The best books about Crete

In my own novel, Once We Were Here, I wrote in a passage towards the beginning that “Greeks have a word for everything.” And while that might be true, the second part of it is that the words we have can often be impossible to translate because a single Greek word can mean so many things, all at once. Kefi is one such word, and rather than try to effectively sum up something that has no direct English equivalent, the best thing to do is recommend this book, as kefi is something the infamous title character Zorba possesses in… show more.

Kazantzakis is perhaps most famous for being excommunicated after he wrote The Last Temptation of Christ, but I think his best book is Freedom and Death. Freedom and Death was described as Kazantzakis’ “modern Iliad,” but it is more than a tale of heroes and war. It is about the struggle of the Cretan people for liberty and their desire to end the Ottoman occupation of their island at the end of the 19th century. In spite of the obvious morality of the cause of freedom, Kazantzakis paints a complex picture in which there are no obvious… show more.

Gerald Asher is a wine writer who is celebrated for his range, his knowledge, his ability to see below the surface of things, and his compelling writing style. This book of essays about wine is one of my favourites, ranging as it does from wines with food, in which he goes in unexpected directions, to whether or not and how to decant wines, to drinking wine in Greece surrounded by the gods, to wines from Portugal and California and Oregon and Italy and France. He takes me to places I’ve never been and to wines I’ve never drunk, all with… show more.