This daring literary thriller, rich with eroticism and suspense, is one of John Fowles's best-loved and bestselling novels and has contributed significantly to his international reputation as a writer of the first degree. At the center of "The Magus" is Nicholas Urfe, a young Englishman who accepts a teaching position on a remote Greek island, where he befriends a local millionaire. The friendship soon evolves into a deadly game, in which reality and fantasy are deliberately manipulated, and Nicholas finds that he must fight not only for his sanity but for his very survival.

The Magus

The Colossus of Maroussi is an impressionist travelogue by Henry Miller, written in 1939 and first published in 1941 by Colt Press of San Francisco. As an impoverished writer in need of rejuvenation, Miller travelled to Greece at the invitation of his friend, the writer Lawrence Durrell. The text is inspired by the events that occurred. The text is ostensibly a portrait of the Greek writer George Katsimbalis, although some critics have opined that is more of a self-portrait of Miller himself.[1] Miller considered it to be his greatest work.

The Colossus of Maroussi

New adventures lie ahead as Anne Shirley packs her bags, waves good-bye to childhood, and heads for Redmond College. With her old friend Prissy Grant waiting in the bustling city of Kingsport and her frivolous new friend Philippa Gordon at her side, Anne tucks her memories of rural Avonlea away and discovers life on her own terms, filled with surprises . . . including a marriage proposal from the worst fellow imaginable, the sale of her very first story, and a tragedy that teaches her a painful lesson. But tears turn to laughter when Anne and her friends move into an old cottage and an ornery black cat steals her heart. Little does Anne know that handsome Gilbert Blythe wants to win her heart, too. Suddenly Anne must decide whether she's ready for love.

Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3)

The Mani, at the tip of Greece's-and Europe's-southernmost promontory, is one of the most isolated regions of the world. Cut off from the rest of the country by the towering range of the Taygetus and hemmed in by the Aegean and Ionian seas, it is a land where the past is still very much a part of its people's daily lives.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, who has been described as "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene," bridges the genres of adventure story, travel writing, and memoir to reveal an ancient world living alongside the twentieth century. Here, in the book that confirmed his reputation as one of the English language's finest writers of prose, Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys among the Greeks of the mountains, exploring their history and time-honored lore.

"Mani" is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor's celebrated "Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece".

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese

When Sierra discovers her young ancestor's handcrafted quilt and reads her journal, she finds that their lives are very similar. By following her ancestor's example, she learns to surrender to God's sovereignty and unconditional love.

The Scarlet Thread

This book provides a concise, illustrated introduction to the history of modern Greece, from the first stirrings of the national movement in the late eighteenth century to the present day. It is designed to provide a basic introduction for general and academic readers with little or no prior knowledge of the subject. A Concise History of Greece has been revised and now includes a new final chapter that covers Greek history and politics to the present day. Richard Clogg is a Fellow of St. Anthony's College, Oxford and was formerly Professor of Modern Balkan History, University of London. His previous publications include Anglo-Greek Attitudes (Palgrave, 2000) and Parties and Elections in Greece (Duke University Press, 1988). He is currently writing A Concise History of Romania for the Cambridge Concise Histories Series.

A Concise History of Greece

Leaving behind a sparkling social life and a successful journalism career, Eleni Gage moved from New York City to the remote Greek village of Lia. Lia is the same village where her father was born and her grandmother murdered, and which her father, Nicholas Gage, made famous twenty years ago with his international bestseller "Eleni". 

Her four aunts (the diminutive but formidable "thitsas") warned Eleni that she'd get killed by Albanians and eaten by wolves if she moved to Lia, invoking the curse her grandmother placed on any of her descendants who returned to Greece. But Eleni was determined to rebuild the ruins of her grandparents' house and to come to terms with her family's tragic history. Along the way, she learned to dodge bad omens and to battle the scorpions on her pillow and the shadows in her heart. She also came to understand that Greece and its memories were not only dark and death-filled, and that memories of the dead can bring new life to the present.

