{"product_id":"touching-greece-short-stories-articles-and-poems-9781068694103","title":"Touching Greece: Short Stories, Articles, and Poems","description":"I am an Englishman in Greece. What brought me here originally was a sense of challenge, to travel alone at the sort of age when most of my countrymen are toasting their slippers in front of a fire - or pruning their roses. I cannot say why I chose Greece. Perhaps it was a sense of solidarity in the face of Crisis, a vague idea that if I was going to spend my English pension anywhere then it might as well be in a country that needed it! But above all there is I think in the hearts of many Englishmen a feeling of affinity with Greece. Ancient Greece was part of our education, but there is also a sort of Byronic impulse towards this country.As time went by I came to love the country. I started to write about my experiences. I began to record just a little of how I felt, and feel, about this land and its wonderful people. I tried to capture the strengths and exasperating little weaknesses with humour and with empathy. The result is a catholic collection of stories and articles. Some are serious, a few are satirical, others are self-deprecating, whilst yet others are just stories, usually based on fact. In the articles and short stories I have carefully avoided getting serious over the devastating politico-economic issues that have beset Greece and her people over the past few years. The poems provide some punctuation. Three are sonnets, a form I find stimulating in that the restrictions of rhyme and metre add formality to the expression of ideas and emotions. I would like to thank, wholeheartedly, the many Greek people who have been so kind to me and from whom I have 'stolen' the ideas for these stories. Their courage, optimism, and sense of enjoyment has been infectious, and I hope I have captured just a little of that in this anthology\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Crustybooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50903335600402,"sku":"9781068694103","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_3211b270-ec37-4a32-a6f0-d3e706da657f.jpg?v=1738489491","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/touching-greece-short-stories-articles-and-poems-9781068694103","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}