The Summer of My Greek Taverna

Rating:
Summary: Good story, poor editing
Review: As a Philhellene hungry for true accounts of ex-pat's lives in Greece, and an ex-pat myself living in Greece, I really wanted to like this book. Unfortunately, I struggled many times with its irrelevant details and sometimes boring passages, which caused me to put it down frequently.

Unless you know or like Patmos already, it's difficult to envision some landscapes because either the details provided were too limp or simply tried to hard to paint a picture in my head where my imagination might have done better with fewer, succint descriptions.

I was also disappointed with simple editing/writing mistakes that Stone and his editor made such as using too many Greek words (spelled phonetically, not true to Greek) and then giving the English translation afterward. A person, like myself and many others, who know both Greek and English can find it annoying to have the same thing repeated twice. It's a beginner's mistake from Strunk and White's rules.

If I could get over the poor editing and lifeless passages, I found a gem of a story that could have shined brilliantly with the right organization, more concise adjectives and characters that came more to life. I do admire Thoma for his motivation, intention and courage to make his dreams come true. I do believe he is a good storyteller, as the author says he is in the book. I do believe this could have been a great memoir.

Please don't hate me for writing this review, but I'm being honest by presenting the good and the bad. A better memoir is "The Sailor's Wife" by Helen Benedict or Katherine Kizlos' "The Olive Grove."

Rating:
Summary: Fun reading...
Review: I approached this book on a travel writing level where you would read Lawrense Durrell and Henry Miller books about Greece. I did experience this in addition to a great story about finding (and losing) your life-long dreams.

As recorded in the brief summary above, the book follows the author's adventure one summer trying to run a Greek taverna on the Agean island of Patmos. The book recounts how the author set up shop, ran it daily with his dubious Greek partner, and finally discovered what his dream really meant to him. The narrative seems to take place before Patmos become a hot tourist location (before 1990), yet Tom Stone doesn't reveal any dates. The author's page revelas that Tom no longer lives in Greece, but in Southern California.

The book is light reading (probably take 2 hours of reading...after all it is only 199 pages) -- it includes with some folklore about the island (much revolving around St. John's visit in the first century). The recipies printed in the appendix are a nice touch, especially for those wanting to indulge in the culinary experience.

Rating:
Summary: More Disappointing Than Cold Moussaka
Review: I heard Tom Stone interviewed recently on NPR's "Savvy Traveler." I couldn't wait to read this book, which seemed to promise a wonderful combination of travel and food writing. I was sorry to discover that it delivers nothing more than a tepid narrative of Stone's adventure, made nearly unreadable by the author's self-congratulatory tone. Stone's memoir develops no interesting characters and is so poorly organized, edited, and written that if there was actually a good story there the reader would be too annoyed to enjoy it. I would recommend that Stone employ a ghost writer if he wants to share his personal experiences in print ever again (but since he's a writer by profession this may be too much to expect).

I can't help commenting on the thing that irritated me most about this book, which was Stone's representations of his wife and kids. They were, in this book, just beautiful props without personality, devices for Stone's self-flattering view of himself.

One bright note: I haven't tried any of the recipes yet. Maybe they will redeem this disappointing book.

Rating:
Summary: The Summer of my Greek Taverna
Review: Save your money and read "Extra Virgin" instead.

In a book about someone opening a greek restaurant, it takes the author half the pages to even begin cooking his first meal. Much of the book is given to the author's whining about money, unfair deals and his struggles.

And to Tom (the author), thanks for reminding us that you sleep in the nude. That added so much to the book.

No laugh out loud moments here and the recipes are just really filler to pad the book.