The best novels set in Greece, Italy, Spain & France - for a virtual trip abroad during Lockdown - Bradford Grammar School

The best novels set in Greece, Italy, Spain & France – for a
          virtual trip abroad during Lockdown

 FROM THE NATURAL BEAUTY OF THE CARMARGUE TO THE CAVE AND MYTHS OF
CRETE, WRITERS HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY THE MEDITERRANEAN FOR THOUSANDS OF
     YEARS. TAKE A LITERARY HOLIDAY WITH ONE OF THESE GREAT READS…

GREECE MIGHT BE ONE OF THE COUNTRIES MOST FREQUENTLY WRITTEN-ABOUT SO THERE ARE PLENTY OF BOOKS TO
 CHOOSE FROM! BOTH FICTION AND NON-FICTION. IT CERTAINLY IS MY FAVOURITE HOLIDAY DESTINATION AND I
 ALWAYS ENJOY TAKING A BOOK AWAY THAT IS SET IN THE COUNTRY I AM VISITING. HOPEFULLY SOME OF THESE
            CHOICES MIGHT TRANSPORT YOU VIRTUALLY TO GREECE IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES...

Percy Jackson &
The Olympians
by Rick Riordan
• Percy Jackson is an energetic teenager
with dyslexia and ADHD. He hates doing
his homework and can't seem to
concentrate in class, just like any normal
teenager. But strange things always seem
to happen to him. On a school trip where
his maths teacher turns into an evil bat-like
creature everything starts to change. He
discovers that he can understand ancient
Greek and that his best friend Grover is in
fact a satyr…Finally he is chased to Long
Island by an ancient monster and
discovers that he is a demigod, half-
human, and half-god.
• Percy is launched into a world of
monsters, sword fights and danger. He
embarks on several missions, culminating in
the ultimate face-off with an army of
terrifying creatures, led by the most evil
and cunning villain of all.
• exciting and full of adventure With
lovable heroes, detestable villains, action,
adventure, mystery, magic, vengeance
and romance what more could you ask
for?

Zorba the
 Greek by
 Nikos
 Kazantzakis
The classic novel Zorba the Greek is the story of two
men, their incredible friendship, and the
importance of living life to the fullest. Zorba, a
Greek working man, is a larger-than-life character,
energetic and unpredictable. He accompanies
the unnamed narrator to Crete to work in the
narrator’s lignite mine, and the pair develops a
singular relationship. The two men couldn’t be
further apart: The narrator is cerebral, modest, and
reserved; Zorba is unfettered, spirited, and beyond
the reins of civility. Over the course of their journey,
he becomes the narrator’s greatest friend and
inspiration and helps him to appreciate the joy of
living.

The Odyssey
by Homer
the magnificent, mercurial character of
Odysseus. And the descriptions of Greece!
“Rosy-fingered dawn” is undeniable. Unless
you read Greek, you need to choose a
good translation. There’s a new one by
Emily Watson that I would recommend, or
you can’t go wrong with the Robert Fagles
one.. If you have been lucky enough to
study it in the original Greek you will enjoy
the translation even more! This work could
be said to be a foundation for all reading.

Captain
Corelli’s
Mandolin by
Louis de
Bernieres
This novel more than any other for me
conjures up the landscapes and scents
of Greece. its evocation of a lost
Kefalonia, the still-beautiful island it’s set
on, is perfect. Above all, Pelagia is a
character that many who know
Greece will recognise – feisty and
passionate.

My Family &
Other Animals
by Gerald
Durrell
This book is more of an autobiography, but it reads
like a comic novel and much of it contains an
element of fiction – for instance, Larry, (Gerald’s
brother, the author Lawrence Durrell) didn’t in fact
live in the same house as the others. He also called
the book “very wicked [but] very funny”. As a
description of an eccentric, dysfunctional family
the book is a blast, making you half grateful and
half sorry that your family is not similar; it can not be
beaten for its descriptions of Corfu, and specifically
the landscape and nature. you can almost hear
the cicadas and see the lizards scuttling over sun-
drenched rocks.

Mythos by
Stephen Fry

• No one loves and quarrels,
desires and deceives as boldly or
brilliantly as Greek gods and
goddesses.
• Pick up this book and step into
another world – of magic,
mayhem, monsters and maniacal
Gods.

Discover Stephen Fry's
magnificent retelling of the
greatest myths and legends ever
told . . .