Part travel memoir and part family saga, "North of Ithaka" is, above all, a journey home.


North of Ithaka: A Journey Home Through a Family's Extraordinary Past

Panos Karnezis' remarkable stories are all set in the same nameless Greek village. His characters are the people who live there - the priest, the barber, the whore, the doctor, the seamstress, the mayor - and the occasional animal: a centaur, a parrot that recites Homer, a horse called History. Their lives intersect, as lives do in a small place, and they know each other's secrets - the hidden crimes, the mysteries, the little infamies that men commit. Karnezis observes his villagers with a forgiving eye, and creates a world where magic invariably loses out to harsh reality, a world at once universal, funny and utterly compelling.

Little Infamies

Roumeli is not to be found on present-day maps. It is the name once given to northern Greece—stretching from the Bosporus to the Adriatic and from Macedonia to the Gulf of Corinth, a name that evokes a world where the present is inseparably bound up with the past.

"Roumeli" describes Patrick Leigh Fermor’s wanderings in and around this mysterious and yet very real region. He takes us with him among Sarakatsan shepherds, to the monasteries of Meteora and the villages of Krakora, and on a mission to track down a pair of Byron’s slippers at Missolonghi. As he does, he brings to light the inherent conflicts of the Greek inheritance—the tenuous links to the classical and Byzantine heritage, the legacy of Ottoman domination—along with an underlying, even older world, traces of which Leigh Fermor finds in the hills and mountains and along stretches of barely explored coast.

"Roumeli" is a companion volume to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s famous" Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese".

Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece

At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.

Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .

“A novel that is intricate and arresting and, once begun, almost impossible to put down.”—Daily News 

“A timeless epic of man and war . . . Pressfield has created a new classic deserving a place beside the very best of the old.”—Stephen Coonts

Gates of Fire

In The Last of the Wine, two young Athenians, Alexias and Lysis, compete in the palaestra, journey to the Olympic games, fight in the wars against Sparta, and study under Socrates. As their relationship develops, Renault expertly conveys Greek culture, showing the impact of this supreme philosopher whose influence spans epochs.

The Last of the Wine

In 1948, as civil war ravaged Greece, children were abducted and sent to communist "camps" inside the Iron Curtain. Eleni Gatzoyiannis, forty-one, defied the traditions of her small village and the terror of the communist insurgents to arrange for the escape of her three daughters and her son, Nicola. For that act, she was imprisoned, tortured, and executed in cold blood.

Nicholas Gage joined his father in Massachusetts at the age of nine and grew up to become a top New York Times investigative reporter, honing his skills with one thought in mind: to return to Greece and uncover the one story he cared about most: the story of his mother.

Eleni takes you into the heart a village destroyed in the name of ideals and into the soul of a truly heroic woman.

Eleni

“Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.” —Hilary Mantel

In myth, Theseus was the slayer of the child-devouring Minotaur in Crete. What the founder-hero might have been in real life is another question, brilliantly explored in "The King Must Die". Drawing on modern scholarship and archaeological findings at Knossos, Mary Renault’s Theseus is an utterly lifelike figure—a king of immense charisma, whose boundless strivings flow from strength "and" weakness—but also one steered by implacable prophecy.

The story follows Theseus’s adventures from Troizen to Eleusis, where the death in the book’s title is to take place, and from Athens to Crete, where he learns to jump bulls and is named king of the victims. Richly imbued with the spirit of its time, this is a page-turner as well as a daring act of imagination.

Renault’s story of Theseus continues with the sequel "The Bull from the Sea.
"
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author."
  

"

The King Must Die (Theseus, #1)

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

We think we know ancient Greece, the civilisation that shares the same name and gave us just about everything that defines 'western' culture today, in the arts, sciences, social sciences and politics. Yet, as Greece has been brought under repeated scrutiny during the financial crises that have convulsed the country since 2010, worldwide coverage has revealed just how poorly we grasp the modern nation. This book sets out to understand the modern Greeks on their own terms.

