Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant
Review: First of all, I've read some of the other customer reviews and frankly, I wonder if some of these people got past the first 20 pages. If you're looking for a light, chatty book about restaurants and resorts, this ain't the book for you. If you want easy beach reading, look elsewhere. Storace is an extremely intelligent person who is not just hanging out in Greece, but who really attempts to understand its culture and to make connections with Greece's past and present. I thought this was one of the most delightful travel books I've ever read. And anyone who says that Storace is provincial and has never encountered people from other cultures just hasn't read carefully. (As for the customer who said she's "not a newyorker"--she attended Columbia U, for God's sake!) I love the way that Storace delves into classical Greece. This is perhaps because I studied Greek in college and have read lots of Homer in the original, as has Storace. She tapped into my fascination with Ancient Greece and its remnants in the modern world. I ended up buying copies of this book for several of my friends who I knew would enjoy it, because I couldn't bear to part with my copy of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have been subtitled "Men Behaving Badly"
Review: Generally, I found this book entertaining, and Ms. Storace is a very talented writer. Frankly, however, her accounts of the rather aggressive nature of some Greek men became a little repetitive. One might gather the notion that the entire male population of Greece is on the make - as a second-generation Greek male myself, I find the notion rather absurd. I also must take umbrage with some of Ms. Storace's use of imagery and attempts to draw certain parallels between different and distinct events. I suppose she is given some licence (poetic?) to do so, and she need not justify this to anyone, but I find it rather offensive when the Orthodox Christian marriage ceremony is compared to the Epitaphios ceremony commemorating the burial of Christ, indeed, to go as far as to declare (and here I am paraphrasing) that a death of sorts occurs for the female in the marriage. The custom or rubric of doing everything three times in the Orthodox sacraments is to commerorate the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (certainly a theological concept that most mainstream Christian denominations subscribe to). To use this "external" as a means to illustrate a point belies a rather superficial understanding of the nature of Orthodox Christianity, or at the worst, an inherent bias against it.
Rating: 
Summary: Capturing the Greek Heart
Review: Having just had a holiday in Greece, I found a kinship with Ms. Storace, even though my knowledge of the language and the history was not as in depth. Her sentences would turn into paragraphs, and sometimes I would have to re-read them to capture the thought. On the other hand, you just have to be a female traveling without a male escort, to relate to the flattering, yet agressive romantic notions of the Greek male. When I would explain that I was married, Greek men would reply:" So? No big deal." She was very accurate when she would write of these things! Reading the book made me want to travel back to Greece. I thought she captured the Greek heart well.
Rating:
Summary: An American who understands the soul of Greece.
Review: I am an American of Greek descent (my father was born there) who has spent much time traveling and living in Greece. I am also a Greek Orthodox priest who deals with with the transitional pains of the evolving Greek community in America. Ms. Storace's book enchanted me. She somehow was able to gain insights into the Greek soul and psyche that few authors (at least the ones that I have read) have achieved. Maybe something about Ms. Storace's southern roots and what I assume to be her Italian roots (judging by her last name) render her exceptionally sensitive to all that she experienced there. Reading her book was, for me, like taking a short trip back. I was bathed with the distinct and often contradictory sounds, sights, smells, attitudes and world-views that modern Greece is today. If you've never been to Greece and wish to take a peek into its soul -- either because of an impending visit or for armchair travel purposes -- then this is the book for you. If I have a criticism of the book, it is concerning her seemingly boundless capacity to 'theologize' on matters concerning ancient Greek pagan religion and modern Greek Orthodox Christianity. She sometimes gets in over her head. Yet, as a seminary-trained priest, I find that even these present insights and perceived connections present concepts, the likes of which even I have never considered. I heartily recommend this book. It makes me want to seek out other pieces of her work.
Rating: 
Summary: Cold, Unfinished Prose
Review: I am only half way through the book, but I find Ms. Storace's writing stilted and her thoughts often seem to be unfinished. She has little imagination and conjurs no images of this place for me. I have yet to find any of her encounters, or descriptions of them, to be even mildly amusing and she seems obsessed with the Nation's religious zeal. What about the food? Where is the scenery? What about the people and family life? None of these things are explored beyond the most superficial glance.Very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: A perfect travel companion
Review: I brought this book along with me on a trip to Greece this summer and it gave me a wonderful perspective on this fascinating country. It makes superb reading for the beach! In addition, Storace's prose is so vivid that i think i will pick up this book whenever I want to feel like I'm in Greece again.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: I enjoyed this book although there were times when I felt that the author was overwhelming me with a large amount of historical facts in each chapter. Sometimes I felt as if I had picked up a history book rather than a travel memoir. Unlike others, I didn't at all feel that she was condescending towards the Greeks...I think she was genuinly enamoured of the culture and country and was doing her best to explain why, in spite of all the internal problems prevalent in Greek society, she feels such an attraction for the place. I know I came away from the book with a new and deeper understanding of modern Greece and I look forward to seeing more prose by Patricia in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Not a newyorker
Review: I have been living in Greece for the past 15 years. Ms. Storace's book captures the beauty of the natural enviroment in rich, creative language which does credit to her poet's background.
