A Legend is born in Centopia
583875
Mia and Me: Season 1 Volume 1, the Italian uncut version is good. Rosabell, who plays the role as Mia receives a book and a bracelet. What's inside?

Well basically this PAL DVD includes the first 6 episodes from its debut season, somehow that's 3 more than the upcoming Region 1 release two months away. That makes the total runtime of over 2 hours, and that's good to see more fairytales and adventures with your kids even though these episodes are in Italian, aspect ratio is Widescreen.
1898138
"The Hills of Kronos: A vividly personal discovery of Greece" is the full title of this travelogue by Levi, an account of his time in Greece from the mid Sixties to the mid Seventies, before, during and after the military rgime on the Colonels. Levi, a classicist, poet, academic (at one time Professor of Poetry at Oxford University) and an ordained Jesuit priest arrives for the first time in and falls in love with Greece. As a classicist, he has an interest in Pausanias' 'Guide to Greece' which he later translated for Penguin (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Guide-to-Greece-Vol-1-Central-Greece/dp/0140442251/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Guide to Greece, Vol. 1: Central Greece</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Guide-to-Greece-Vol-2-Southern-Greece/dp/014044226X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Guide to Greece, Vol. 2: Southern Greece</a>) and which continually informs his classical travels. In a different, though complementary, area, Levi the poet meets and engages with many of the figures of the astonishingly fertile Greek literary scene of the period, meeting George Sepharis, encountering the work of Ritsos as well as other poets and writers perhaps less well-known outside Greece. The third level is Levi's increasing political engagement during the dictatorship that gives some pace to the mid-to-later part of the book. Finally there is Levi's own poetic response to Greece, never too far beneath the surface. Recommended.
874021
Over a millennium ago, the biographies of saints were written in a far different style than today. Today, an author probably focuses on the challenges and failings of a saint rather than any miraculous or seemingly superhuman feats they accomplished. By contrast, the ancient tradition of hagiography (writings about the holy ones) reveled in miraculous events and conversions, almost like the saints were superheroes powered by grace rather than gadgets or gamma radiation. Pope St. Gregory the Great wrote just such a biography of St. Benedict, founder of the monastic tradition in the western church.

The text follows Benedict's life from childhood and his first experiences at school in Rome. Living in the late 400s, life was decadent. Benedict was appalled at the behavior of his Roman classmates and fled to the countryside where he became a monk. People heard about him and came to him. A nearby community lost its leader and they invited Benedict to be the new leader. He wanted them to live a holy life, giving up their luxuries. They were unhappy with this and poisoned Benedict's wine. As they brought the pitcher, he blessed it according to the local tradition. The pitcher shattered; Benedict instantly knew they were trying to poison him. He upbraided them and told them to find another father more suited to them.

That's just one example among many along the way. The commentary by Terrence Kardong does a good job of explaining the ancient style and relating the stories both to other examples of hagiography and other writings by and about Benedict. Kardong is well aware and sympathetic with the modern discomfort over miracles, especially when they happen on almost every page. He also is very aware of the literary style of the work. Not only is the prose beautiful to read but the ordering of the stories sets up interesting contrasts or similarities between events in Benedict's life.

For those afraid of finding a miracle-laden text too unbelievable, this translation and commentary makes it much easier reading. The stories told are very interesting and vivid, making this book worth reading just as literature. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Sample Quote--the famous story when Benedict was tempted by lust:

A victim of lust, he almost decided to desert the hermitage. Suddenly, favored by grace from above, he came to his senses. Seeing a thicket of briars and nettles growing close at hand, he stripped naked and threw himself in the sharp thorns and stinging nettles. He rolled in them for a long time and as a result was scratched from head to toe. The physical wounds on his skin removed the wound of his mind, for it converted lust into sorrow. By means of an external punishing fire, he snuffed out what unlawfully burned inside. So he conquered sin by switching fires. [p. 13]
4550794
This is the story of Hatshepsut, daughter of Pharoah Thothmoses I.  The pharoah also has a son, Thothmoses II.  Gedge does a remarkable job of taking us back to the Egypt of Hatshepsut who becomes the pharoah of Egypt.  According Egyptian historians, she is the first recorded female pharoah and was highly successful in her reign of twenty years.  She was succeeded by a nephew, Thutmose III, who became one of the greatest if not the greatest of the pharoahs.