How did Greece come to be so powerfully attached to the legacy of the ancients in the first place, and then define an identity for themselves that is at once Greek and modern? This book reveals the remarkable achievement, during the last 300 years, of building a modern nation on, sometimes literally, the ruins of a vanished civilisation. This is the story of the Greek nation-state but also, and perhaps more fundamentally, of the collective identity that goes with it. It is not only a history of events and high politics, it is also a history of culture, of the arts, of people and of ideas.

Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation

Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece and Egypt to India and a new cosmopolitan model for western civilisation. 

In Alexander's childhood, his defiant character was molded into the makings of a king. His mother, Olympias, and his father, King Philip of Macedon, fought each other for their son's loyalty, teaching Alexander politics and vengeance from the cradle. His love for the youth Hephaistion, on whom he depended for he rest of his life, taught him trust, whilst Aristotle's tutoring provoked his mind and Homer's "Iliad" fuelled his aspirations. He killed his first man in battle at the age of twelve and became the commander of Macedon's cavalry at eighteen - by the time his father was murdered and he acceded to the throne, Alexander's skills had grown to match his fiery ambition.

Fire from Heaven (Alexander the Great, #1)


  An engrossing account of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their continent from Hitler.
 When the Nazi blitzkrieg rolled over continental Europe in the early days of World War II, the city of London became a refuge for the governments and armed forces of six occupied nations — Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway, Czechoslovakia, and Poland — who escaped there to continue the fight. So, too, did General Charles de Gaulle, the self- appointed representative of free France. As the only European democracy still holding out against Hitler, Britain became known to occupied countries as ‘Last Hope Island’. In this epic, character-driven narrative, acclaimed historian and "New York Times"–bestselling author Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the mightiest military force in history and restore order to a broken continent.

Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War

Presented in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and three different interlocutors, this classic text is an enquiry into the notion of a perfect community and the ideal individual within it. During the conversation, other questions are raised: what is goodness?; what is reality?; and what is knowledge? The Republic also addresses the purpose of education and the role of both women and men as guardians of the people. With remarkable lucidity and deft use of allegory, Plato arrives at a depiction of a state bound by harmony and ruled by philosopher kings.

The Republic

"Five hundred years before Christ in a little town on the far western border of the settled and civilized world, a strange new power was at work... Athens had entered upon her brief and magnificent flowering of genius which so molded the world of mind and of spirit that our mind and spirit today are different... What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpasses and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world."

A perennial favorite in many different editions, Edith Hamilton's best-selling "The Greek Way" captures the spirit and achievements of Greece in the fifth century B.C. A retired headmistress when she began her writing career in the 1930s, Hamilton immediately demonstrated a remarkable ability to bring the world of ancient Greece to life, introducing that world to the twentieth century. "The New York Times" called "The Greek Way" a "book of both cultural and critical importance."

The Greek Way

Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. 

The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature. 

A high-action story written with a poet's hand, "The Name of the Wind" is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

In this sequel to The King Must Die Theseus defies the Gods’ and claims the throne of Athens a move that culminates in the terrible, fateful destruction of the house of Minos -- the Minotaur.

The Bull from the Sea (Theseus, #2)

In Amanda Michalopoulou's Why I Killed My Best Friend, a young girl named Maria is lifted from her beloved Africa and relocated to her native Greece. She struggles with the transition, hating everything about Athens: the food, the air, the school, her classmates, the language. Just as she resigns herself to misery, Anna arrives. Though Anna's refined, Parisian upbringing is the exact opposite of Maria's, the two girls instantly bond over their common foreignness, becoming inseperable in their relationship as each other's best friend, but also as each other's fiercest competition-be it in relation to boys, talents, future aspirations, or political beliefs.