FRANCE
I HAVE BEEN VISITING FRANCE SINCE MY DAYS AS A CHILD ON EXTENDED FAMILY
    HOLIDAYS AND EVEN AS A TEENAGE AU PAIR DURING MY GAP YEAR. IT IS
RENOWNED FOR ITS FOOD AND WINE, BUT ALSO FOR ITS COMBATIVE ATTITUDE TO
  POLITICS, ITS LOVE OF GOOD LIVING, ELEGANT CITIES AND VARIETY OF LAND-
   AND SEASCAPES. WE CAN STILL VISIT IT THROUGH THE PAGES OF LITERATURE.

All The Light
We Cannot
See by
Anthony
Doerr
This Pulitzer-prize-winning novel seems tailor-made for these days.
The title refers to a teacher’s comment in the book about how
our brains, locked in our skulls without a spark of light, build for us
a luminous world. And today we, in lockdown, can rebuild in our
imaginations 1940s Paris and the “open-air fortress” of Saint-Malo.
We do this partly through the mind of young Marie-Laure, blind
since she was six, who finds her way using scale models her
brilliant father builds for her. Characters in the occupied Brittany
town come to life, and readers’ hearts go out to Marie-Laure and
young German counterpart Werner as they confront a world of
hate and horror with grace and integrity.

Bonjour
Tristesse by
Françoise
Sagan
This 1954 classic by a precocious 18-year-old takes
us to the sun-drenched Riviera, where lazy and
selfish 17-year-old Cécile is holidaying with her
widowed father and his latest girlfriend. The bright
light of summer goes hand in hand with shady
morals, as Cécile plots with her older boyfriend to
see off the new woman in her father’s life, one who
would seek to curb her self-indulgence and even
make her do a spot of schoolwork. It all goes
horribly wrong, yet in the end we are left in some
doubt as to whether the flighty Cécile has learned
anything from her first experience of tristesse.

Suite Française
by Irene
Némirovsky
A French writer of Ukrainian-Jewish origin, Irene planned a
sequence of five novels set in Nazi-occupied France. The first
two, in tiny handwriting in a leather-bound notebook, survived
her arrest and murder in Auschwitz. Preserved – but unread –
by her daughter, they languished for six decades before being
published in one volume in 2004. Suite Française offers an
amazing backstory and an unflinching look at France and the
French. The first part deals with a cast of Parisians fleeing Paris
as the Germans invade. However, the second part might
evoke memories of stone-built small towns where we might
enjoy dinner and a summer stroll, but which we know would be
a claustrophobic nightmare to live in – as the fictional town of
Bussy is for Lucille, sharing a house with her resentful mother-in-
law. The square where village girls are chatted up by soldiers
could be the Place de la Mairie in a hundred villages across
France

Perfume by Patrick Süskind
 This olfactory sensation of a novel takes us to a Paris very different from today’s City. In the slums of eighteenth-century
France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift – an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to
   decipher the odours of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of
   mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes
   obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Subtitled ‘The Story of a
                            Murderer’ prepare to be surprised and disgusted in equal measure!

A Year in
Provence by
Peter Mayle
In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells
what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually
move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote
country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He
endures January’s frosty mistral as it comes howling down
the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing
through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious
regional cuisine.

The Little
Paris
Bookshop by
Nina George
MONSIEUR PERDU CALLS HIMSELF A LITERARY APOTHECARY. FROM HIS
FLOATING BOOKSTORE IN A BARGE ON THE SEINE, HE PRESCRIBES
NOVELS FOR THE HARDSHIPS OF LIFE. USING HIS INTUITIVE FEEL FOR THE
EXACT BOOK A READER NEEDS, PERDU MENDS BROKEN HEARTS AND
SOULS. THE ONLY PERSON HE CAN'T SEEM TO HEAL THROUGH LITERATURE
IS HIMSELF; HE'S STILL HAUNTED BY HEARTBREAK AFTER HIS GREAT LOVE
DISAPPEARED. SHE LEFT HIM WITH ONLY A LETTER, WHICH HE HAS NEVER
OPENED.
AFTER PERDU IS FINALLY TEMPTED TO READ THE LETTER, HE HAULS
ANCHOR AND DEPARTS ON A MISSION TO THE SOUTH OF FRANCE,
HOPING TO MAKE PEACE WITH HIS LOSS AND DISCOVER THE END OF THE
STORY.