However, this is her story as created by Gedge beginning with her childhood.  She weathers political snares and must convince the priesthood and the nobility that she is destined to rule.  She does so successfully for many years.  Gedge stays true to what we know about her historically filling in details to help us understand the young woman of her time who would be pharoah.  I truly enjoyed this read and recommend it to others interested in historical fiction about this period.  It's well done.  And, if you want to know more about Hatshepsut do a search on the internet.
1796543
"The strange physical appearance of Shiki Nagaoka, marked by the presence of an extraordinary nose, was such that he was considered by many to be a fictional character". Thus begins Mario Bellatin's biography of Shiki Nagaoka, an author little known in the English-speaking world (mainly because all English translations of his first book were pulped at the insistence of The Society for the Respect of the Deformed).

Mario Bellatin and translator David Shook have great fun with Nagaoka, creating a whole life in just over 40 pages, followed by a host of authenticating photographs (although unfortunately, the clearest picture of Nagaoka himself has been altered by his sister 'for the purpose of avoiding that the author be considered a fictional character').

I for one am eagerly awaiting the translation of Nagaoka's works into English, especially his last book which 'doesn't exist in any known language'. In the meantime this biography is a good introduction to the man and his nose.
4023899
Though not a sequel in the traditional sense, One Hundred Years of Vicissitude is built around the character of Wolram E. Deaps, last seen in Bergen's&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Tobacco-Stained-Mountain-Goat/dp/B005XDPYHS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat</a>. When we last saw him, however, things weren't going too well for Deaps, so much so in fact that Vicissitude begins with the following observation on his part: "First up, a disclaimer. I suspect I am a dead man." He suspects correctly.

Not the nicest man in life, Deaps finds himself wandering aimlessly in a sort of limbo world, endlessly walking but never actually getting anywhere. The landscape which greets him is remarkable only in its absence; no cities or towns, rain or sun, color or sound, only barren trees on the edge of a diminishing horizon. Deaps is on a road to nowhere, surrounded by nothing. Until one day, with no warning and no recollection of getting there, Deaps finds himself outside a cottage. Wondering if the cottage is meant to symbolize the end of his journey, Deaps approaches only to discover his journey is just beginning, as the cottage's resident, a Geisha named Kohana, has many wondrous things, both beautiful and terrifying, to show him.

Though she initially appears to Deaps as a fifteen-year-old, Kohana informs him that she in fact lived for nearly a century, and is actually a fellow resident of the limbo world. They are Gaki, she explains, "hungry ghosts" whose lot is to suffer for eternity with an insatiable hunger for the things in life they once most coveted. Kohana proceeds to take Deaps on a spectral journey back through the one hundred years of vicissitude which made up not only her life, but that of the country of Japan as well. Jumping back and forth through time Deaps and Kohana revisit the tumultuous events, both large and small, which shaped a life and a nation.

Along the way author Andrez Bergan treats the reader to an enchanting melding of fact and fiction, one which magically weaves together a tapestry of history and pop culture with references to everything from Lewis Carroll and The Wizard of Oz, to the leveling of Asakusa during World War II and the legendary Graf Zeppelin's only visit to Japan, to James Bond and noir cinema. In this regard, One Hundred Years of Vicissitude is absolutely epic in scope and lushly cinematic in its settings. And yet, when boiled down to its essence One Hundred Years of Vicissitude is first and foremost an intimate look at the relationship between Deaps and Kohana.

It's a strange one, one which initially makes little sense to either the reader or Deaps. There is a method to Bergen's madness however, and the patience of both Deaps and the reader is richly rewarded with a deeply satisfying journey of self-discovery, one arrived at by traveling through humor and horror, joy and sorrow, enrichment and loss. One Hundred Years of Vicissitude is an achingly poetic reminder that life is about the journey, not the destination, and that with that journey necessarily comes change. Sometimes the change is for the better, other times for the worse, but to be alive is to embrace both, for it is only through the vicissitudes of life that one truly lives.

