Literature

Με μεγάλη χαρά ανακοινώνουμε την κυκλοφορία του επόμενου τεύχος της σειράς αγγλικών βιβλίων για μικρούς και μεγάλους που εισάγουν τους αναγνώστες στον κόσμο και στον πολιτισμό της αρχαίας Ελλάδας μέσα από τις εμβληματικές ηρωίδες της μυθολογίας, με θέμα τη μυθική μορφή της Αριάδνης και τον περίφημο Μίτο της που έγινε η αιτία να σωθεί ο Θησέας από βέβαιο θάνατο. Είτε πρόκειται για διασκευές κλασικών τραγωδιών του Ευριπίδη, του Αισχύλου και του Σοφοκλή είτε για πρωτότυπα έργα βασισμένα σε γνωστές πηγές, τα βιβλία αυτά έχουν στόχο να παρασύρουν τους αναγνώστες σε ένα ταξίδι γεμάτο περιπέτεια, δράμα, θάνατο και έρωτα, ενώ παράλληλα εστιάζουν στις γυναίκες που έπαιξαν τόσο σημαντικό ρόλο στην ιστορία μας -και συχνά εξακολουθούν να μνημονεύονται ως απλοί θεατές. Η σειρά ξεκίνησε με τα βιβλία Μήδεια, Κίρκη, Ηλέκτρα, συνεχίστηκε με την Αντιγόνη και την Ελένη ενώ πλέον ολοκληρώνεται με την έκδοση της Αριάδνης. Κάθε βιβλίο μπορεί να διαβαστεί ξεχωριστά και μπορείτε να αρχίσετε την ανάγνωση με οποιαδήποτε σειρά, όμως υπάρχει ένα βασικό νήμα που εντέλει συνδέει όλους αυτούς τους χαρακτήρες και παρέχει μια ευρύτερη άποψη για το τι ήταν να είσαι γυναίκα στον αρχαίο ελληνικό κόσμο.

Greek folk tales descend from Aesop and Greek antiquity, as well as medieval storytelling in the pivotal south-east Mediterranean world that linked Christianity, Islam and Byzantium. These tales, told by folk narrators throughout Greek-speaking regions up to our times, are wondrous, whimsical stories about doughty youths and frightful monsters, resourceful maidens and animals gifted with human speech. The tales weave substantive motifs, characters, and forms into a rich tapestry capturing the temperament and ethos of the Greek folk psyche.

This book suggests that poetry offers a way to remain in the world – not only by declarations of intent or the promotion of remembrance, but also through the durable physicality of its practice. Whether carved in stone or wood, printed onto a page, beat out by a mimetic or rhythmic body, or humming in the mind, poems are meant to engrave and adhere. Ancient Greek poetry exhibits a particularly acute awareness of change, decay, and the ephemerality inherent in mortality. Yet it couples its presentation of this awareness with an offering of meaningful embodiment in shifting forms that are aligned with, yet subtly manipulative of, mortal time. Sarah Nooter's argument ranges widely across authors and genres, from Homer and the Homeric Hymns through Sappho and Archilochus to Pindar and Aeschylus. The book will be compelling reading for all those interested in Greek literature and in poetry more broadly.

This book was begun in 2007 as a short handbook on Greek terrorism based on official accounts. It turned into a multi-year research project, an attempt to disentangle the lies and wishful thinking of Greek urban guerrillas and the people pursuing them. Fluent in ancient and modern Greek, Kiesling watched the 17N appeals trial, interviewed key participants, waded through masses of archival material, and used computer software and painstaking deduction to reconstruct the secret history of the Greek armed revolutionary movement. Kiesling is the author of Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower (Potomac 2006) and numerous articles. He lives in Athens, where he writes on history, archaeology, ancient religion, and politics.

Bernie Gunther returns in the thirteenth book in the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling series, perfect for fans of John le Carre and Robert Harris. 'One of the greatest anti-heroes ever written' LEE CHILD'Kerr leads us through the facts of history and the vagaries of human nature' TOM HANKS'One of the greatest master story-tellers in English' ALAN FURST1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move in a string of varied careers sees him working for an insurance company. It makes a kind of sense: both cops and insurance companies have a vested interest in figuring out when people are lying to them, and Bernie has a lifetime of experience to call on. Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a sunken ship, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he is convinced the sinking was no accident but an act of vengeance. And so Bernie is once again drawn inexorably back to the dark history of the Second World War, and the deportation of the Jews of Salonika - now Thessaloniki. As Europe prepares to move on to a more united future with Germany as a partner rather than an enemy, at least one person in Greece is ready neither to forgive nor forget. And, deep down, Bernie thinks they may have a point.

A darkly glinting novel set on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, The Green Road is a story of fracture and family, selfishness and compassion – a book about the gaps in the human heart and how we learn to fill them. The children of Rosaleen Madigan leave the west of Ireland for lives they never could have imagined in Dublin, New York and various third-world towns. In her early old age their difficult, wonderful mother announces that she’s decided to sell the house and divide the proceeds. Her adult children come back for a last Christmas, with the feeling that their childhoods are being erased, their personal history bought and sold. Anne Enright is addicted to the truth of things. Sentence by sentence, there are few writers alive who can invest the language with such torque and gleam, such wit and longing – who can write dialogue that speaks itself aloud, who can show us the million splinters of her characters’ lives then pull them back up together again, into a perfect glass.

Ukraine's most famous novelist dramatises the conflict raging in his country through the adventures of a mild-mannered beekeeper. "A warm and surprisingly funny book from Ukraine's greatest living novelist" Charlie Connelly, New European Books of the YearLittle Starhorodivka, a village of three streets, lies in Ukraine's Grey Zone, the no-man's-land between loyalist and separatist forces. Thanks to the war, only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and Pashka, his "frenemy" from his schooldays. With little food and no electricity, under ever-present threat of bombardment, Sergeyich's one remaining pleasure is his bees. As spring approaches, he knows he must take them far from the Grey Zone so they can collect their pollen in peace. This simple mission on their behalf introduces him to combatants and civilians on both sides of the battle lines: loyalists, separatists, Russian occupiers and Crimean Tatars. Wherever he goes, Sergeyich's childlike simplicity and strong moral compass disarm everyone he meets. But could these qualities be manipulated to serve an unworthy cause, spelling disaster for him, his bees and his country?Translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk

A gripping biography by the author of Brave New WorldThe life of Father Joseph, Cardinal Richelieu's aide, was a shocking paradox. After spending his days directing operations on the battlefield, Father Joseph would pass the night in prayer, or in composing spiritual guidance for the nuns in his care. He was an aspirant to sainthood and a practising mystic, yet his ruthless exercise of power succeeded in prolonging the unspeakable horrors of the Thirty Years' War. In his masterful biography, Huxley explores how an intensely religious man could lead such a life and how he reconciled the seemingly opposing moral systems of religion and politics.