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A new series of books for very young children is available from today! Made from sturdy hardboard, and in a small format, Benji Davies’ books featuring the adventures of Little Bear include moving parts that reveal pictures and text for endless exploration! Little Bear goes for a walk in the park, swings and seesaws, plays ball and eats ice cream. At the farm, he counts the ducks, collects the eggs and drives the tractor! In Helen Stephens’ How to Hide a Lion, little Ellie adopts a lion she finds in her garden and tries to hide it from her parents. Will she be able to hide it forever? A fairy tale that will turn everything you thought you knew about lions on its head! Watch the book presentation by the Storyteller.

Vangelis Hatzivassiliou, To Vima, 26 August 2012 Dimitris Nollas depicts, without a trace of melodrama, everyday heroes striving to avoid a violent severance from their surroundings. These paradoxical human figures, who struggle to adapt to their surroundings and find it difficult to define their relationship both with others and with themselves, make their presence felt from the very first moment in prose of Dimitris Nollas. Bound by aimless wandering and chance, as well as resigned to the ambiguity or even the futility of their existence, Nollas’s heroes withdraw from the public sphere very early on. And while self-abandonment and indeterminacy constitute one aspect of their confused individuality, the other reveals the web of fear, betrayal and guilt formed by their contact with political activism and terrorism.But when Nollas moves away from terrorism into the world of xenophobia and alienation, the dislocation or fragmentation of the characters leads to a new form of enslavement capable of reaching total destruction and death. And such a drama can, of course, only evoke the decline of another form of community: bonds of solidarity are rapidly disappearing from most societies that host migrants.Whichever version of Nolla’s prose we examine, the reality remains the same: the author highlights and illustrates an individualism that observes and experiences the world with all its vital forces exhausted.The Balance of Terror I am reading Nolla’s new collection of short stories, entitled In the Place, and I am left with the impression that something has changed, albeit imperceptibly, in his style. The protagonists are once again walking a tightrope, searching in vain for meaning in their spineless lives, yet they do not end up at the precipice. A poor musician who has fallen on hard times in Greece and a Greek homeless man decide, willy-nilly, to take a child under their wing in order to save him from his mother’s icy indifference (‘Baby on the Swing’). A solitary passenger discovers, during a train stop, the comforting power of companionship (‘The Words of the Wind’).A bitter man who has stolen his sister’s jewellery to avenge her refusal to sell their father’s estate comes to his senses thanks to the woman by his side (‘A Bagel for Two’). Two lovers, stoned by everyone, manage to find refuge in a space of unique intimacy (“Still Life of the Waters”). A drifter swept up in the deceptive pursuit of wealth manages to love an angelic little girl from the depths of his heart (“The Price of Dreams”). An old woman, immersed in her loneliness, constantly burns the cards she plays with her plumber so she can continue to listen to his stories (“The Burnt Cards”). No overflowing emotion, not a single melodramatic note. Nollas seeks to find diamonds amidst hot coals. His heroes will never take the great leap and will under no circumstances break out of the confined circle of their lives. They will, however, manage to avoid a violent severance from their surroundings, reaching out to one another, even if only spasmodically.Through this peculiar manoeuvre, they will be able, perhaps for the first time in a book by Nolla, to chart their course and give shape to their fluidity. As for the counterweights, they will always be there: loan sharks eager to trample on their old friendship (‘Inevitable Encounters’), cynics and money-grubbers who will amass fortunes (‘A Paradise of Gold’), Easterners who will not forget their archaic fate in Europe (‘Matzikert’) and the despondent who will not rejoice in their good fortune (‘In the Land’). A balance of terror? Perhaps. On the other hand, however, there is tormented humanity and a great deal of unpretentious grit in a book that immediately stands out for its simplicity and candour.Ghosts, goblins and lizards that paint. Dimitris Nollas’s characters appear on the scene in media res: starting halfway through and with the certainty that it is impossible for them to end up anywhere. Without exactly undermining the logical sequence of the narrative, yet without rejecting the contribution of the irrational, the obscure or the dream, Nollas transcends the self-evident tenets of realism in two fundamental ways: by disrupting the psyche of his characters and by abruptly fracturing the unity of his narrative time.In his new short stories, he frequently resorts to the element of the fantastical, which intrudes without warning into the action, to lend it a momentarily ambiguous dimension and place it in a state of suspension between the real and the transcendent: into something that Tsvetan Todorov has termed the marvellous. Nolla’s marvellous allows the heroes to strike up conversations with their beloved ghosts, unleashes strange shadows mingled with mists of unknown origin, mobilises goblins who descend fully armed down steep slopes, or makes lizards draw incomprehensible pictures on the ceiling.As for the characters’ disorientation, they are all slightly out of step with the universe, without, however, turning into madmen: travellers surrounded by atmospheric elements they are unable to decipher, men who have been cast out involuntarily (or perhaps of their own volition?) by their families, women who honour their bodies despite their widowhood (against the objections of relatives and friends), shepherds who struggle with strange entities, Franco-Levantine people who do not set aside their barbaric origins, dreamers who fall from the heavens into earthly chaos, outcasts who save a piece of bread for their neighbour (even as they kill one another time and again) or people who have escaped the clutches of Death only to welcome him into their homes through the back door.