Andrez Bergen is unquestionably one of the most creative, original authors I've ever had the pleasure to read, and his ability to take such wildly disparate pieces as those which appear in Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat and One Hundred Years of Vicissitude and assemble them into a cohesive puzzle is simply awe-inspiring.
2006277
Davis Small's vision is extraordinary. He takes the reader through his haunting childhood memory with artwork of breathtaking power and sensitivity. His use of language, both verbal and pictorial, is that of a master storyteller. His vision ranges from the truly cinematic, to the most delicate tiny details, and includes one or two visual puns that are bound to become classics.
2346033
The book starts with Jacquies grandfather Henri, an explorer dying from malaria in Laos in 1861, deliriously talking about The Sea of Milk, before fast forwarding to introduce Jacquie in 1921, who is about to set off from France to follow her grandfathers footsteps to Indochina by sea, via Singapore and Saigon to Cambodia. We then travel back to The Khmer Empire in 1294 where we meet Paaku and his best friend Jarisi. Paaku heals a monkey that had been bitten by a tiger. The story continues to alternate between 1921 and 1294, interspersed with entries from Henris journal. Jacquie experiences several nightmares, including flashbacks to when she was nursing at the Somme.

Back in 1294, the kingdom is ruled by King Jayavarman VIII and religion is divided between Buddha, Shiva, Vishnu and other gods. Paaku and Jarisi head to the festival where Paaku ends up being selected by Queen Devi for the test of bending Balarmas Spear, which is made of gold. Amazingly he does it easily, a feat that hasn't been achieved for over 100 years. It is declared a miracle, but fate follows a strange cursed path after that. And somehow Paakus story is already known to Jacquie. When present and past collide, what will happen?

A fascinating read of a civilisation I knew nothing about.
Disclosure. This is a review of an e-book I was sent for free. All opinions are my own.
637722
This is a fascinating book about one of the world's most interesting cities.  It wouldn't appear obvious today because Thessaloniki (as it's called in Greek today as in ancient times) gives the impression of being a wholly-Greek and modern big city, but it was anything but that for the 500 years prior to World War I:  it was a multinational, multicultural Balkan port city of the Ottoman Empire, whose largest single ethnic group was Sephardic Jews from Spain, Portugal and Italy and whose lingua franca was Judeo-Spanish ("Ladino"), a language very close to modern Spanish (and different from it primarily in that the former has sounds and syntax that were current in Castilian speech 500 years ago but have since changed or disappeared as the Spanish language developed over time).  The book is written from the point of view of a Sephardic Jewish Salonican who senses (rightly) that the golden age of the city as a Jewish metropolis (or a multicultural one, for that matter) are coming to an end and conveys that general sense about as well as could possibly be done.  (Although, needless to say, he could not possibly have anticipated the wholesale slaughter of nearly the entire Jewish community which occurred barely 30 years later.)
  This book actually inspired me to go to Salonica (Thessaloniki) and see for myself.  Judeo-Spanish is still spoken, but only by the elderly Sephardic Jews (everyone else speaks Greek), and at the one synagogue at which outsiders are able to attend services there is rigorous scrutiny of all people other than regular congregants -- such are the times, and such is the city's historic memory.  Apart from the physical setting (on a horseshoe-shaped bay with Mt. Olympos on the horizon), the only real physical reminders of the Salonica the author knew are the White Tower by the waterfront and the historically-Turkish Ano Poli district with the house where modern Turkey's Mustafa Kemal ("Ataturk") was born and lived the first 31 years of his life.  (Because the Ottoman Empire lost Salonica in 1912 while he was away serving in its army, he literally couldn't go home again.)  Otherwise, fervent Hellenization prevails everywhere in the city and its surroundings.  Indeed, even the name "Thessaloniki" is commonly abbreviated as "Thess'niki" --- a locution which wipes out the very syllables ("sa-lon") by which the Jews, the Turks and the Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs who lived there a century ago would have known and referred to the city in their various languages.
4415118
First Line: The procession wound past the Sanctuary of Zeus.

The procession consists of athletes, trainers, priests, officials, and spectators who are gathering for the Olympic Games of 460 BC. The most important contest is the pankration, the deadly martial art of ancient Greece. Nicolaos's best friend, Timodemus of Athens ("Timo"), is the favorite to win the pankration. When Timo's only serious rival, Arakos of Sparta, is found beaten to death, it's obvious to everyone that Timo has to be the killer. Timo is sentenced to be executed when the Sacred Games have finished. However, there is a political angle to this crime. Athens and Sparta are spoiling for a fight, and Arakos's death could very well be the catalyst. The politically savvy Athenian Pericles tells Nicolaos that he has four days to find the real killer of Arakos. To prevent a war, Nico and the priestess Diotima have to work fast.

I was sent this book by the publisher, and I have to admit that I came within a whisker of deciding not to read it. I really haven't dealt much with ancient Greece since my college days. I have no idea why I changed my mind, but I'm glad I did. I would have missed out on an excellent story otherwise.

