Greece is overwhelmingly rich in history, art and culture. Any preliminary reading, viewing or listening you can do will help you get the most from your trip. For more information on any of these books, visit your favorite bookstore or check out amazon.com; for video information, go to imdb.com. Rick Steves guidebooks are available at our Travel Store in Edmonds and also on our website's Travel Store.
Recommended Reading
Non-Fiction
- Lonely Planet: Greece — Paul Hellander: guidebook, 7th edition published March 2006.
- The Histories — Herodotus; The Peloponnesian War — Thucydides; Guide to Greece — Pausanias: These three are perhaps only for the seriously impassioned.
- The Mediterranean in the Ancient World — Fernand Braudel: Marvelous overview, highly recommended.
- The Greeks — H.D.F. Kitto: Standard text on Ancient Greece, quite accessible.
- Persian Fire — Tom Holland: Excellent history of the 5th century BC Persian wars.
- The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece — Paul Cartledge: Large-format, non-chronological look at ancient Greece, with plenty of excellent illustrations.
- Alexander the Great — Paul Cartledge: New and very readable biography.
- The Spartans — Paul Cartledge: Another well written and accessible piece of history by a leading scholar.
- A Traveller's History of Greece — Timothy Boatswain & Colin Nicolson: Compact and very well written history, from very earliest times to the present.
- Byzantine Style and Civilization — Steven Runciman: Manageable overview from a leading scholar.
- A Concise History of Greece — Richard Clogg: Excellent history, from 18th century to modern times.
- Inside Hitler's Greece — Mark Mazower: Fascinating and shocking account of the Nazi occupation of Greece. Lays the background to the subsequent civil war.
- Eleni — Nicholas Gage: Riveting account by the author of his quest to uncover the truth behind his mother's assassination during the civil war, rather politically-biased.
- Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese — Patrick Leigh Fermor: From 1958 but full of information and anecdotes.
- Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece — Patrick Leigh Fermor (similar to the above).
- The Flight of Ikaros: Travels in Greece During a Civil War — Kevin Andrews: Fascinating on-the-spot observations from 1948 to 1951.
- Dinner with Persephone — Patricia Storace: Good modern travelogue.
- The Summer of My Greek Taverna — Tom Stone: Set on the island of Patmos.
Fiction
- The Iliad — Homer: The classic account of the Trojan War, without Brad Pitt.
- The Odyssey — Homer: The travels of Ulysses on his return from the Trojan War.
- Gates of Fire — Steven Pressfield: The Battle of Thermopylae retold.
- The King Must Die; The Mask of Apollo, etc — Mary Renault: Two of several historical novels by this author. The first is about the mythical Theseus; the second follows the life of a fictional actor circa 400 B.C.
- The Walled Orchard — Tom Holt: Amusing and well-researched pseudo-autobiography of the comic playwright Eupolis.
- Little Infamies — Panos Karnezis: Fine collection of short stories, in a "magical realism" style.
- The Last Red Death; A Deeper Shade Of Blue — Paul Johnston: Mysteries following the exploits of Alex Mavros, a Scots-Greek private investigator.
- Zorba the Greek — Nikos Kazantzakis
- Uncle Petros; Goldbach's Conjecture — Apostolis Doxiadis
- Corelli's Mandolin; Birds Without Wings — Louis de Bernières
- Collected Poems — Constantine Cavafis
- Collected Poems — George Seferis (1963 Nobel Prize winner for Literature)
Rick Steves' Travel DVDs
For a fun, informative preview of your next tour destination, watch a DVD from our "Rick Steves' Europe" TV series! Our online Travel Store has 80 shows available on 12 DVDs (a generous four to eight shows per disc).
Films With a Greek Accent
Stella (1955); Never on Sunday (1960); Zorba the Greek (1964); Z (1969); Rembetiko (1983); Shirley Valentine (1989); The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991); From the Snow (1993); Eternity and a Day (1998); My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002); A Touch of Spice (2003); The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005); My Family & Other Animals (2005)
Mood Music
Mikis Theodorakis (20th century classical); Manos Hadjidakis, Haris Alexiou, Yiorgos Dalaras, Stratos Dionysiou, Stelios Kazantzidis (pop/folk/laika); Kristi Stassinopoulou (new age); Filipos Plitsikas (rock); Rembetiko (movie soundtrack); Ta Pontiaka, The Secrets of the Rocks, Ti Den Emathe O Theos (Greek music)
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