The best book recommendations for the holidays

The book selections below will keep you and your loved ones the best Christmas company. Nine book recommendations for all ages and all tastes.

1. The Unlikely Heroine

Lela Karagianni and the British Secret Services in World War II Greece

by Stylianos (Stelios) Perrakis with a Foreword by John O. Iatrides

Lela Karagianni (1898-1944) was a wealthy middle-aged housewife with seven children who had no experience in politics or military affairs. However, within three years she became “the greatest British spy in the Balkans”, as the Germans admitted after the betrayal and executed her a month before leaving Greece. This is the first biography to describe her remarkable career, how she joined the Resistance by chance and how she built a formidable escape, espionage and sabotage organization working with the highest levels of British intelligence in World War II Greece.

Stylianos Perrakis in this definitive biography of Lela Karagianni has succeeded in elevating a relatively unknown Athenian middle-class housewife to the level of a true heroine and the most distinguished woman in a leadership position in the resistance in modern Greece. Like an archaeologist putting together the broken pieces to restore precious ancient treasures, Perrakis has reconstructed the story of a particularly brave, capable and painstaking woman who asserted herself as a natural leader of men and women facing extremely difficult and dangerous situations. At the same time, he has presented a story of the occupation and resistance in Greece that is original and fully documented, and reveals to us the humanity, strength and trauma of a nation struggling to survive.

Epicenter Publications

2.Parenting in a world full of screens

Catalina Briceño & Marie-Claude Dica

Translation: Youla Stathopoulou

The excellent and useful book “Parents in a world full of screens – How to connect with the universe of your children from 0 to 18 years old” by Catalina Briceño & Marie-Claude Dica has been released by Gema Publications.

In an age where children have a digital footprint before they’re even born, what impact are connected technologies having on our family lives? What do we really know about the habits of our children in relation to the use of screens and their visits to social networks? How do digital uses affect young children’s development? The social, emotional and love relationships of teenagers? Their mental health?

This book examines today’s stakes in our connected world. It offers parents ways of thinking, secrets and tricks to better understand and limit their children’s and teenagers’ digital use – as well as their own. In a simple, clear and understandable way, we explain what attitude to take, when to worry about a certain behavior and when to de-dramatize a situation or stop dealing… in short, everything one should do (or not do) to stand with young people in a world where screens are everywhere.

GEMA PUBLICATIONS

3.The Future of History – How the Ukraine War is Changing the Global Landscape

Collective work

Editor: Konstantinos Filis

Globalization is challenged, a polycentric world is born, supply chains and power balances are disrupted and rearranged, and the transactional diplomacy of Realpolitik asserts its entrenchment over institutions and (law) principles. We usually underestimate or fail to interpret in time the impact of events in History. However, in the case of the conflict in Ukraine, history is being written before us in the present tense.

The collective project The Future of History is at the cutting edge of the topicality of a war that is still raging in Ukraine, the consequences of which will be multi-layered and long-lasting. Through the succinct answers of 16 experts to 26 questions, and the interventions of the editor of the publication, readers get a thorough picture of almost all the parameters of the most dramatic post-Cold War global event which, apart from uncertainty, steep increases and crises in energy and commodity prices, it leads us to a new planetary order where the bet for West and East is which side will define the rules of the game.

Papadopoulos Publications

4. what are we going to eat mom?

Marina Zafeiri is particularly loved in the world of social media and known to the general public as Faganoula (www.faganoula.gr). The book comes to answer the eternal question of children “What are we going to eat, mom?” and it contains everything we want to offer our children.

Food, snacks and sweet treats. Easy recipes that will loosen your hands, made with pure ingredients, passion and too much joy and love. Recipes inspired by our grandmothers and mothers, adapted to today’s needs of a family.

SYMMETRY EDITIONS

5. No one is afraid of those who smile

Veronique Ovaldé

Translation: Rozali Sinopoulou

Gloria chose this day in June for them to leave. She picks up her daughters from school and sets off with them without warning on a long journey.

The three of them leave behind the shores of the Mediterranean and head north, the Alsatian house in the forest of Kaiserheim in which Gloria, as a child, spent her holidays. Why this sudden desertion? What threat does he want to escape from? To find out, we have to go back to the troubled waters of the past, to meet Giovanangeli, who took her under his wing when her father died, to lift the veil around the death of Samuel, the father of her children (where was Gloria that night?) and to finally understand what role the lawyer Santini might have played in this whole story.

How far can we protect our children? In this novel, with undiminished tension, Véronique Ovalde directs the compelling character of a mother whose anxiety about the world transforms into relentless composure in order to confront it.

GEMA Publications

6. Junk & Expendables

Colonel Psarrou’s guerrillas and the occupying Civil War, 1943-44

Ioannis D. Stefanidis

Foreword: Ioannis O. Iatridis

Eight, almost, decades after the events, the discussion about the generative causes of the Greek Civil War must be disconnected from ideological anchors and political expediencies.

This book was based on a wealth of archival documents that shed light on the difficult path and the tragic end of an independent Resistance organization and its leader, Colonel Psarrou. The research showed that at least one side accepted civil war as a legitimate means in a struggle with obvious stakes for power in post-war Greece. Combined with other events of the period 1943-44, the treatment of EKKA-5/42 by the EAM-ELAS decisively illuminates the demobilization of the Rebels from the Resistance to the open Civil War.

Epicenter Publications

7. Brief history of the war

The timeless role of war in human history

GWYNNE DYER

Translation: Hefaistionas Christopoulos

A Brief History of War is a timely read that tells the story of war from its prehistoric beginnings to the present age of algorithms, atomic weapons, and escalating tensions between the world’s superpowers. Written with insight and vivid descriptions by award-winning historian and journalist Gwynne Dyer, it is essential reading for today’s reader who wants to understand the role of war in long human history: why we do it – and how we can stop it.

As an epilogue, the author also explores the latest threat emerging after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the upheaval of the world order.

Gwunne Dyer’s book is an excellent opportunity to re-examine the phenomenon of war at a global level, especially in this difficult time we are going through.

Papadopoulos Publications

8. WHERE DID THE DANCER GO?

The new children’s book by Vassiliki Mourgelas, entitled “Where is the Dancer?”, illustrated by Vivi Skabardonis.

A humorous Christmas story sprinkled with powdered sugar.

It’s New Year’s Eve and everything is ready for Santa’s big trip or… almost ready! Dancer, one of the eight reindeer pulling his sleigh, disappears and everyone is looking for him. Will Santa and his elves manage to discover him? Will the New Year be lost? And finally, where is this scandalous one?

The fairy tale has been awarded a prize in the LITERARY COMPETITION WITH EPOK IT’S CHRISTMAS OF THE GREEK CULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF GREECE – EPOK IN 2020.

SYMMETRY EDITIONS

9. Prevention and Defense – Small Imports

MANOS KARAGIANNIS

War has no boundaries and limitations. The nature of war remains unchanged, but its form is constantly evolving, based on the new facts that prevail. We are now moving from conventional to hybrid warfare, where there are no boundaries and no rules. Now, theoretical and practical understanding is needed for deterrence (strategic dimension) and defense (operational/tactical).

Analyzing why deterrence primarily has a strategic dimension, while defense is by its nature more operational and tactical, Professor Manos Karagiannis also proposes a new military philosophy for the country, for the present and the next decade.

Papadopoulos Publications

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