Diving into this series at book number three wasn't confusing. The further I read, the more I wanted to read the previous two books because I was enjoying the story and the characters so much. Author Gary Corby knows his stuff. The time period and the culture came to life right before my eyes. However, Sacred Games isn't just a history lesson. The investigation kept my interest throughout, and when I wasn't figuratively sweating buckets under the Greek sun, I was falling under the spell of his two main characters, Nicolaos and Diotima, a beautiful, intelligent young woman who's Nico's wife in all but the eyes of their parents (and the law).  As a team, they work together quite well-- especially since Diotima provides most of the brain power. Corby didn't let things bog down in historical detail and seriousness, either. There are wonderful bits of comedy throughout, and several of them are provided courtesy of Nico's little brother, Socrates. (Yes, that Socrates.)

Have you ever read a work of fiction that is set solidly in history, that has real historical figures as members of the cast and wondered just how much of it is true? I felt this way with Sacred Games. Everything felt so right, but I still wondered. Corby was prepared for people like us. Included in the book are a cast of characters with pronunciations of their names, historical facts about the Olympic Games of 460 BC, a fascinating Author's Note, and a glossary. I don't always pay attention to such things in the books I read, but I was curious, so I read every bit of them. They add so much to the story that I would suggest that you read them all, too. Dive into this book. Immerse yourself in the entire experience. Chances are, you'll enjoy it every bit as much as I did.
4212391
This book gives the reader insight into the life of one of the greatest bulgarian weightlifters of all time. The story is easy to read and flows well making you not want to put the book down.
880787
I am always anxious to see the latest book by Tania Maria Rodrigues-Peters. Mainly because she creates not just a book--she creates an artistic masterpiece beautifully blending her words with complementary pictures. She also involves somebody from her native country, Brazil, as well as talk about where she lives now and gives full credit to those who work with her. Felipe Campos as illustrator and Paula Vaz-Carreiro as translator continued with her from her first book, Mozart in the Future. I also admire that she makes an effort to get her books out by automatically arranging for their translation to various languages.

Now I must say that Felipe Campos has provided so much more than illustrations for The Legend of the Black Lake.  Kudos to you Felipe for creating and allowing the artwork to become such a significant contribution to the overall effect of the book!

Tania uses this book to teach about prejudice, using a simple easily understood story of two teenagers who meet and fall in love.

The setting is in the Vorarlberg region of Austria where people far and wide come to see a strange sight--a "lake as black as the night." (p. 10) One such visitor was a small boy who, when he saw the lake, begged his father to stop. He gazed at the lake, wanting to know why it was black. They saw an old man nearby and went to ask him if he knew why it was so black.

The little old man, who looked almost like a giant leprechaun to me, said that he did but it was a very, very, very old story. He even commented that it was like one of those love stories in books...and I added, thinking, like Cinderella or Snow White...

The little boy begged to hear the story, declaring himself a curious boy and he saw that even his father was now interested! (Have you ever noticed that lots of children's books are also wonderful to read as adults?)

And so the old man started telling about a time many, many years ago, in their village of Vorarlberg that there had been a family who had a very, very, very beautiful daughter named Katharina.  Her skin was white, her hair was red and her eyes a deep blue. In fact her eyes might have been the same color of blue as the lake! For it was not black at that time...

Now Katharina was still young, but already sons of noblemen were starting to call. At that time, the parents chose the man to whom their daughter would be wed. Actually, Katharia was really not interested in meeting anybody! She enjoyed living near the lake and spent a lot of time sitting there beside the pure water. In fact, the lake was so important to her that she treated it like a friend, admiring it and telling all her secrets there, even though she never got a response. In fact, the lake, "though mute, soaked up every word."(p. 41)

And then one day at the lake, she was frightened by finding a young man laying at her feet.  The boy was "black--as black as the night." She knelt to find out if he was alright--it didn't look like he was hurt, so she spent time admiring him, she thought him quite beautiful. Realizing he was sleeping, when he awoke, he explained he was lost and very hungry...his name was Paul.

Katharina immediately invited him home to eat, but Paul explained that sometimes people were afraid or didn't like him because his skin color was different. So Katharina brought food to him and they became friends.

Tania says so much in her stories and yet are presented so that anybody will understand and be inspired. I loved this story. If I remember right, there was already a "legend" about the lake but I think you'll find that this is so beautiful a tale, that it just has to be the real reason that the lake is so very, very, very black! Ok, I enjoyed the "very, very, very" used by the old man!