As part of a report by the newspaper Makedonia and journalist Kostas Marinos on e-books and digital reading, we spoke with Kostas Marinos and shared our views. Below is the article as published in the Makedonia newspaper on Wednesday 1 August 2012. A battle is unfolding in our times. On one side are the pages of books printed on paper, and on the other, their transfer into digital form on one of the many types of e-readers available. And caught in the middle is the reader. The one who wants to hold a book, who will take it with them to the beach, who will open it during their lunch break. Then there is the other person, who argues that the traditional book is heavy, takes up space, and wants immediate access to their small or larger collection of books. So far, the traditional book is holding its own, but there are many signs that it will begin to lose ground on at least some fronts.CONCERNS IN GREECE For some time now, publishing houses in Greece have realised that they need to change the way they distribute the books they handle. It is well known that the issue had been raised during discussions at the Thessaloniki International Book Fair, and had been a concern for them; indeed, as interested parties can see from a quick browse through the publishers’ websites, many titles in their catalogues are also available in digital format. The question is whether and to what extent the reading public has appreciated this offering or not. ‘E-book technology is not yet widespread among the Greek reading public. The first steps are now being taken, and Greek readers remain cautious. The younger generation accepts them more readily, and this is only natural, given that young people are more familiar with technology and its developments,” is the view of the publishing house “Metaixmio”. Eva Karaitidi of ‘Estia’ publishers shares a similar view: ‘There is likely to be an explosive growth in Greece, as sudden as the rise of the internet. Digital media, computers and smartphones have fostered new reading conditions and habits, which tend to imperceptibly establish the e-book as something entirely natural.”An indication of the prevailing trend is the entry into the market of publishing houses that cater to a more discerning readership, such as ‘Ikaros’.WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE AND WHAT LIES AHEAD “It began distributing digital books in 2010. Although the audience that prefers them is still limited in our country, we cannot overlook the fact that the trend is for this to increase,” says Nikos Argyris of ‘Ikaros’, adding, ‘I believe that content is more important than format, and print will remain with us for a long time to come.’ It is interesting that the readership of “Ikaros”, the publishing house of the Nobel laureates, as it is often described, embraced the initiative to publish e-books, as Mr Argyris notes: “They welcomed it very warmly and the feedback we received was entirely positive.”In 2010, the first e-book titles were also released by ‘Metaixmio’. These were school textbooks for secondary school, followed in the same year by the first digital editions of Greek and translated literature, essays and children’s books. “To date, 280 of our titles have been digitised. These are available from the ‘Metaixmio’ online bookshop and other online bookshops,” says Dora Tsaknaki on behalf of ‘Metaixmio’, whilst Nikos Argyris also raises the issue of the availability of these books: “Two key factors in expanding the readership are the availability of affordable e-readers and the embrace of digital books by traditional bookshops. Some have already started selling ebooks, whilst several others have immediate plans to do so.” He also says, “Now every title is released as an ebook, and we plan to increase the number of titles available. Things are somewhat more difficult when it comes to older books, which include many classic works, because there are no digital files from which to create the ebook.”Among the older publishing houses, ‘Estia’ has made around 40 titles available in digital format. ‘This is a first step, and we know that their traditional readership today consists mainly of men, with all that this implies for the type of texts. Our titles will multiply once we resolve the issue of polytonic spelling and the age of the archives, which are delaying the conversion of a vast number of our publications into e-books,” says Eva Karaitidi of ‘Estia’, whilst Dora Tsaknaki comments on the policy followed by ‘Metaixmio’ “We release our titles as ebooks three to four months after their publication, with the exception of our very important books that we suspect will become bestsellers. In this case, the books are digitised at the same time as their print edition, as one format helps the other.”