She is very perceptive and witty in pointing out such negative aspects as religious excesses, male chauvinism etc. On these matters, she voiced my sentiments.
The author aspires to present an analysis of Greek politics, history, mentality of people etc. Here I think she tries to bite more than she can chew because doing your homework is not the same as being a scholar.
The quotations from conversations with Greeks, consisting of extremely long, pompous monologues seem rather contrived to me and I have a lurking suspicion that sometimes the author is projecting her own ideas of how Greeks think.
Finally the negative is presented (astutely) to the exclusion of the positive. Ms. Storace is aghast at the differences she encounters eg at the fact that Greeks regard circumcision as mutilation (it's not routinely practiced on newborn males by the medical profession except in the US and a few anglosaxon countries).
The author is very provincal, definitely not a newyorker accustomed to mingling with cultural differences since childhood.
Dolores
Rating:
Summary: An excellent peak into Greece by a visitor
Review: I just finished reading this book after buying it for my Greek-American mother last Christmas, and I found the book to be an enchanting view of Greece from an outside perspective. Patricia Storace has captured many of the contradictions of Greece, Hellenism and the Greek Orthodox soul; all while telling refreshingly entertaining stories. To read this book as a critique of modern Greek society or Hellenic history would be a grave mistake...that clearly is not the author's intention. Instead, Storace provides a satisfying and sometimes critical outsider's travelogue which took me back to the Greece that I grew up in and love with all its beauty, strength and flaws. I recommend this book for its light yet refreshingly intriguing approach to life in modern Greece.
Rating:
Summary: asia minor is 100% greek now and forever
Review: i read this book cover to cover at the shore last week, and thought it was marvelous. i'm a harvard educated greek-american, trained in english and schooled in the classics, both greek and latin, born in thessaloniki who has spent considerable time in greece, and considerable time studying and reading poetry modern and ancient in several languages. I was captivated by Ms. Storace's ability to capture nuances of modern Greek culture and language which normally escape the average outside visitor. In sum, this book is a tour-de-force and a must-read for all interested in modern, classical or medieval greece. the book is marred in part by certain errors of translation and of history. There are also constant references to turkish food being adapted by the Greeks, a historical mistake of grave dimension, since as classical and byzantine sources reveal, what we now know as Middle Eastern Food, or Turkish Food, is actually greco-roman in origin and passed on to arabs during the 7th-8th centuries A.D, and to the turks during the 11th-15th centures, c.f. Speros Vryonis, Islamicization of Asia Minor, and David Asch, Searching for Byzantium. Consequently, it is Greek food and greek culture which was adopted by the Arabs in greco-roman Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia, in the 7th-8th century A.D. and by the Turks in greco-roman Asia Minor in the 11th-15th century A.D. and not the other way around. The spicing of foods, the placing of meat on the spit to roast, the placing of oil and vinegar upon salad, the making of greek cofee, all are greco-roman foods and methods of cooking and preparing food which antedate the arabic and turkish invasions of the 7th and 11th centuries a.d. We know this because original classical sources describe these facts. Note the western european emissary Liutprand's account of his visit to the Court of Greco-roman Constantinople in the 10th century A.D. (150 years prior to the Turks' arrival in asia minor) discussing how the resinated wine and spicy foods are "inedible." the description of the food in this account is clearly a description of what we know know as "spicy middle eastern food." Obviously, because the Greeks were serving it and eating it in 950 A.D., it must be Greek in origin and cannot be turkish in origin. But of course, this is a common mistake for those unfamiliar with classical original sources to make, and so we forgive the author accordingly. Because of these minor errors, greeks and greek-americans who are familiar with the history and details of hellenism from 1500 bc to the present will be annoyed at times with the author's failure to check and cross-reference various factual and historical assertions (had i read this as a proof I would have easily picked up these errors), but this really is Storace's editor's fault and not the author's per se. Storace has a keen sense of what the loss of the greco-turkish war in 1922 and the exodus of hellenism from asia minor meant to all of us who are greek. she also captures the political frenzy over northern epirus and over macedonia quite effectively, as well as the pure, unadulterated joy felt by all greece in her Olympic Medal Winers of 1996. she understands that until Greece is restored territorially to the full extent of its byzantine borders, and until Macedonia, Northern Epirus, Ionia, Constantinople and Pontus are completely restored to Greek rule, or until Turkey opens its borders to Greek trade, Greek ownership, Greek travel and Christian worship, that Greece will never be whole again in fact or in psyche. Storace knows her greek poets, and Kalvos, Solomos, Palamas, Makroyiannis and the other demigods of modern greek literature jump off the page into reality. she dutifully visits each monument to each poet in each town and records their writings and accomplishments in wonder and in awe. she also notes the easter ceremony with much accuracy and much adoration, and while she does not describe herself bowing down and kissing the icon of the holy virgin mother hodegetria, she certainly is doing a kind of "proskeneisis" in this book to the wonders of greco-roman christianity, greek orthodox christianity, the one and only true religion brought forwared by the church fathers and kept intact to the present day in the greek churce. there are many other incredibly wonderful aspects of this book, it is a wonderful book and a must read for all.
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