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Roger Jinkinson
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Tales from a Greek Island Kindle Edition

by Roger Jinkinson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 53 ratings
See all formats and editions
Often surprising, sometimes bizarre, never dull. Roger Jinkinson takes us far off
the tourist-beaten track to explore life — and death — in a small village on a
remote Greek Island. Meet the people he has come to know over 25 years — at
once traditional and modern, hard-bitten and generous, stoic and resourceful.
Learn how they fish, keep bees, hunt goats, make music. Read about the man
who tried to ransom a floating crane, about the mule that outwitted the
German army and the death of a giant. Read and you will feel the very pulse
of a community as it fights to maintain its unique and vibrant culture.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    182 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 2011
  5. File size
    290 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B005NAUED0
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Racing House Press (September 1, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 1, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 290 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 182 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1843279975
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 53 ratings

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Roger Jinkinson

Roger Jinkinson

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
53 global ratings
A great book for anyone interested in travel, culture and especially the Greek islands.
5 Stars
A great book for anyone interested in travel, culture and especially the Greek islands.
A very personal account of life on the northern part of the Greek island Karpathos over a period of more than 25 years. Easily read, yet every word is laced with contents and depth, which means this book is not easily forgotten. Roger has managed to pair simplicity with a deep insight and respect that he could only have gained from years of immersion. This book - and the two before this - is indispensible for serious travellers to Karpathos, or to even any Greek island. I can also recommend this book warmly to anyone looking for good general travel reading, and while on the road. I hope Roger will not stick to his promise of not writing anymore about 'his' village at the northern end of Karpathos..
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Top reviews from the United States

Martha Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars I Loved This Book
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2006
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I came across Tales from A Greek Island during my own travels there and was hooked from the first page. The author Roger Jinkinson has lived on his island for twenty plus years and his Tales include personal experiences, as well as skillful re-tellings of local legends and history. With an impressive command of simple prose the author is able to describe each memorable character and event so that I found myself pondering long after the last page. He explores universal human themes such as love, morality, sexuality, death, sport, humor, and fun, sometimes observing, sometimes participating, yet always strongly grounded in a true love and respect for the characters and place. While he is unafraid to tackle difficult subjects, he is able to form the tales in such a way that we are left each time sharing his personal sense of wonder and revelation of this world which seems both exotic and familiar. The book is an all too quick read, I was left wanting more.
17 people found this helpful
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Anders Dahlgren
4.0 out of 5 stars Stories full of mesmerizing people and a dazzling landscape ...
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2012
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Roger Jinkinson states that he’s “no poet” while translating/retelling his friends "mantinades" and anecdotes. For an editor of a poetry site devoted to the Mediterranean world I dare say that he is wrong! The author’s tales from Karpathos, a island full of mesmerizing people and a dazzling landscape, are nothing but sheer poetry in my ears.

Jinkinson paints his images from a palette that is so rich in colours and light and this is done with the greatest respect for the friendship he has developed with local people and without trying to expose unwanted details from his friends' lives.

Many times I smiled and even laughed heartily reading about "Georgos, Manos, Frogs" and many, many more on the island. But one must add that there’s much more here than just a collection of cheerful stories. Ponder for a minute about the life style the author has chosen and of course, the life that the local people leads and have lead for centuries. Is there not something that we all long for that Roger Jinkinson has found on Karpathos in the Mediterranean world?

