Louis de Bernières   Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Minerva; Random House). Set on Kefalloniá during the World War II occupation, this accomplished 1994 tragicomedy quickly acquired cult, then word-of-mouth bestseller status, but has lately become a succès de scandale . When the islanders, Greek Left intellectuals and surviving Italian partisans woke up to its virulent anti-communism and disparaging portrayal of ELAS, there was a furore, with de Bernières eventually obliged to eat large quantities of humble pie in the UK press. It also seems the novel is closely based on the experiences of still-alive-and-kicking Amos Pampaloni, an artillery captain on Kefalloniá in 1942-44 who later joined ELAS, and who accuses de Bernières of distorting the roles of both Italians and ELAS on the island. The Greek translation has been suitably abridged to avoid causing offence, and the Big Movie (starring Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz), watered down to a pallid love story as a condition for filming on the island, sank without trace after a few weeks in 2001.

 

John Fowles   The Magus (Vintage; Dell). Fowles' biggest and best novel: a tale of mystery and manipulation - plus Greek island life - inspired by his stay on Spétses as a teacher, in the 1950s.

Olivia Manning   The Balkan Trilogy, vol 3: Friends and Heroes (Mandarin, UK). In which Guy and Harriet Pringle escape from Bucharest to Athens, in the last months before the invasion of 1941. Wonderfully observed and moving.

Mary Renault   The King Must Die; The Last of the Wine; The Masks of Apollo (Sceptre; Random House) and others (all Penguin). Mary Renault's imaginative reconstructions are more than the adolescent's reading they're often taken for, with impeccable research and tight writing. The trio above retell, respectively, the myth of Theseus, the life of a pupil of Socrates and that of a fourth-century BC actor. The life of Alexander the Great is told in Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy and Funeral Games , available separately or in one economical volume.

Catherine Temma Davidson   The Priest Fainted (The Women's Press, UK). An autobiographical novel in which a Greek-Jewish-American woman tries to find her level in 1980s Athens, and the countryside, and also uncovers what made her mother flee the country three decades before. Lyrical, and a sense of humour not dissimilar to fellow-poet Storace's.

Evelyn Waugh   Officers and Gentleman (Penguin). This volume of the wartime trilogy includes an account of the Battle of Crete and subsequent evacuation.