Κοινότητα Αναγνωστών Βιβλίων - readers.gr

"Loxandra" is the story of a Greek family living in Constantinople (Istanbul) from the mid-18th century up to the beginning of the First World War. It is not biographical as such, and many of the characters are fictional. Others, including the main character of Loxandra, are real. Constantinople was the author's home during the first years of her life and in her book she conveys the historical events, the customs, the spirit of those times when life for the Greeks of Constantinople was relatively untroubled. The real Loxandra was brought up in the Anatolian tradition of lov...

Lambros Kamperidis's study of Peris Ieremiadis is a work of therapy for our times. Not our modern introspection, but therapeia, the attending to and healing of wounds that sever the relationships between ourselves and others. This therapy is bodily, visceral, full of colour and of darkness. The death of his friend who spent his last creative energies painting variations of dragon-slaying Saint George on his regal horse triggers in Kamperidis an exuberant litany of associations, a delicate interlace linking pagan and Christian, Germanic and Greek, spiritual heroes and evil m...

"...this dialectic of blood and light which is the history of your people..." Sherrard to Seferis, 20 March 1950 Philip Sherrard first came across George Seferis's poetry when as a young man still in the army he was transferred to Greece in 1946. It made such a powerful impression on him that when he returned to England he started corresponding with Seferis, began translating his poetry into English, and ultimately decided to do his PhD on modern Greek poetry. Much later Sherrard was to translate, together with Edmund Keeley, Seferis's Collected Poems for Princeton Uni...

Elder Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia (1906-1991), who was formally glorified as a saint by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in November 2013, has long been acknowledged and recognized as a luminary and spiritual guide with the special grace of 'clear sight'. His life was particularly remarkable in that he lived it in both ascetic fastnesses and urban contexts. He left the world for Mount Athos at a young age and joined the Skete of Kavsokalyvia where, for seven years, under the guidance of the Elders Panteleimon and Ioannikios he lived a hesychastic life. It was t...

"The Blind Man with the Lamp", originally published in Greek in 1983, is the first English translation of a complete collection of poetry by Leivaditis. A pioneering book of prose-poems, Leivaditis here gives powerful voice to a post-war generation divested of ideologies and illusions, imbued with the pain of loss and mourning, while endlessly questing for something wholly other, indeed for the holy Other. A substantial introduction by the translator, N. N. Trakakis, situates and reviews the poet and his work within his times with special reference to this present collec...

The diary of travels in the island of Crete in 1864 (4 April - 31 May) illustrated by the author's own drawings and paintings in both colour and black and white, with an introduction, notes and appendices by Rowena Fowler.

Zissimos Lorenzatos (1915-2004), essayist, thinker and poet, was arguably Greece’s most significant man of letters in the twentieth century. In the Aegean Notebooks, a record of his observations and reflections while sailing among the Greek islands in the 1970s and 1980s, the special quality of his literary and philosophical gifts, and of the man himself, are vividly present. Along with everything a mariner yearns to bring ashore, all he has felt and experienced at sea with the wake of the boat unfurling behind him, Lorenzatos brings us in addition a lifetime’s learning an...

The "Murderess" has been regarded as Alexandros Papadiamandis’s finest work. Set on his native island of Skiathos it tells the story of Hadoula, a widow with grown-up children, who has convinced herself that it is better little girls should leave this life when young so that they and their parents should not suffer the trials that inevitably would be inflicted on them by an inequitable society. In the throes of this misguided compassion she first murders her own granddaughter and afterwards finds herself set on a course she is unable to stop despite the promptings of her co...

Alexandros Papadiamandis (1851-1911) lived in the midst of an uncertain age of transition for modern Greece. It was a period of post-Enlightenment turmoil that followed closely on the heels of Greece's War of Independence, when the traditional old ways were being undermined and were fast disappearing under the pressure of the indiscriminate adoption of western mores and ideas. His reflections on and observations of some of the most complex facets of Greek life in both his native island of Skiathos and in urban Athens during this time define the modern Greek experience in a...