Anders Dahlgren
[...]
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Olav Myrholt
5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for anyone interested in travel, culture and especially the Greek islands.
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017
Verified Purchase
A very personal account of life on the northern part of the Greek island Karpathos over a period of more than 25 years. Easily read, yet every word is laced with contents and depth, which means this book is not easily forgotten. Roger has managed to pair simplicity with a deep insight and respect that he could only have gained from years of immersion. This book - and the two before this - is indispensible for serious travellers to Karpathos, or to even any Greek island. I can also recommend this book warmly to anyone looking for good general travel reading, and while on the road. I hope Roger will not stick to his promise of not writing anymore about 'his' village at the northern end of Karpathos..
Customer image
Olav Myrholt
5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for anyone interested in travel, culture and especially the Greek islands.
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017
A very personal account of life on the northern part of the Greek island Karpathos over a period of more than 25 years. Easily read, yet every word is laced with contents and depth, which means this book is not easily forgotten. Roger has managed to pair simplicity with a deep insight and respect that he could only have gained from years of immersion. This book - and the two before this - is indispensible for serious travellers to Karpathos, or to even any Greek island. I can also recommend this book warmly to anyone looking for good general travel reading, and while on the road. I hope Roger will not stick to his promise of not writing anymore about 'his' village at the northern end of Karpathos..
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One person found this helpful
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Mike Hortus
4.0 out of 5 stars Old times still alive !
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2011
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This is a fascinating account of what everyday life looks like in a village with no cars by the sea in the Northern part of the island of Karpathos (Dodecanese). There, the way of living is still about the same as it was a few decades ago, if we except the arrival of television and the opportunity to look at the evening football matches amidst a group of local fishermen.
The author, an English writer, has been living in the village for more than 20 years. He is able to fish, and gathers honey from his bees. He is now more or less adopted as one of the villagers. His book is made of short stories, or "tales", about a few characters of the village, and what happened to them, told in a very vivid language, with a good sense of humour. Both interesting and very amusing.
2 people found this helpful
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Alex Reisbord
4.0 out of 5 stars An Inside View to Life on a Greek Island.
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2005
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If you have visited a Greek Island or plan to do so this is must reading. Roger Jinkinsen has collected tales of life among what he calls his village and tries to help us, the tourist, see beyond the quaint clothes and wrinkled faces. He urges us to put our cameras down and take the time to ponder. I know my short visits to distant lands will not give me the insights that Jinkinsen's quarter of a century has given him, but it will encourage me to stop, have a leisurely drink, and try to experience that life that is around me.
13 people found this helpful
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JK
5.0 out of 5 stars A joy to read!
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2015
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Very we'll written author writes with enough detail and verse to keep you enthralled yet not bored with excessive unnecessary facts. His choice of topics keep you in his" literal grasp." This work is of such quality that it needs to become a movie. I have read Pulitzer works an this is written in qualities and style that many could use as a model! Great piece of literature one of top ten ever!
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars it bring back memories
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2017
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it took me back to our vacations in Greece. my wife is Greek and we have dinner every month with a group from the church. they all have enjoyed the book. some others in the group bought their own copies.
2 people found this helpful
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Estelle Callas
2.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't' get into this book, it did not ...
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2014
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I couldn't' get into this book, it did not hold my interest at all.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Laila Marie, Norway
5.0 out of 5 stars Gifted short story writer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2012
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Having read "Tales from a Greek Island" by Roger Jinkinson, I've been impatiently waiting for "More Tales from a Greek Island" and was not disappointed. Factual travel books have their place, but give me an author who can write about "real" people and their lives, revealing more about the atmosphere of the villages and surrounding environment. His respect for the people and love for nurturing the environment filters through his writing. Having visited this island, he enriches my understanding of Karpathos. I love the descriptions of the characters, the bread making women, the young girls, men in the cafeneion, winds, sea, fish, birds, pathos and humour. Roger Jinkinson is a gifted writer of short stories. Can also recommend "American Ikaros: The Search for Kevin Andrews".
2 people found this helpful
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marko uk
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book. But Greeklish needs a rethink
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2015
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I too live in a Greek village and can say of this that it is a good read, comes from the right place (neither patronising nor blindly adulatory) and captures the spirit of Greece well, albeit alas a fast fading one. I slightly suspect odd bits of embroidery here and there, but no matter, perhaps inevitable with tidying up yarns, it is good and in its way true. And who knows he might well have made a better job of it than me.
I do have one or two cavils, he needs a good editor who will stop him telling the same episode twice in different books, sometimes with small but worrying variations; or point out things like the need to explain at the outset of a chapter about Karpathos in the war that it was Italian governed before the war even started.
But he unarguably needs to rethink his Romanisation of the Greek script. He uses a variant of “Greeklish,” which is used to write Greek in English with the Roman alphabet. But the variant he uses is one which, while making perfect sense to another Greek speaker in the absence of Greek fonts on your mobile website or whatever, would completely baffle a non-Greek speaker. The simplest but far from only example is his use of “W” rather than “O” to render the Greek omega (Ω'). It is possible for readers to make a stab at what “edo” might sound like. “Edw” can only baffle them. And I’m completely stumped by the name “Erniw.
One person found this helpful
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Angela O'Neill
4.0 out of 5 stars great little read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 28, 2012
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Often surprising, sometimes bizarre, never dull. Roger Jinkinson takes us far off the tourist-beaten track to explore life - and death - in a small village on a remote Greek Island. Meet the people he has come to know over 25 years - at once traditional and modern, hard-bitten and generous, stoic and resourceful. Learn how they fish, keep bees, hunt goats, make music. Read about the man who tried to ransom a floating crane, about the mule that outwitted the German army and the death of a giant. Read and you will feel the very pulse of a community as it fights to maintain its unique and vibrant culture.
2 people found this helpful
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Andy Stonehouse
3.0 out of 5 stars Ok Read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 11, 2020
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Ok I Guess. Amusing at times but the second book more tales from a Greek island is better.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Genuine
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2017
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really interesting and insightful about the culture and people - and with a genuine and unpatronising respect for the people and events described.
One person found this helpful
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