From Maria and Anna's gradeschool days in 70s, post-dictatorship Greece, to their adult lives in the present, Michalopoulou charts the ups, downs, and fallings-out of the powerful self-destructive bond only true best friends can have. Simply and beautifully written, Why I Killed My Best Friend is a novel that ultimately compares and explores friendship as a political system of totalitarianism and democracy.

"Flawlessly translated, Amanda Michalopolou's WIKMBF uses the backdrop of Greek politics, radical protests, and the art world to explore the dangers and joys that come with BFFs. Or, as the narrator puts it, 'odiodsamato,' which translates roughly as 'frienemies.'"-Gary Shteyngart

Why I Killed My Best Friend

In a Greek taverna, high over the small village of Aghia Anna, four people meet for the first time: Fiona, an Irish nurse, Thomas, a Californian academic; Elsa, a German television presenter; and David a shy English boy. Along with Andreas, the old man who runs the taverna, they become close to each other after witnessing a tragedy when a pleasure steamer catches fire in the harbour. NIGHTS OF RAIN AND STARS is the story of one summer when Fiona, Thomas, Elsa and David all have to face the particular life crisis which first made them leave their homes and end up in Greece. With the help of Vonni, a middle-aged Irish woman who lives in the village and is now a near-native, they each find a solution - although not necessarily the one they anticipated...

Nights of Rain and Stars

May 1941 and the island of Crete is invaded by paratroopers from the air. 60 years later, Lois West and her young son, Alex, invite feisty Great Aunt Pen to a special 85th birthday celebration on Crete, knowing she hasn't been back since the war. When word spreads of her visit, and old friends come to greet her, Lois and Alex are caught up in her pilgrimage and the journey which leads her to a reunion with the friend she thought she had lost - and the truth behind a secret buried in the past.

The Girl Under the Olive Tree

A young boy comes of age during World War II while living in German-occupied Greece and consequently witnesses the ongoing destruction of his family, his village, and ultimately his way of life. (Nancy Pearl)

When the Tree Sings

Provocative military historian Victor Davis Hanson has given painstakingly researched &amp; pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the 21st century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. Over the course of a generation, the Hellenic poleis of Athens &amp; Sparta fought a bloody conflict that resulted in the collapse of Athens &amp; the end of its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid &amp; authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters &amp; insight into how these events echo in the present. He compellingly portrays the ways Athens &amp; Sparta fought on land &amp; sea, in city &amp; countryside, &amp; details their employment of the full scope of conventional &amp; nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture &amp; terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles &amp; Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, &amp; thinkers including Sophocles &amp; Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events &amp; personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens &amp; Sparta like America &amp; Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland &amp; the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals &amp; conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life &amp; unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.

A War Like No Other: How the Athenians & Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War

The story of a man in love with a place, a woman, and a dream. 
 Tom Stone went to Greece one summer to write a novel -- and stayed twenty-two years. On Patmos, he fell in love with Danielle, a beautiful French painter. His novel completed and sold, he decided to stay a little longer. 
 Seven idyllic years later, they left Patmos for Crete. When a Patmian friend Theológos called and offered him a summer partnership in his beach tavérna, The Beautiful Helen, Stone jumped at the chance -- much to the dismay of his wife, who cautioned him not to forget the old adage about Greeks bearing gifts. 
 Her warning was well-founded: when back on Patmos, Stone quickly discovered that he was no longer a friend or patron but a competitor. He learned hard lessons about the Greeks' skill at bargaining and business while reluctantly coming to the realization that Theológos's offer of a partnership was indeed a Trojan horse. 
 Featuring Stone's recipes, including his own Chicken Retsina and the ultimate moussaka, "The Summer of My Greek Tavérna" is as much a love story as it is the grand, humorous, and sometimes bittersweet adventures of an American pursuing his dreams in a foreign land, a modern-day innocent abroad.

