings towards his life on the mainland. As always with one of her books, I felt in safe hands with a master storyteller who was never afraid to ask difficult questions.
Combe Island off the Cornish coast is a restful retreat for the rich and the powerful. But the peace of the island is violated when one of its distinguished visitors is murdered.
Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team. Hardly have the team begun to unravel the complicated motives of the suspects that there is a second brutal killing and the whole investigation is jeopardised when Dalgliesh is faced with a…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I have been a keen walker/hiker/backpacker since I was five when my parents named a local footpath James’s Path. Almost fifty years later, I have walked all over the UK and further afield in the Pyrenees and the Alps, Nepal, and the Antipodes. Walking for me is both a means to an end—to reach mountaineering routes and as exercise—and as an end in itself. Days spent walking can be reflective, social, demanding, and memorable. I always take a book, even if it's a day walk, and two or three if it’s a multiday trip. I hope you’re as energized and stimulated by my suggestions as I’ve been.
A multi-day walking trip requires a page-turning thriller. It is one of the most intriguing mysteries I’ve ever read. It dragged me into another world and then deeper into a story within a story. Lying in uncomfortable beds in noisy hostels while backpacking in Australia, I was beguiled and forgot my own reality.
Years later, this book stayed with me and influenced my debut novel despite, I think, never really understanding it. However, writing this review has made me start reading it again. I’m already baffled, but I'm hooked!
The Magus is the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching assignment on a remote Greek island. There his friendship with a local millionaire evolves into a deadly game, one in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas must fight for his sanity and his very survival.
My passion for small islands began as a child. I spent my summer holidays on the Isles of Scilly, where everyone knew each other, and the sea wiped the landscape clean, leaving it pristine each morning. Since then, I’ve visited dozens of islands, keen to understand the islanders’ survivalist mindset. I worked as an English teacher before becoming a writer. It allowed me to share my love of storytelling, but the tales that linger with me still take place on small islands where the consequences of our actions are never forgotten. I hope you enjoy exploring the ones on my list as much as I did!
I loved this book because it was so gripping. It made me long to be a writer. Although it was written over a hundred years ago, the dark story spoke directly to me.
I read it at the darkest time in my life. I was fourteen, and my alcoholic father had become a terrifying force in our home, just like Dr. Moreau, who rules his island with vicious power. I had never dreamed that a crazed leader could break an entire population, but the idea seems shockingly prescient now.
The book made me realize that I, too, could escape from the trap around me, just like the book’s hero, and learn to use my imagination to tell stories.
My idyllic childhood while following my father, a US Air Force JAG officer, around the country and around the world did not prepare me to understand and recognize an abusive relationship. I had never seen or experienced abuse until I married. After twenty years of emotional abuse, which eventually led to domestic violence, I was able to leave it behind. It is only with therapy that I came to understand the early warning signs, why I had ignored them and why I stayed so long. While preparing to write A Sparrow Falls, I read many personal accounts of domestic violence and child abuse and conducted an interview with a survivor of child sexual abuse.
This was my first Liane Moriarty book - but not my last. A fun read with plenty of humor and a little mystery. The ‘Munro Baby Mystery’ to be exact.
This is a multiple-storyline book, and I found all the stories interesting. The author created many wonderful characters and brought each one to life beautifully.
I suspect many readers figure out the mystery/secret pretty early. For me, that didn't lessen the fun of reading on to see if I was right. I thought it odd when the secret is revealed about 3/4 of the way through the book. I wondered why the author was spending so much time tying up loose ends...then boom! I didn't see that coming.
I recommend this if you want an easy read filled with wonderful multi-generational characters.
From the bestselling author of the award-winning HBO sensation BIG LITTLE LIES comes a captivating story of family, love, and the secrets that refuse to stay in the past . . .
One abandoned baby. Two sisters with a secret. A last chance to rewrite the past. ______________
70 years ago, the Munro family disappeared without a trace, leaving behind their newborn baby.
When sisters Rose and Connie Doughty found her, they took her in and raised her as their own. Since then, the unsolved 'Munro Baby Mystery' has brought fame and fortune to their small island.
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The first in a charming, joyful crime series set in 1920s Bangalore, featuring sari-wearing detective Kaveri and her husband Ramu.
When clever, headstrong Kaveri moves to Bangalore to marry handsome young doctor Ramu, she's resigned herself to a quiet life. But…
I'm a writer and poet who loved reading books set in fantasy worlds like Narnia as a child. When I began writing for children, I realised my own magical experiences had been on family trips to India, where goddesses and temples, palaces swarming with monkeys, ice-capped mountains, and elephant rides were part of everyday life. The term ‘magic realism’ seemed to better fit my own fantasy world, Indica. Here, elemental magic is rooted in the myths and culture of young hero Minou Moonshine, expanding her experiences and guiding the search for her destiny. The children’s books I've chosen also contain supernatural and magical elements which are intrinsic to the protagonist’s world – no wardrobe needed!
It's hard to believe that Kiran Millwood Hargrave’sThe Girl of Ink and Starsonly came out in 2016.
The book has become a modern classic, combining beautifully poetic writing with the compelling first-person voice of Isabella, the mapmaker’s daughter. When Isabella ventures into the mysterious interior of the island of Joya Governor, to search for her friend, the Governor’s daughter, she must navigate a mysterious labyrinth, supernatural demon dogs, and a volcano-dwelling deity.
The magic elements here are inspired by the indigenous culture of the Canary Isles.