Elder Porphyrios, a Greek monk and priest who died in 1991, stands in the long tradition of charismatic spiritual guides in the Eastern Church which continues from the apostolic age down to figures such as Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Staretz Silouan in modern times. In this book he tells the story of his life and, in simple, deeply reflected and profoundly wise words, he expounds the Christian faith for today. This book was compiled after his death from an archive of notes and recordings of his reminiscences, conversations and words of guidance, and was first published i...

We are becoming increasingly aware that the forms of our life and art - of our modern civilization generally - have over the last few centuries been characterized by the progressive loss of precisely that sense which gives virtually all other civilizations and cultures of the world their undying lustre and significance: the sense of the sacred. In fact, the concept of a completely profane world - of a cosmos wholly desacralized - is a fairly recent invention of the western mind, and only now are we beginning to realize the apalling consequences of trying to order and mould...

It is now only too evident that the revolutionary changes in mental outlook that took place in western Christendom some three or four centuries ago, and that produced the modern scientific movement, are the major cause of the crisis in which the world finds itself today. Yet the terrifying consequences of the practical exploration of modern science are usually attributed not to modern science as such -and still less to the mental picture of the universe which it presupposes- but simply to its misapplication and abuse. We are even told, with a naivety that is as inconsequent...

Τhe division of Christendom into the Greek East and the Latin West has its origins far back in history but its consequences still affect Europe, and thus western civilization. Philip Sherrard's study seeks to indicate both the fundamental character and some of the consequences of this division. He points especially to the underlying metaphysical bases of Greek Christian thought, and contrasts them with those of the Latin West; he argues persuasively that the philosophical and even theological differences, remote as they might seem from practical affairs, are symptoms of a d...

Η Γκαίηλ Χόλστ πρωτόρθε στην Ελλάδα το 1965. Αφοσιωμένη φίλη της ελληνικής λαϊκής μουσικής παράδοσης, την οποία αντίκρυσε με ματιά φρέσκια και καθαρή, έγραψε για το ρεμπέτικο ένα βιβλίο που κυκλοφόρησε στα αγγλικά το 1975 γνωρίζοντας μεγάλη επιτυχία. Από τότε επανεκδόθηκε πολλές φορές και αποδόθηκε στα τουρκικά, στα γερμανικά και στα γαλλικά. Αυτό το βιβλίο, μεταφρασμένο από το Νίκο Σαββάτη, αποτελεί το πρώτο μέρος του τόμου "Δρόμος για το ρεμπέτικο" και έχει αναγνωριστεί, τόσο στο εξωτερικό όσο και στην Ελλάδα, ως μία από τις καλύτερες εργασίες γι' αυτό το μουσικό είδος. Ε...

During this century the Greek world has produced a wealth of poetry that is as astonishing in its scope as it is in its vigour; and this anthology brings together a selection from the works of the five poets who may be said to take pride οf place in substantiating this achievement. Two of them (George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis) are Nobel Laureates, Cavafy is certainly one of the most ubiquitous poets of our times, the oracular grandeur of Angelos Sikelianos companions him with W. Β. Yeats, while Nikos Gatsos, less known outside Greece, is a fine lyrical poet and song writ...

Τhis is the first collection of the essays of George Seferis to be published in English. The selection was made by Seferis himself, drawing upon his prose work written over a period of thirty years. Seferis was a classicist and a humanist, a man of modern sensibility imbued with a deep respect for Mediterranean tradition. He is present iη all these aspects in his essays. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963, the citation spoke of "his eminent lyrical writings inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture". Hellenism for Seferis is an end...

Zissimos Lorenzatos (1915-2004), during his last years, was generally acknowledged to be the most important man of letters in Greece. An essayist, poet and thinker, he was perhaps the last of his generation with a vision that is both deeply religious and humane. His profound knowledge of European literature and thought, and his familiarity with the writings and philosophy of the East, along with his thorough assimilation of the long Greek tradition, enabled him to explore, with unusual insight, the spirit both of Europe and of modern Greece. This second selection of his es...