Yes, it's for children...children of all ages from 5 to 105! Very, very, very highly recommended! Would make a beautiful holiday gift!

Book provided by
Publisher

G. A. Bixler
3775096
In 1939 Henry Miller accepted the invitation of his friend Lawrence Durrell to visit Greece and the island of Corfu. Europe was sinking into World War II. Miller, then 46, had ended one cycle of his artistic life, having written the novels for which he was famous, Tropics of Cancer, Capricorn and Black Spring; now he came to celebrate the Greek experience, with a Whitmanesque openness to this culture andlandscape soaked in its mythic splendour: The light of Greece opened my eyes, penetrated my pores, expanded my whole being. I came home to the world." Miller becomes pantheistically resurrected in a non-sexual way; its also pre-Christian, another of his betes-noires, just like American civilization, England and technology. Mechanical devices have nothing to do with mans real nature-they are merely traps which nature has baited for him. He loves boats, Katsimbalis almost drowns Miller in a boat, but Miller doesn't mind, because Katsimbalis shows him the Greek earth, the stoic Greek carelessness in the face of death and gives him Greek retsina and cognac to drink while intoning the glories of Greek literature and history.

His central anchor in this experience is Katsimbalis,the Falstaffian poet and storyteller. He practically worships this man and reveres him like a god. Katsimbalis tells his group of friends long, rambling stories that have no end, and endless variations. But although Greece is the object and Katsimbalis the subject, Millers real story is about himself, his solipsistic reveries that help him escape time and place, and rap to hisown hearts content. You learn very little in terms of knowledge of Greece or its great monuments,sites and archaeology. This is a new kind of travel writing, where he makes rapturous pronouncements about the divinity in man and the possibility of an inner renaissance. We visit Mycenae, Knossos ,Delphi, taking in the rapture of Thebes and Eleufsis. He treats these places as milestones of the Greek spirit. Greece and the Greeks are of the essence,anything that betrays this, whether economic Greeks returned from America with it gospel of progress, money, ambition, or Greeks who became Americans(like the surgeon). Only the poor ones have his sympathy. He berates a French woman, wife to a Greek shop-keeper, about her civilized values, who hates Crete.

Miller is a guide of the spirit of men beaten down by the coming war, the fear,the repression, the rationalization, he lets rip with incantatory odes to the blue sky or the antaean earth. His anecdotes are gripping, he interactions with the Greeks are human, his love of them is profound. I especially liked it when he brings his love of people together with his love of place, in his trip to Phaestos, where the Minoans worshipped the female divinity. He gives himself up to a Lawrentian rapture,where he becomes resurrected along with the wider world ,what great happiness lies in store for all of us. He and Alexandros share a meal and talked in the deaf and dumb language of the heart. He becomes a joyous mystic in an Emersonian trance.  The present way of life,which is Americas, is doomed as surely as that of Europe. No nation on earth can possibly give birth to a new order of life until a world view is established. Miller becomes our companion as the skies darken and war lours over the horizon. He proffers Jeremiads to the coming American century, is a shaman divining the future of man. This book is his masterpiece wherein he gave his all. He captures the spirit of an earlier, happier age.
34816
Adrienne Mayor indeed makes a case for Mithridates being Rome's deadliest enemy. There were a number of kings with this name, the deadly one being Mithridates VI Eupator. Mayor's interest seems to stem from Mithridate's famed use of poison both as a tool and as a personal program of antidote (she has written about poison in another context). It is hard to separate legend from what facts there are, but this book makes a convincing case. Mithridates was king of Pontus (part of the Black Sea coast of Anatolia), and of mixed Greek and Persian heritage. He seems to have been a gifted orator, to be utterly ruthless, very intelligent (though I am doubtful that he actually knew 25 languages). He ruled much more than just Pontus, and if things had worked out differently, might have established a lasting empire.

Mithridates is an amazing figure, but something I found amazing is different--how only a few Roman legions, albeit apparently under inspired leadership, conquered such a huge territory and defeated such a formidable enemy, in quite remarkable campaigns. Mayor portrays Rome as the villain here, an aggressive colonial power out for plunder--her view of the later Empire seems more favorable. Her Mithridates becomes a kind of resistance figure, who wanted to combine Greek and Persian elements into something new. I'm not entirely convinced of all her points, but this is a very good book, thoroughly researched and superbly entertaining.
539430
For many centuries all we knew of the Amazons came from Greek myths and from Greek historians. The latter also relate some material that is legendary rather than historical; but Herodotus, for example, who travelled extensively around the Black Sea, distinguishes what he has himself observed from what he has been told.  Part of the book describes and comments on the myths and the historical material.

