John tells the first part himself...

I was born back in the 1950's in Bath, Somerset, UK, five days before my mother's 26th birthday. I am grateful to be able to say that mine was a virtually idyllic childhood in rural south-west England, with a close nuclear family consisting of two loving parents and a sister whom I hated, as all brothers do their older sisters, eh? Today, of course, my sister and I are very close, but when you're six and she's eight and she borrows your toys all the time - well, what would you do?

 

I attended the City of Bath Boys' Grammar School and then Gloucester College of Art and Design. At school my best subjects were Art, French and English. I always leaned towards the arts and creativity, all things numerical making me break out into a cold sweat. Books have always fascinated me though, and, although I pursued a career in graphic design, I always envied writers. I actually won a couple of competitions for my writing when I was a child, but when a decision was required, I plumped for art and design as a career.

 

"I met Yvonne, my wife (known in Greece as Maria) in a bar in Bath in the early seventies, and the way in which we met is pretty much as described in 'The View From Kleoboulos' when I discuss the night when Dean first met Alyson. That's our story really, although only that part, of course.

 

Having spent the next few decades coming with my wife to Greece frequently, often to visit relatives rather than simply as holidaymakers, I began to look back on some of my experiences in the light of having read such books as "A Year in Provence" by Peter Mayle and a couple of early Bill Bryson, and I rather immodestly thought, 'I could do that! Some of the things that have happened to me are easily as funny.'

 

Thus began my writing career, which only really blossomed after we moved out to Rhodes in August of 2005."

 

The non-fiction works

John Manuel has now written seven books of Grecian memoirs spanning almost four decades of visiting and eventually living in Greece.

 

A brief summary of the non-fiction memoir books can be found on the 'Non Fiction' page, where there are links to each book's own page on this site. Once you reach an individual age, there's an easy button to buy the book.

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The works of fiction
As with the non-fiction books, there's a brief summary page for the works of fiction, Click HERE to go there. All the books are listed there, plus the dystopian short story 'Outage' is there too.

 

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Ramblings from Rhodes, the blog

...contains hundreds of posts spanning a period from 2010 until 2019. It's packed with trivia about Rhodes, reviews of plenty of tavernas and bars, plus suggestions about where to stay on the island with links wherever possible. There is also a page giving handy details about how to visit nearby islands whilst staying on Rhodes. In fact the 'links' page on the blog is an essential for anyone wanting to get the very best out of a visit to the island.

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Accretions, the blog

In September 2019 John and his wife moved to Crete, where they'd purchased a modest little house in a quiet hillside village. From there he's now begun a new blog, charting this new chapter in their lives. Click the link, right, to take a look.

 

Since February 2015, John also is the administrator of a Facebook group called "A Good Greek Read", which is growing very quickly into a global community of avid readers of literature with a Greek connection. Each member posts links to sites where their suggested books may be instantly purchased, thus making the page into a kind of virtual reference library for Greek-themed literature. There are also links to authors' pages too, where their catalogue of work can be browsed.