The Summer of My Greek Taverna

In 480 B.C., Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For seventy years, victory—rapid, spectacular victory—had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. In the space of a single generation, they had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. As a result of those conquests, Xerxes ruled as the most powerful man on the planet. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks of the mainland managed to hold out. The Persians were turned back. Greece remained free. Had the Greeks been defeated in the epochal naval battle at Salamis, not only would the West have lost its first struggle for independence and survival, but it is unlikely that there would ever have been such an entity as the West at all.

Tom Holland’s brilliant new book describes the very first “clash of Empires” between East and West. As he did in the critically praised "Rubicon", he has found extraordinary parallels between the ancient world and our own. There is no other popular history that takes in the entire sweep of the Persian Wars, and no other classical historian, academic or popular, who combines scholarly rigor with novelistic depth with a worldly irony in quite the fashion that Tom Holland does.

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

Rediscover the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths—stylishly retold by Stephen Fry. This legendary writer, actor, and comedian breathes new life into beloved tales. From Persephone's pomegranate seeds to Prometheus's fire, from devious divine schemes to immortal love affairs, Fry draws out the humor and pathos in each story and reveals its relevance for our own time. Illustrated throughout with classical art inspired by the myths, this gorgeous volume invites you to explore a captivating world, with a brilliant storyteller as your guide.

Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)

Costas Haritos, a CID chief in central Athens, is uncomfortably married, aggressive and pessimistic, and only manages to relax when he is at home reading his English dictionaries. A veteran of the force, he is only now coming to terms with the pervasive corruption in public and private life since the fall of the military dictatorship and the advent of democratic government.

When an Albanian couple is found brutally slaughtered, it looks like an open and shut crime of passion. But when Yanna, a TV journalist investigating the same case, is murdered in a broadcasting studio just before going on air, Haritos begins to think he's missing something crucial in this seemingly simple case. Why was she so interested in whether the police had found evidence of the presence of children at the Albanians' home? When Yanna's successor at the TV station is also murdered, Haritos finds himself sucked ever deeper into the grubby world of the Greek media and the shadowy underworld of international child trafficking.

The Late-Night News (Costas Haritos #1)

Neil Gaiman, long inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction, presents a bravura rendition of the Norse gods and their world from their origin though their upheaval in Ragnarok. 

In "Norse Mythology", Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki—son of a giant—blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.

Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Through Gaiman’s deft and witty prose, these gods emerge with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again.

Norse Mythology

Ikonomou's stories convey the plight of those worst affected by the Greek economic crisis--laid-off workers, hungry children. In the urban sprawl between Athens and Piraeus, the narratives roam restlessly through the impoverished working-class quarters located off the tourist routes. Everyone is dreaming of escape: to the mountains, to an island or a palatial estate, into a Hans Christian Andersen story world. What are they fleeing? The old woes--gossip, watchful neighbors, the oppression and indifference of the rich--now made infinitely worse. In Ikonomou's concrete streets, the rain is always looming, the politicians' slogans are ignored, and the police remain a violent, threatening presence offstage. Yet even at the edge of destitution, his men and women act for themselves, trying to preserve what little solidarity remains in a deeply atomized society, and in one way or another finding their own voice. There is faith here, deep faith--though little or none in those who habitually ask for it.


"From the Trade Paperback edition."

Something Will Happen, You'll See

In the story of the great lyric poet Simonides, Mary Renault brings alive a time in Greece when tyrants kept an unsteady rule and poetry, music, and royal patronage combined to produce a flowering of the arts. 

Born into a stern farming family on the island of Keos, Simonides escapes his harsh childhood through a lucky apprenticeship with a renowned Ionian singer. As they travel through 5th century B.C. Greece, Simonides learns not only how to play the kithara and compose poetry, but also how to navigate the shifting alliances surrounding his rich patrons. He is witness to the Persian invasion of Ionia, to the decadent reign of the Samian pirate king Polykrates, and to the fall of the Pisistratids in the Athenian court. Along the way, he encounters artists, statesmen, athletes, thinkers, and lovers, including the likes of Pythagoras and Aischylos. Using the singer's unique perspective, Renault combines her vibrant imagination and her formidable knowledge of history to establish a sweeping, resilient vision of a golden century.

