It's All Greek to Me!: A Tale of a Mad Dog and an Englishman, Ruins, Retsina-and Real Greeks - Softcover

John Mole has been at home in Greece for nearly thirty years. After graduating from Christ Church, Oxford with a degree in French and German and with an MBA from INSEAD, he spent 15 years crisscrossing Europe for the Mellon Bank. In the mid-1970s he was posted to Greece, which soon became central to his life. When he and his family were transferred they left behind a house on the island of Evia, to which they return every year. In 1985 John’s fortieth birthday present to himself was to quit what V.S.Naipaul calls ‘the humiliation of employment’. The main reason was to try writing full time: his published work includes both comic novels and the bestselling guide to European cultures Mind Your Manners, currently in its third edition and available in twenty languages. He prefers the term ‘succession of occupations that seemed interesting at the time’ to ‘career’. For ten years after graduating he wrote reviews for the TLS while in the 1990s he tried his hand at various entrepreneurial ventures. An attempt to establish a chain of baked potato restaurants in Moscow came to an end after the Russian Mafia expressed an interest in participating.He has enjoyed more success with INBIO Ltd (concerned with the import of Russian biotechnology) and in 1995 he set up a project to control the spread of water hyacinth on Tanzania’s Lake Victoria. John Mole has British and Irish nationality and, thanks to the Green Card Lottery, is also a resident of the USA.

A heartwarming story of realizing one's dream and sharing it together.... -- The Midwest Book Review, November 2004

Mole writes affectionately in a warmhearted, entertaining tribute to a Greece he loves for its sensuality and earthy simplicity. -- Islands Magazine, January/February 2005

Mole's entertaining memoir is a story of transformation— the house to a charming...home and the Moles to... "honorary Greeks". -- The (Cleveland, OH) Plain Dealer, October 16, 2004