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Greece Book Reviews

The Greece Book Reviews page on the Greece Travel Secrets website includes reviews of the best guidebooks to Greece, the Greek Islands, Athens, Crete, and other books about Greece.

Atlantis Books on Santorini

As well as reading these book reviews, don't miss our Books About Greece page, where we list our favourite books about Greece, even though we haven't been able to review them all in full.

Athens

Athens Eater's Guide

This Athens Eater's Guide is only a slim volume of 112 pages but if you're like us and love both Athens and food then it's worth its weight in gold.

Culture Trails (Lonely Planet)

Greece Travel Secrets reviews the book Culture Trails by Lonely Planet, which has a section on Artistic Athens alongside 51 other perfect weekends for culture lovers around the world.

Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens

Greece Travel Secrets reviews Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens, which is Sofka Zinovieff's account of her first year living in Athens after moving there with her Greek husband and two children.

Fiction

Fire on the Island

Fire on the Island is a ripping and page-turning romantic thriller novel by Timothy Jay Smith set on a fictionalised version of the town of Molyvos on the island of Lesbos.


Greek Islands

A-Z Guide to Kos

The 2022 edition of the A-Z Travel Guide to Kos is the 15th edition of the best and most comprehensive guidebook to Kos in the Dodecanese islands of Greece.

A-Z Guide to Santorini

The very thorough A-Z Guide to Santorini by Tony Oswin is now in its 15th edition, a sure sign that the guidebook is both popular and kept up-to-date.

A-Z Guide to Thassos

The A-Z Guide to Thassos, including Kavala and Philippi, is newly updated for 2022 and is the most comprehensive guide to Thassos available.

Ikaria

Ikaria by Meni Valle is subtitled 'Food and Life in the Blue Zone' and is a beautifully-photographed coffee-table book that is both a cookbook and an evocative introduction to the life and people of Ikaria, not just its food and drink. Highly recommended, and we've already started using recipes from it.

Lonely Planet Greek Islands

The Lonely Planet guide to the Greek islands is a thorough and helpful guide to all the Greek island groups, with Athens included.

Lonely Planet Crete

Lonely Planet's Crete guide is an excellent and thorough guidebook of almost 300 pages to the largest of the Greek islands.

Margarita's Olive Press

Margarita’s Olive Press by Rodney Shields is a modern gem of a book of Greek travel writing, in which the author falls in love with and renovates a property on Zakynthos.

Mermaid Singing:
Kalymnos Travel Writing

Mermaid Singing by Charmian Clift is a fine example of 1950s travel writing about the Greek island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese.


Peel Me a Lotus
Hydra Travel Writing Classic

Peel Me a Lotus by Charmian Clift is a Hydra travel writing classic, describing her family’s life on this tiny Greek island near Athens in the 1950s.

A Rope of Vines

Author and artist Brenda Chamberlain leaves her home on Bardsey Island in Wales to spend six years on the Greek island of Hydra. She describes the life and people vividly.

Schinoussa and Iraklia in Greece

This is the first travel guide to Schinoussa and Iraklia, two tiny islands in the Cyclades, published by Real Greek Experiences.

The Summer of My Greek Taverna

American author Tom Stone takes up the offer to run a taverna on Patmos for a summer, and discovers just what like is life trying to run a taverna at the height of the summer season. Also includes 40 pages of Greek recipes.

Taverna by the Sea

Jennifer Barclay's enjoyable account of her summer working at a taverna by the sea on the island of Karpathos.

Wild Abandon

Jennifer Barclay visits the abandoned places of the Dodecanese in a beautifully-written travel narrative book.

Greece

Bradt Guide to Northern Greece

The Bradt Guide to Northern Greece is a detailed guide to Thessaloniki, Halkidiki, Macedonia, Thrace, The Pelion, The Sporades and the rest of Northern Greece.

Bradt Guide to the Peloponnese

The Bradt Guide to the Peloponnese is the best book on the Greek region which includes attractions like Mycenae, Epidavros, Olympia, Monemvasia and Nafplion.

Lonely Planet Greece

The latest edition of the Lonely Planet travel guide to Greece is a comprehensive 750-page guidebook to the whole country.

Monemvasia: People, Place, Presence

Monemvasia is a remarkable place. We’ve only visited it briefly but it’s the kind of place you never ever forget. And if you've not been, this coffee-table collection of photographs and stories will make you want to go.

A Thing of Beauty

A Thing of Beauty by Peter Fiennes describes ‘Travels in Mythical and Modern Greece’ and places the Greek Gods in the context of modern-day Greece.

Other writers and artists pages

  • The Golden Age of Greek drama saw playwrights including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes and Euripides all writing, and you can still see a play at Epidavros.

    Greek Drama

    The Golden Age of Greek drama saw playwrights including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes and Euripides all writing, and you can still see a play at Epidavros.

  • Icon painting is a centuries-old tradition in Crete and the rest of Greece, and Greece Travel Secrets meets a modern-day icon painter in Elounda on Crete.

    The Icon Painter

    Icon painting is a centuries-old tradition in Crete and the rest of Greece, and Greece Travel Secrets meets a modern-day icon painter in Elounda on Crete.

  • Greece Travel Secrets found these beautiful photos of Greece and the Greek islands by Athens-based photographer Milan Gonda.

    Photos of Greece

    Greece Travel Secrets found these beautiful photos of Greece and the Greek islands by Athens-based photographer Milan Gonda.

  • Did Homer write The Odyssey and The Iliad, and what is known about the life of this famous Greek writer, when did he live, where was he born, and was he blind?

    Homer and the Odyssey

    Did Homer write The Odyssey and The Iliad, and what is known about the life of this famous Greek writer, when did he live, where was he born, and was he blind?

  • Greek literature has influenced the world, from the works of Homer, called the world's first novelist, through its great poets and dramatists to modern authors.

    Greek Literature

    Greek literature has influenced the world, from the works of Homer, called the world's first novelist, through its great poets and dramatists to modern authors.

  • There are many great Greek poets, with two authors winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and names include Sappho, Cavafy, George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis.

    Great Greek Poets: Cavafy, Sappho, George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis

    There are many great Greek poets, with two authors winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and names include Sappho, Cavafy, George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis.

  • The most famous Cretan writers and artists include the painter El Greco and the author of Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis.

    Cretan Writers and Artists

    The most famous Cretan writers and artists include the painter El Greco and the author of Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis.

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