The Praise Singer

The precepts of Hermetic philosophy remained shrouded in secrecy for more than 2,000 years, clouded by obscure language and dense allegories. This concise guide offers a modern interpretation of the doctrine, distilling its teachings with seven compelling principles that can be applied to self-development in daily life.

Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece

Set in fourth-century B.C. Greece, "The Mask of Apollo" is narrated by Nikeratos, a tragic actor who takes with him on all his travels a gold mask of Apollo, a relic of the theater's golden age, which is now past. At first his mascot, the mask gradually becomes his conscience, and he refers to it his gravest decisions, when he finds himself at the center of a political crisis in which the philosopher Plato is also involved. Much of the action is set in Syracuse, where Plato's friend Dion is trying to persuade the young tyrant Dionysios the Younger to accept the rule of law. Through Nikeratos' eyes, the reader watches as the clash between the two looses all the pent-up violence in the city.

The Mask of Apollo

On the culture that brought us democracy, the Olympics, Socrates, and Alexander the Great, this lavishly illustrated reference about ancient Greece presents the amazing history through gripping stories; the rise and fall of the phenomenal empire; the powerful legacy left by ancient Greece for the modern world; and the new discoveries shedding light on these ancient people that are still so much with us. Even today, Greek art and architecture dominate our cities; modern military strategists still study and employ Hellenic war tactics; Greek poetry, plays, and philosophy are widely read and enjoyed; and science, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy all build on the fundamentals of early Greek thinking. Included are fascinating insights into Greek island living, ancient social networking, and the extreme priority Greeks placed on athletic competition (warring city-states declared truces during the Olympic games). Learn of spectacular discoveries such as the Uluburun shipwreck, the earliest writing ever found in Europe, and buried palaces. A stunning treasure, this lushly-illustrated, uniquely comprehensive and accessible history of Ancient Greece is perfect for anyone interested in the origins of our modern world.

National Geographic The Greeks: An Illustrated History

“It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior.”–"The Atlantic Monthly
"
The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexander’s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes-mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper. After Alexander’s mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior and his ambitions better than anyone.

The Persian Boy (Alexander the Great, #2)

When Lucy Waring's sister Phyllida suggests that she join her for a quiet holiday on the island of Corfu, young English Lucy is overjoyed. Her work as an actress has temporarily come to a halt. She believes there is no finer place to be "at liberty" than the sun-drenched isle of Corfu, the alleged locale for Shakespeare's The Tempest. Even the suspicious actions of the handsome, arrogant son of a famous actor cannot dampen her enthusiasm for this wonderland in the Ionian Sea.

But the peaceful idyll does not last long. A series of incidents, seemingly unconnected - but all surrounded in mystery - throws Lucy's life into a dangerous spin, as fear, danger and death - as well as romance - supplant the former tranquility. Then a human corpse is carried ashore on the incoming tide... And without warning, she found she had stumbled into a nightmare of strange violence, stalked by shadows of terror and sudden death.

This Rough Magic

Entre 1945 y 1946, al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, Lawrence Durrell fue agente de información británico en la isla de Rodas. Este oficio le permitió descubrir, en un tiempo en el que mundo andaba deprimido, la belleza del paisaje mediterráneo, en la que halló un motivo de esperanza que supo transmitir a sus lectores. El contacto de Durrell con el mar grecolatino está regido por los presupuestos y expectativas de un humanista: Durrell vincula el paisaje a la tradición y sabe desentrañar, con su prosa minuciosa y poética, los siglos y los hechos que se esconden tras una puesta de sol. Al cabo de los años, y ya desligada del contexto histórico en que vio la luz, "Reflexiones sobre una Venus marina" nos sigue seduciendo por su alta categoría y por su innegable carácter práctico: no en vano el propio autor calificó el libro como una "introducción a Rodas", el lugar donde "los días pasan con la misma fluidez con que los frutos caen de los árboles".