In 1991, Ikaros Publications released the book *Deipnosophistis*. It was a collection of articles, originally published in the newspaper *Kathimerini*, focusing on cuisine or gastronomy, as we would say today. It was the first time in Greece that anyone had spoken about the philosophy of taste, its aesthetics, its sociology and its ritual dimension. He spoke of both popular and refined cuisine and of the clarity of flavours. It changed the way we had viewed cuisine up to that point, but it also introduced the dimension of Greek identity, opening up a major topic, a dialogue that continues to this day. The book was loved by both the public and critics, went through numerous reprints, was discussed, commented on, copied, gained a devoted readership, and was followed in subsequent years by the equally successful Second and Third Diners, both by the same author, Christos Zouraris.Much has changed since then. Gastronomy has entered our lives and become fashionable, with all the pros and cons that entails. Hundreds of related books and magazines have been published. Television has become a vast kitchen. Restaurants have opened and closed, chefs have risen to fame and faded away, we’ve eaten feta mousse and caramelised everything (much of the aforementioned being of exceptional quality). Rocket and Parmesan became our national salad, and we saw a TV advert featuring a grandmother in a headscarf in the village telling her neighbour the brilliant line: ‘I’m rolling out the sushi sheet!’ And now? Now the trend will pass. Unfortunately, with the help of the crisis that is plaguing everything. But the good things will remain. The essence. The substantive dialogue about Greek cuisine and Greekness. With all its cultural, social and philosophical ramifications. Ramifications that contribute to self-awareness, an essential virtue for us to be better Greeks. Epicurus has been at the forefront of this dialogue for years. A follower and interlocutor of Christos Zouraris, he has published books and numerous articles and reviews in newspapers and magazines. His deep engagement with gastronomy in general and Greek cuisine in particular, his knowledge and his many years of experience, have now been brought together in a volume, a thorough study entitled: The New Greek Cuisine, with the subtitle On the Greekness of moussaka, our gastronomic identity and its renewal. In this book, Epikouros passionately explores what exactly Greek identity means in our cuisine. He begins by exploring what ‘Greekness’ means, drawing on references and examples from literature, painting and architecture. He asks what ‘Greekness’ meant to the generation of the 1930s, how it is changing today, and what this means for gastronomy. He traces, from the Ottoman period to the present day, the folkloric, local, cultural, economic and many other factors that constantly shape what we call Greek cuisine. What is ‘mum’s cooking’ and what is restaurant food? Who are the great chefs who have shaped our tastes and palates from Nikolaos Tselementes to the present day? Is moussaka Greek? Will our great-grandchildren consider sushi to be Greek? In other words, joking aside, the dialogue we were discussing continues. What will be the next chapter in this fascinating history of our Greek cuisine? It is a great joy and honour for us that, 20 years after the Deipnosophists, this dialogue continues at Ikaros. Epicurus’s book will be published by our publishing house this autumn.