Compiled by Stelios Jackson for the Hellenic Bookservice, 91, Fortess Road, London.  If you have any queries or suggestions or wish to add your link, please contact Stelios

Below I have detailed some of the books we stock on Mainland Greece. These are general books and often include the islands as well. If a book is specific to a region it will be found below  geographical description of that region.

For Flora and Fauna books click the triffid

For Picture books click the pic

Books on Living in Greece

General Books to Mainland Greece:

The Blue Guide to Greece by Robin Barber (£17.99). Superb on archaeological and historical detail to Greece and the Greek Islands (excluding Crete); an absolute must for those interested in visiting the sights and ruins of mainland Greece.

The Rough Guide to Greece ed. Mark Ellingham, Dubin et al costs (£12.95). Very user friendly and informative guide book to Greece and the Greek Islands. Now in it's seventh revised edition this is the mother of all the Rough Guides and has for over fifteen years been my first choice in books to take with me.

The Lonely Planet Guide to Greece by David Willett, Rosemary Hall et al (£12.99). I have only used this guide once and must say how impressed with it I was. It's well researched and beautifully written though probably as an alternative rather than an addition to the Rough Guide. It's nice to have a choice especially when the standard is so high. Up to a degree this makes up for the fact that there are hardly any good guide books to specific areas of Mainland Greece.

Eyewitness: Athens and Mainland Greece by Marc Dubin (£15.99). Highly colourful guidebook in the DK series, fantastic to buy before you go to get some sort of idea of what to expect as it is packed with pictures, plans and maps. Well researched too, this is a very attractive all-round addition to the market. New edition due May 2002

The Companion Guide to Greece by Brian de Jongh. Very nice guide book to the mainland, 559 pages in all. If you are planning to tour mainland Greece this is the book for you as it concrentrates entirely on the mainland. £14.99

     Essential Mainland Greece (pub. AA £4.99). Small, lightweight and all some people might require. It is an informative and non pretentious guidebook for ready access to most of the larger sites and towns.

Greece. A travellers literary companion. Leontis Artemis. (Ed.)  Discover Greece.- a country that has inspired centuries of travel - through its best known writers. Against a superb landscape of mountains, beaches, villages, cities and ruins, all bathed in the rich light of the Mediterranean, these twenty-four stories draw from the long oral and written evolution o;f the Greek literary tradition. Join Seferies and Elyties (both Nobel laureates) Kazantzakiks, Venezis .Karapanos, Vassilikos, along with those whose writing appears in English for the first time - Papadopoulou, Axioti, Zenakos and Fais - in this rare collection of modern Greek fiction. Incorporating myths, the meditative tranquillilty of the region, and a past full of stuggle and civil war, these stories are arranged by geographical region for the traveler and provide an enriching odyssey through the Greek landscape and mind.paperback. £12.50 That's what it say's in the blurb and in my view this is a great collection, ideal for the traveller. SJ

Roumeli by Patrick Leigh (Fermor £7.95). Beautifully written travelogue to northern Greece.

Mani by Patrick Leigh Fermor (£8.95) The Mani is the middle finger of the Peloponnese and home to the author. This has long been regarded as a classic and quite rightly too.

   Unwritten Places by Tim Salmon (£9.99). Marvellous account of the annual 'dhiava' (journey) taken by the Vlach shepherds of northern Epiros. OK, it's a bit geographically specific but I believe it to be good enough, anthropologically to be included in our "general books" page

Dinner with Persephone by Patricia Storace (£8.99). A more iconoclastic look at Greece and the Greeks than other travelogues; I thoroughly enjoyed it and didn't feel at all insulted, though of course you wouldn't have seen me smile as I'm a greek male and this would be a sign of weakness...apparently. SJ

The Mountains of Greece by George Sfikas (£7.50). Flora and fauna expert takes to the hills.

LIVING THERE

Here are 3 excellent books if you plan to live in Greece, or buy a property there:

MAPS

For Regional ,maps, see individual geographical areas