List Price $16.00 / 12.56 euro
Our Price $11.20 / 8.79 euro    You save $4.80 / 3.77 euro

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

A wonderful book about Greece, the Greek people, and traditional island life, from the viewpoint of one crazy Brit who tries to adapt to the land and life that he has come to love by buying a shattered house he wants to rebuild to its former traditional glory--and actually he does, but with plenty of misadventures, hilariously recounted, along the way. I bought this book in Athens this summer in a fit of mad love for Greece, and devoured it once I got home, despite my aversion to memoirs. In fact I laughed so hard at times that tears poured down my cheeks. Mole is an expert at conveying the charming, and exasperating, aspects of the Greek character and lifestyle, as well as wonderfully evoking the pull the Greek landscape has on outsiders who visit...and who never forget its unique, wild beauty. Mole is an incomparable British wit--and generous humorist as well, for he doesn't just sketch the various mad characters and situations he encounters, he lampoons his own self first and foremost. Mole is a brilliant comic writer: his earthy, extremely dry wit is mixed with poignant observations that could be treacly in lesser hands. But Mole is a true expert at achieving a balance of moods that keeps the reader involved from beginning to end. I highly recommend this book, especially if you have spent any time at all in Greece; the references will have greater meaning to you if you have. But regardless of your connection with Greece (or lack there of) this is an extremely fun read; in particular, anyone with kids will find his depiction of family life universally accurate, and hysterically funny. He is not a sentimentalist, and yet conversely, by being a brilliant observationist, he has created a loving, sentimental memoir.