Nevertheless, I strongly recommend "The Thread" and Victoria Hoslop 's writing as I always admire her research, her deep look even on secondary historical events and her details in people's culture/way of life. These educational resources carefully and sensitively explore curriculum-based themes such as prejudice, isolation, discrimination, and most importantly, hope. Although Sofia only reveals that she was raised in a tiny Cretan village before moving to London, she eventually decides to help her daughter learn more by giving her a letter to take to an old friend in Crete. I have been suffering from breast cancer and am unable to enjoy many of my usual hobbies, so I have been reading even more than usual. With that in mind, my friend Jill gave me The Thread by Victoria Hislop. She had really enjoyed it and so passed it on. I had never read any books by Hislop, but I had heard of her. She is an English author who was born in London, England in 1959 but was raised in Tonbridge, Kent, and attended Tonbridge Grammar School before she read English at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University, Oxford, England. It was while at University in Oxford that she met her husband, the comedian and journalist Ian Hislop. He read English Literature at Magdalen College, Oxford. They married in Oxford on 16 April 1988 and now live in Sissinghurst with their two children. I'm not sure what the opinion of this book might be from the perspective of a Greek reader and/ or someone who knows Greece/ Thessaloniki well, and I'm not sure if Hislop has actually written a realistic story here that accurately describes the nuances of the city and its people.

When Helena inherits her grand-parents' apartment, she discovers an array of priceless antiquities. How did her grandfather amass them - and what human price was paid for them? Roman započinje pričom o velikom požaru koji je pogodio Solun 1917.godine i proteže do sve do današnjice. Kako je taj požar odredio sudbine mnogih porodica, kako hrišćanskih, tako i muslimanskih, tako je i dolazak ll Svjetskog rata pogodio solunske Jevreje. Grad koji je nekada bio zajednica svih vjera, samo je u nekoliko godina to prestao biti, muslimani su protjerani u Tursku, a Jevreji su protjerani u poljske logore početkom ll Svjetskog rata. U vrtlogu tih povijesnih dešavanja pratimo sudbine različih porodica, različitih statusa i vjera. Of course that made me even more interested as I am sure he has a family story to tell,” she says, pointing out that, as holidaymakers, many of us might even have been lying by the sea in Benidorm, say, while elsewhere, people were still being executed in the mid-1970s.A warm, lively conversationalist, she is no stranger to long-buried secrets herself and it’s tempting to play the amateur psychologist and suggest that this is why she writes so well about such matters since they echo her own past. Katerina Sarafoglou, a young seamstress with exceptional talent, creates beautiful gowns for the rich ladies of Thessaloniki in Greece, the passion for her work shining through as her needle threads its way through the fine silks and wools. On the surface this melodramatic historical novel sounds appealing and interesting. When I heard the book was set in Thessaloniki (the town of my great grandmother) and that it dealt with Jewish and Sephardic heritage I was intrigued. I was reluctant to ready this book. Why ? Well, I have read a lot of books about this era of Greek history, but other than Louis de Bernieres, never one written by a British author. The Return offers welcome evidence that women's fiction is getting more ambitious, marching into the realm of big events traditionally colonised by men, in particular military action. Rosie Thomas's Iris & Ruby, which won last year's Romantic Novel of the Year award, featured second world war Egypt; Emma Darwin in The Mathematics of Love dramatised Waterloo. Now Victoria Hislop's new offering, belying its dreamy sepia-tinted cover of a couple close-dancing, revisits the gruesome arena of the Spanish civil war.

The absorbing story of the Cretan village of Plaka and the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece’s former leprosy colony – is told to us by Maria Petrakis, one of the children in the original version of The Island. She tells us of the ancient and misunderstood disease of leprosy, exploring the themes of stigma, shame and the treatment of those who are different, which are as relevant for children as adults. Gill Smith’s rich, full-colour illustrations will transport the reader to the timeless and beautiful Greek landscape and Mediterranean seascape.

Richard E. Grant's Spanish reading list

The Thread: history of Thessaloniki, Greeks-Muslims-Jews living together in harmony in this prosperous multicultural city, Minor Asia, Smyrni, persecutions, massacres, refugees, fire of 1917, complete devastation, population exchange, World Wars, German atrocities, famine, Jews' Holocaust, jewish ritual objects lost or hidden, greek national division, communism, resistance, EAM, Thessaloniki earthquake in 1978... Formerly a travel writer, Hislop has certainly smartened up the genre. “A beach book with heart,” claimed the Observer of The Island, which is currently being filmed as a 25-part serial for Greek television, but with the addition of some steamy sex scenes which aren’t actually in the book. All of this was so shaming at the time it had been swept under the carpet for years, adds Hislop, who, having been a journalist, is imbued with lively curiosity about her own family’s clandestine past as well as that of others. “Everyone has a story to tell about their family secrets,” she insists, gently quizzing me about mine.

The quest for Javier never sinks into sentimentality. Hislop avoids, too, the temptation of a chocolate-box ending. Less successful is Sonia's too-hurried assimilation of everything she has learned from Miguel, given that it leads her to change her life completely. Perhaps warmer memories of her mother are needed, a stronger sense of connection to both mother and father. Our parents' lives, before they had us, can seem like another country, and it requires a deep longing to reach out across the years in understanding to give the quest real meaning. As the novel ends, Sonia's voyage of discovery has maybe just begun. Sometimes poignant but never upsetting, this book highlights the strength of love, friendship and resilience over adversity. Complemented wonderfully by Gill Smith’s beautiful illustrations, this is an ideal book for older early readers who are ready explore more complex themes associated such as coping with adversity and having respect for others who may be different from themselves. I had not known such an island existed and I didn’t know much about leprosy at all so I found this fiction weaved with facts novel really interesting. Our panel of authors and literary experts choose 100 English novels that changed the way they see the world. The Novels That Shaped Our World Her characters were completely flat. Good or bad, evil or moral. Poor or rich. There was no in-between and very little gray area. As others have mentioned - the rich were generally seen as corrupt and unsympathetic while the poor were honest, hardworking and loving.

Praise for The Figurine

The Figurine is set during the period of the Junta army dictatorship in Greece in the 1960s and 1970s, and Victoria’s story was inspired by the Cycladic figurine and the influence they had on 20th century art. She wanted to explore the crime that beauty and antiquity can drive people to. I also had issues with inconsistencies in characters, like the fact that Hislop makes a point of saying the twins have "little in common" besides their looks, before going on to say they both want to be tobacco graders, they both dislike school and have no interest in their mother's weaving, and later on they are practically finishing each other's sentences.