Luis de Bernieres
Published by Pantheon Books
Corelli’s Mandolin is a novel that covers some 50 years of life on the tranquil Greek island of Cephallonia. If you wish to revisit WWII, the Germans, and the Russian Commuism that followed, as seen through the eyes of the gentle, loving soul, Corelli, and to savor the customs of Greek island-life during that period and enjoy a quixotic catharsis of less complex islanders, Corelli’s Mandolin is for you. When I read it, my mind was a thousand other places, and Cephallonia’s stage seemed too small to captivate me at that moment. The fault was surely mine as the delightfully prose and plot offer a lovely escape from reality.