pen4hire on December 10th, 2009

My favorite place is Greece and now I’m revealing three places that are my travel secrets.

Continue reading about 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets in Greece: Its a Meme

pen4hire on October 14th, 2009

Place: Crete, Greece
Book: Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (1946)
Movie: Zorba the Greek with Alan Bates and Anthony Quinn(1964) and subsequent musical, Zorba

Several years ago, during our travels in Greece, Ken and I had a marvelous 10 days of driving back and forth across the mountains of Crete and exploring its rough-edged beauty. [...]

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pen4hire on August 13th, 2009

Destination: An Anonymous Greek Island
Book: Pascali’s Island by Barry Unsworth
From yesterday’s book of treachery and deceit in the pre-Iraq we move today to an earlier book by Barry Unsworth about treachery and deceit in pre-modern Greece.
Pacscali’s Island deals with many of the same themes as Land of Marvels, but in this literary novel, everything [...]

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pen4hire on August 4th, 2009

The 2nd book to be given away (announcement of winner on August 18):

Continue reading about Five Books Five Days: Day Two

pen4hire on July 29th, 2009

Destination: Greece
Book: A Crowded Heart by Nicholas Papandreou
Anyone who is tuned in to Greek politics in the past fifty years, has heard the name Papandreou.  Son Nicholas, who started as an economist, left the “family business” to become a writer and share his short stories and poetry with the world.  His novel, A Crowded Heart [...]

Continue reading about A Book with Insider’s View of Greek Politics

pen4hire on July 16th, 2009

Destination: Finland
Book: A Winter Book by Tove Jansson
Finnish Winter Retreat
Guest Author Michele Simeone

If you’re tired of hearing about summer, how does a good dose of Finnish winter sound?
It was during my second year in Finland that my friend surprised me with a copy of A Winter Book .

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pen4hire on July 14th, 2009

Destination: France
Book: Paris in the Moon by Adam Gopnik
I seem to be reading backward in time through my pile of French books. First I read A Sweet Life in Paris, released just this year and about an American in Paris in the present. I have just finished Paris in the Moon, published in 1999 about..well [...]

Continue reading about A Book About France for Bastille Day

pen4hire on July 13th, 2009

Destination: Finland
Book: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
A Journey into the Finnish Summer
by guest author, Michele Simeon

Swedish-speaking Finnish writer Tove Jansson has been called the “laureate of small things” for her astounding ability to capture beauty, darkness, and meaning in deceptively simple details. Jansson’s novel The Summer Book follows an elderly woman and her [...]

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pen4hire on July 12th, 2009

Do summer days make you wish you were on an island? See some books about about Greek Islands, and specifically about Crete. And over at Spot Cool Stuff, I wrote about my idyll on the island of Siphnos.
Or journey to the Caribbean with this British travel writer.
Have a nice trip to the islands!

Continue reading about Hot Days and Islands