Reflexiones sobre una Venus Marina (Colección Siete leguas 13)

'Witty, ironic ... and achieves a deeply felt authenticity' NEW YORK TIMES

The Walled Orchard (The Walled Orchard #1-2)

School Library Journal Best Books of 2011

Eureka! Silver Honor Books—California Reading Association

Capitol Choices 2012 list of Noteworthy Titles for Children and Teens

2012 Notable Children's Books—ALSC

The new "National Geographic Treasury of Greek Mythology" offers timeless stories of Greek myths in a beautiful new volume. Brought to life with lyrical text by award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli and stunning artwork by award-winning illustrator Christina Balit, the tales of gods and goddesses such as Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, and Athena and heroes and monsters such as Helen of Troy, Perseus, and Medusa will fascinate and engage children’s imaginations.
  
 National Geographic completes the book with embellishments of each story: sidebars for each god, goddess, hero, and monster link the myths to constellations, geography, history, and culture to help young readers connect the stories to real life events, people, and places. A family tree and a “cast of characters” profile page help make relationships between the characters clear, and a mapping feature adds to the fun and fascination. Resource notes and ample back matter directing readers to more information round out this luminous book. Sure to dazzle all those intrigued with the fantastic tales of Greek mythology and enchant new readers, this vibrant book will soon become a family keepsake.

National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.

Treasury of Greek Mythology: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes & Monsters

Minoans: A Captivating Guide to an Essential Bronze Age Society in Ancient Greece Called the Minoan Civilization

The Mycenaeans: A Captivating Guide to the First Advanced Civilization in Ancient Greece

Idyllic but remote, the Greek island of Thiminos seems untouched and untroubled by the modern world. So when the battered body of a young woman is discovered at the foot of a cliff, the local police - governed more by archaic rules of honor than by the law - are quick to close the case, dismissing her death as an accident.

 Then a stranger arrives, uninvited, from Athens, announcing his intention to investigate further into the crime he believes has been committed. Refusing to accept the woman's death as an accident or suicide, Hermes Diaktoros sets out to uncover the truths that skulk beneath this small community's exterior. Hermes's methods of investigation are unorthodox, and his message to the islanders is plain - tell the truth or face the consequences. Before long, he's uncovering a tale of passion, corruption and murder that entangles many of the island's residents. But Hermes brings his own mystery into the web of dark secrets and lies - and as he travels the rugged island landscape to investigate, questions and suspicions arise amongst the locals. Who has sent him to Thiminos, and on whose authority is he acting? And how does he know of dramas played out decades ago?Rich in images of Greece's beautiful islands and evoking a life unknown to most outsiders, this wonderful novel leads the reader into a world where the myths of the past are not forgotten and forbidden passion still has dangerous consequences.

The Messenger of Athens (The Greek Detective #1)

