Before travelling, I like to read novels that are set in our destination to give a broader understanding of life and history of the place. For our upcoming trip to Greece, do you have any suggestions for historical novels, or anything else that really gives a feel for the place (apart from Zorba the Greek).

For something contemporary check Maeve Binchy's "Night of Rain and Stars" and Alistair MacClean's "Santorini". For something more historical try Nicholas Gage's "Eleni".

Corelli's Mandolin.

Its author is a Brit.

It is one of the five surviving Novels of Ancient Greece and probably the best. Goethe called Daphnis and Chloe 'a masterpiece ... in which Understanding, Art, and Taste appear at their highest point. The story is set on the Greek Island of Lesbos. Daphnis and Chloe is the story of a boy (Daphnis) and a girl (Chloe), each of whom is exposed at birth along with some identifying tokens. A goatherd named Lamon discovers Daphnis, and a shepherd called Dryas finds Chloe. Each decides to raise the child he finds as his own. Daphnis and Chloe grow up together, herding the flocks for their foster parents. They fall in love but, being naive, do not understand what is happening to them. Philetas, a wise old cowherd, explains to them what love is and tells them that the only cure is "kissing." They do this. Eventually, Lycaenion, a woman from the city, educates Daphnis in love-making. Daphnis, however, decides not to test his newly acquired skill on Chloe, because Lycaenion tells Daphnis that Chloe "will scream and cry and lie bleeding heavily [as if murdered]." Throughout the book, Chloe is courted by suitors, two of whom (Dorcon and Lampis) attempt with varying degrees of success to abduct her. She is also carried off by raiders from a nearby city and saved by the intervention of the god Pan. Meanwhile, Daphnis falls into a pit, gets beaten up, is abducted by pirates, and is very nearly raped. In the end, Daphnis and Chloe are recognized by their birth parents, get married, and live out their lives in the country.

Mary Renault, of course. Start with The Last of the Wine -- Athens during the Peloponnesian War or The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea -- the myth of Theseus
There are quite a few more from her if you like her style.

Mary Renault, of course. Start with The Last of the Wine -- Athens during the Peloponnesian War or The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea -- the myth of Theseus
There are quite a few more from her if you like her style.

Ooh good! My first double!

The Magus by John Fowles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magus_(novel)

Patricia Storace's Dinner with Persephone is non-fiction but a good read and might give you a feel for the country. Also The Cretan Runner, again non-fiction.

I second "Eleni."

Eleni, however, is non-fiction, set in WWII.

My Brother Michael by Mary Stewart

bookmarking

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

The Magus is a very strange, difficult novel. I don't think the casual reader would find it enjoyable.

Thin

The Island by Victoria Hislop. It's set on an island off Crete called Spinalonga. It was used as a leper colony.
I found the novel fascinating

The Island by Victoria Hislop
It's all greek to me by Jon Mole
The Summer of my Greek Taverna by Tom Stone
The Labyrinth by Panos Karnezis


I do not know if you say apart Zorba the Greek because you have read it or because it is a common suggestion... The book has a completely different feeling than the moviw on my opinion. Kazantzakis was not only a great author, he was mainly a philosopher and many of his views are bleded with the book's plot.
Freedom or Death by Nikos Kazantzakis is an other great read, especially if you are familiar with Crete's history.

There are old and somehow more difficult reads but still interesting and insightfull of a different ear, such as Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi, or Lawrence Durrell's and Patrick Leigh Fermor's various memoirs/books.

Then you have the old time classic Iliad and Odyssey and all kind of ancient stuff of course...
List never ends...

"different ERA" lol

The Thread, another by Victoria Hislop. Follows a young girl made a refugee after WW1 by the ethnic cleansing of Greeks from Turkey (and vice versa). Thessaloniki's difficulties during WW2 with Nazi occupation, deportation of the Jewish residents, and other historical events. The civil war after WW2. Told from the Greek point of view, but with a pretty successful attempt at being evenhanded, in my opinion.

Others have covered the fiction front well, here are some page-turner NF titles (plus 1 novel that's really memoir w. changed names):

"Sailing the Wine-dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter" – Thomas Cahill, 2003 – Paperback.
Spendid! Lively read, yet good history! My top choice for overview of Ancient Greece.

"Portrait of Greece" -- Nicholas Gage. Widely available in libraries. Re Modern Greece :culture, traditions. temperament. Pub. 1979; 1995 reissue, main change is more pix.A VERY thoughtful chapter on the role of religion (ancient & christian) in Greece's history & lives of ordinary people. Amazon has it in used paperback


"Eurydice Street"– Sofka Sinovieff My Modern-Greece Favorite! – a Memoir on life in modern middle-class Greece. Author, from London (White Russian father/Greek mother). met a Greek diplomat abroad; they moved from Europe to Athens suburb when their girls were 8 & 10. Absorbing, amusing, touching story of their daughters ‘becoming Greek,” which in the process shares countless Greek customs, habits, outlooks, both from the near-past, ancient past and today. Paperback, via Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

and also modern...
"The Priest Fainted" -- Catherine T. Davidson ( Title is name of an eggplant dish!). 
Novel (really a memoir) -- NY Times Notable book --(review quote) "a Greek-American woman's modern-day odyssey through Greece, The Priest Fainted combines irreverent retellings of Greek myth, sexual revelry, and mouthwatering descriptions of traditional food with a quest to discover the links between the past and the present." Available in Paperback.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres.

Lawrence Durrell's Prospero's Cell and Reflections on a Marine Venus.

Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals