For the next week, Saturday to Saturday, I am running a series of posts about my books, what’s behind them, what they are about and where you can buy copies. It’s that present buying time of year again and I can get these posts ready in advance so I can take a week off from blogging and let them run themselves. Today, the first ‘living on Symi’ book, Symi 85600.
You may already have a copy of this book, but if not, you might like to consider ordering one for a friend or family member.
This is my first book of anecdotes from Symi and covers our first five years of moving to, and living on, the island. It is made up of emails, and letters, blog posts and some articles, plus a few extras that were written especially for the publication, and it also includes a ‘How to’ guide. ‘How to move to a Greek island or other place in the sun.’
The How To section was written following requests from several people and it’s really a handy list of things to check, remember and organise. Nowadays I expect a lot of the information needs double checking as I wrote this back in early 2004, but there are still useful thoughts and ideas in there for anyone thinking of making the move.
What’s also interesting about Symi 85600 is that it was written with a newcomer’s eye. I remember, in the first winter we lived here, meeting Faith Warn who wrote ‘The Bitter Sea’ a book about the sponge diving industry of (mainly) Kalymnos. She, a Radio 4 presenter at the time and journalist, told me that a diary in the first year was invaluable as you wrote what you saw before you became too self-aware. In other words, it’s all still fresh and new. After a while you think ‘I’d love to write that, but I can’t as it would upset him/her so best leave it alone…’ And so on. Mind you, these days I don’t care so much about that though I do stay away from naming names.
There’s a look at the ex-pats in Symi 85600 too, in the How To part, in a section based on my early observations of ex-pat’s generally. I notice I gave them titles, stereotypes if you like: The chairperson, The Keen drinker, The Montague, The Capulet, The moaner and so on – I expect I could add a few more ‘types’ to that list now. The rest of the book remains, I hope, an honest and sometimes funny account of moving to, and living on, a small Greek island.
And if you ever wondered what the title meant and were too afraid to ask, it’s (part of) the post code.
You can get a copy of Symi 85600 here.
Symi 85600 book review: “A must read if you’ve ever thought of moving away from it all and starting afresh. James writes accurately about the trials and tribulations of living on a small, beautiful Greek island with humour in such a way that not only can you not help but fall in love with the island AND James but makes you wish you could do it too despite knowing the pitfalls that go with it.” Amazon review.