The contribution of the ancient Greeks to modern western culture is incalculable. In the worlds of art, architecture, myth, literature &amp; philosophy, the world we live in would be unrecognizable without the formative influence of ancient Greek models. This original &amp; stimulating introduction to ancient Greece takes the city as its starting point, revealing just how central the polis ("city-" or "citizen-state") was to Hellenistic cultural achievements. In particular, Cartledge uses the history of 11 major Greek cities--out of over a 1000--to illuminate the most important &amp; informative aspects of Greek history. The book spans a surprisingly long time period, ranging from the 1st examples of ancient Greek language from Cnossus in Crete c. 1400 BC to the establishment of Constantinople (today's Istanbul) in 324 AD on the site of the Greek city of Byzantion. Cartledge highlights the role of such renowned cities as Athens (birthplace of democracy) &amp; Sparta, but he also examines Argos, Thebes, Syracuse in Sicily &amp; Alexandria in Egypt, as well as lesser known locales such as Miletus (home of the West's 1st intellectual, Thales) &amp; Massalia (Marseilles), where the Greeks introduced the wine grape to the French. The author uses these cities to illuminate major themes, from economics, religion &amp; social relations, to gender &amp; sexuality, slavery &amp; freedom, &amp; politics. Throughout, the book explores how these 11 cities differed both from each other &amp; from modern society.
 An innovative approach to ancient Greece &amp; its legacy, both in terms of the time span covered &amp; in its unique city-by-city organization, this volume provides an ideal concise introduction to the history &amp; culture of this remarkable civilization.

Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities

This gripping and richly illustrated account of wartime Greece explores the impact of the Nazi Occupation upon the lives and values of ordinary people. The first full account of the experience of occupation, it offers a vividly human picture of resistance fighters and black marketeers, teenage German conscripts and Gestapo officers, Jews and starving villagers.

		"Fascinating. . . . [Mazower] succeeds in getting under the skin of the occupation. . . . [This book] conjures up, in vivid detail, life under an occupation that had shattered old certainties and replaced them with painful choices, cynical compromises, and hopes undercut by the daily death toll."—Mark Almond, "New York Times"

		"A vivid picture of the German occupier’s mind and actions. . . . Mazower’s arguments are always fair."—Richard Eder, "Los Angeles Times Book Review"

		"A superb book on the horrors afflicting wartime Greece. . . . [Mazower] has done vast archival research and emerged with a gripping, readable and human account, setting every moment of a tragic period in appropriate context."—Fritz Stern, "Foreign Affairs"

		"[A] sensitive, illuminating and richly textured account of painful, complex experience."—Richard Overy, "Observer"

		Mark Mazower is professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London, and author of "Dark Continent".

Greece

The Magus

John Fowles

The Colossus of Maroussi

Henry Miller

Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3)

L.M. Montgomery

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese

Patrick Leigh Fermor

The Scarlet Thread

Francine Rivers

A Concise History of Greece

Richard Clogg

North of Ithaka: A Journey Home Through a Family's Extraordinary Past

Eleni N. Gage

Little Infamies

Panos Karnezis

Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Gates of Fire

Steven Pressfield

The Last of the Wine

Mary Renault

Eleni

Nicholas Gage

The King Must Die (Theseus, #1)

Mary Renault

Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation

Roderick Beaton

Fire from Heaven (Alexander the Great, #1)

Mary Renault

Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War

Lynne Olson

The Republic

Plato

The Greek Way

Edith Hamilton

The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)

Patrick Rothfuss

The Bull from the Sea (Theseus, #2)

Mary Renault

Why I Killed My Best Friend

Amanda Michalopoulou

Nights of Rain and Stars

Maeve Binchy

The Girl Under the Olive Tree

Leah Fleming

When the Tree Sings

Stratis Haviaras

A War Like No Other: How the Athenians & Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War

Victor Davis Hanson

The Summer of My Greek Taverna

Tom Stone

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

Tom Holland

Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)

Stephen Fry

The Late-Night News (Costas Haritos #1)

Petros Markaris

Norse Mythology

Neil Gaiman

Something Will Happen, You'll See

Christos Ikonomou

The Praise Singer

Mary Renault

Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece

Three Initiates

The Mask of Apollo

Mary Renault

National Geographic The Greeks: An Illustrated History

Diane Harris Cline

The Persian Boy (Alexander the Great, #2)

Mary Renault

This Rough Magic

Mary Stewart

Reflexiones sobre una Venus Marina (Colección Siete leguas 13)

Lawrence Durrell

The Walled Orchard (The Walled Orchard #1-2)

Tom Holt

Treasury of Greek Mythology: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes & Monsters