Greece Hotels Travel :: The Island

Greece Hotels Travel - The Island

List Price: $14.95
greece-hotels-travel.com Price: $10.17
Your Save: $ 4.78 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks

Average Customer Rating:

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9780061340321
ISBN: 0061340324
Label: Harper Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2007-07-01
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Release Date: 2007-07-24
Studio: Harper Paperbacks

Related Items
The Russian Concubine Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time Loving Frank Water for Elephants: A Novel The Book Thief

Editorial Reviews:

The Petrakis family lives in the small Greek seaside village of Plaka. Just off the coast is the tiny island of Spinalonga, where the nation's leper colony once was located—a place that has haunted four generations of Petrakis women. There's Eleni, ripped from her husband and two young daughters and sent to Spinalonga in 1939, and her daughters Maria, finding joy in the everyday as she dutifully cares for her father, and Anna, a wild child hungry for passion and a life anywhere but Plaka. And finally there's Alexis, Eleni's great-granddaughter, visiting modern-day Greece to unlock her family's past.

A richly enchanting novel of lives and loves unfolding against the backdrop of the Mediterranean during World War II, The Island is an enthralling story of dreams and desires, of secrets desperately hidden, and of leprosy's touch on an unforgettable family.

Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: very exciting
Comment: The Island I sent this book to a friend. He just enjoyed the reading. Love to visit the place in Crete-Greece.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Engaging beach/vacation book
Comment: First of all, let's be clear: this is a work of fiction and not a factual or strictly historical account, and it's not a literary masterpiece. However, it is an engaging story that describes a time and a particular place (the island of Spinalonga, off Crete) incredibly well. If you take into account these two facts, then you'll enjoy reading Victoria Hislop's _The Island_.

I read this book while vacationing on Crete. Hislop does a nice job of capturing the feel of the tiny town of Plaka, and the shroud of mystery surrounding the island of Spinalonga, which between 1900-1953 was used by Greece as a repository for lepers across the country (at least those known to have the disease). The main characters are a bit one-dimensional, however, whether this was intentional or not, it gives the tale a sort of fable-like "everyman" quality that grounds the story, and makes it very appealing.

Where Hislop really succeeds is in her description of the conditions in which the characters lived on Spinalonga. Having been to the former leper colony, like so many other visitors to Crete, it's clear Hislop has strong powers of observation, and even greater powers of imagination (the island of Spinalonga still has many of the homes in which the lepers lived, in varying states of decay--in this way you can see a blurry snapshot what life was like for people).

Keeping in mind that this isn't Tolstoy or Faulkner, this book is a fun beach read that will keep you entertained through all 350 or so pages.

Customer Rating:

Summary: I learnt a lot from this book
Comment: I was recommended this book by a friend, and bought it to take with me on my holiday. It was an interesting story about Greece and how leprosy influenced on families in the first half of the 20th century. The characters the author created in this history gave us a glimps of how this terrible disease affected so many.
We had a large hospital and a litle church for people with leprosy in the city where I grew up. There were not many patients left at that time. We all knew about them, but did not know how their life were inside the fence.
At the time beeing my book club are going to read The Iland, and they are in for a treat.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Makes a tourist site come "alive"
Comment: I have been to Spinalonga in Crete. After reading this book, it made the experience so much more real and vivid, as I could envision what the author was describing. The story was entertaining and educational at the same time with some unexpected twists.

Customer Rating:

Summary: More than a beach read, great family saga and history lesson
Comment: This book was surprisingly good and the only reason I didn't give it five stars was that the ending was a bit weak. With a stronger ending, it easily would be a five-star book. A family saga read, the author moves easily between generations and weaves a great plot filled with family secrets and surprises. The characterization is especially good with the characters practically jumping off the page. If you're interested in Greece during the WWII era, you'll learn alot. It's a fascinating study of leprosy and the author obviously did her research. If you like an engrossing read, this one is for you!

More Reviews

Greece Trips Books

Greece Trips DVD

Greece Trips Softwares

Greece Trips Magazines

Greece Posters

Greece Art Prints

Greece Travel 2007 Calendars

2007 Monthly Calendars

Greece Hotels Travel Special Resources
Greece Arts
Greece Entertainment
Greece Government
Greece Business
Greece Culture
Greece Education
Greece Health
Greece Map
Greece Beach
Greece Festivals
Greece Hotels
Greece Museums
Greece Theme Parks
Greece Transportation
Food and Recipes
Sports & Recreation
Travel & Tourism

Greece Destinations
Athens
Kefalonia
Peloponnese
Chios
Kos Island
Rhodes Islands
Corfu
Larissa
Santorini
Crete
Meteora
Sterea Hellas
Epirus
Mykonos Island
Thessaloniki
Halkidiki
Paros
Zakinthos

Greece Hotels Travel
Maintained by: Marketer Solutions | Link Building