The best known characteristics of the Amazons are of course that they were doughty female warriors and brilliant on horseback, and, while these exploits do dominate the book, the author also brings out other aspects of the legends and of the history: notably that these women enjoyed equality with men in other respects also, in family relationships and that, like the men, they  had great sexual freedom, would mate with men of other tribes when their husbands were fighting elsewhere. Men and women would also dress in a similar fashion, for instance wearing trousers.  All of these features fascinated the Greeks, who kept women in a subordinate position.

The legends are mostly located around the shores of the Black Sea, while the history of Alexander the Great and of the Romans fighting  Mithridates tell of contact with Amazons from areas south of the Caspian Sea to India.  From about the 7th century BC to the 6th century AD, the Scythians dominated a vast area of steppes and grasslands from what is today Ukraine all the way across to the frontiers of today's Mongolia. From the 19th century onwards archaeologists have found a lot of evidence which supports parts of the legends and histories.

The book is deeply researched and (except for the rather indigestible last chapter about  women warriors in China) very readable and handsomely illustrated. The author makes it clear, by phrasing her sentences as questions, when her links between legends, history and archaeology are suggestions rather than certainties.  Her net is very wide: she includes all women fighters as Amazons, whether they were known as such or not;  and sometimes the story is about a single female warrior leader, who may or may not be leading whole groups of women.  And there is a certain amount of repetition.  But this hardly, if at all, detracts from the five star status of this fascinating book.
928220
In January 2013, Jonathan Argyriou, a Manhattan-born third generation Greek-American, boards a plane in New York for Athens. Jonathan is travelling to Greece to learn more about his family. He was brought up by his grandparents and his alcoholic mother, and he doesnt quite understand the relationship between his grandmothers younger sister and his grandfather. Jonathan converses with his sister, Amalia, imagining she is occupying the empty seat next to him. We thus learn of the tragedies faced by the Argyriou family. Their ruin had begun during the 1922 Greco-Turkish War, when two orphaned sisters, little Erasmia and Frosso, had to flee Smyrna village for Athens. While Erasmia eventually manages to reach America, Frosso does not. By the time the planes reaches Athens, from his soul-searching and brainstorming with his sister, past memories flood back to Jonathan such that he himself recollects a good deal of his ancestry.

As noted on this books cover, Fortini Tsalikoglous novel indeed explores the blurred line between history and memory. While the short length of the novel does not permit detailed character development, the stream-of-consciousness writing style admirably fleshes out the story. Some readers might question Jonathans motive in embarking on such a long journey of discovery; however, it is his psychological frame of mind, muddled by family secrets, that Tsalikoglou portrays as one from which he cannot escape. Similar to Faulkners famous quote, Tsalikoglou notes: The past is never over. It isn't even past. Nevertheless, the narrative is not an easy read, and were it not for the books evocative cover, and the informative flap and back cover text, the plot would take a huge effort to comprehend.

This review first appeared in the HNR magazine issue 73 (August 2015)
4725046
This book is the story of the decisive and tragic years of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th Century.

It tells about a village in Western Anatolia where the Ottoman residents of Turkish and Greek descent live peacefully together and speak Turkish as their only native tongue.  They have their own different religions but share the benevolent apects of both religions:the friendly Muslim Hodja and the comforting expectations from Virgin Mary in the village church. Families are intermingled, young people from different faiths fall in love, until the First World War breaks.

The the Ottoman Empire is under attack from all directions.  The Greek Army plunder the cities and the villages, the big Western Powers, the British, the French and the Italians occupy Anatolia from all directions.  And the the humble but peaceful and happy lives of the people are distroyed for ever. The people are separated from each other as Muslim and Christian and Turkish and Greek.

The story is told with a deep insight into human character. The reader is introduced to a group of characters that become alive with many details of their life and character, with their follies and virtues.

The knowledge displayed by the author concerning the period is significant.  I can say, as an inhabitant of that part of the world, that he has understood all the intricate aspects of the historical unfolding of events with a sharper insight than most historians of the period.  The reader does not only enjoy a piece of fiction but learn about a very important phase of history in the hottest part of the world:Anatolia,

 when it was being pulled apart among world powers.

It is an excellent book to be savoured.