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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.

Krystalia Patouli | www.tvxs.gr, 25-06-2012 With the arrest of Savvas Xiros and those others alleged to be members of the organisation, it is as if the cycle that began with the Metapolitefsi has come full circle.In the summer of 2002, there was a pervasive fear or numbness in the atmosphere, as if the prosecutions were about to become widespread and include anyone on the left, from the era of the anti-dictatorship struggle onwards.Or as if the ultimate aim of the prosecutions was to incriminate those I mentioned earlier. Both the Polytechnic generation and my own, that of the post-dictatorship era, began with collective visions only to end up trapped in the cocoon of individualism.And the days of the dismantling of 17 November were as if to remind us of exactly what we once were and what we have now become. It was like a final spasm of the collective as it faded away, a last flicker of it.That is why the whole atmosphere seemed appropriate for my narrative, which leads to the bitter realisation that the only collective thing left to us today is friendship. But perhaps there is an optimistic note here too.Because friendship could also act as a catalyst for whatever collective spirit emerges in the near future! Something like the old Philiki Etaireia! The only thing that saves us is friendship. One could put it that way. […] In my early books, from the 1980s, using the language of my time, I managed – by general admission – to capture certain collective characteristics of my generation. Later, I explored individualism and its labyrinth. They accused not only me, but my entire generation, of being obsessed with lifestyle, or perhaps of going along with it. But that was the 1990s: the era of lifestyle. It was something new to all of us, and as prose writers of that era, we explored it.After all, the politicisation of the post-dictatorship era had gone too far, the collective had become a parody, and when the constellation of individualism rose, it was clearly radical.With ‘Friends’, it’s as if I’m returning to the collective. There’s a trend of returning to politics; you can even see it in Hollywood films, it just hasn’t taken on mass proportions yet. It’s as if social consciousness is gradually returning.And within this context, from precisely this perspective, I discover friendship as a solution and a salvation, as resistance to the commodification of everything. However, we should not view friendship narrowly, merely as a relationship between teenagers, for example, but also between couples, children and parents. As a catalyst and a reason that will once again create a sense of community, something hopeful. [...] I observe today’s youngsters, the twenty-five-year-olds, and suddenly realise the confusion they are caught up in. Whilst they are a link in a chain, they delude themselves into thinking they are a new beginning, precisely because they have never experienced anything collective. My generation had the sense that something had come before it, and that something would follow.We were conscious of the historical baton relay. (Excerpt from Vangelis Raptopoulos’s book, The High Art of Failure, Ikaros Publications, 2012)  

Elisavet Kotzia, Kathimerini, 3/6/2012The ten short stories in the collection ‘In the Land’ (‘Ikaros’, p. 85) mark a new direction in Dimitris Nollas’s prose. Texts from the last decade highlight an aspect that was faintly visible in his previous collection of short stories, ‘The Old Enemy’ (2004). It is the shift from the realm of the incongruous, the empty and the alien towards a side where a glimmer of warmth, a hint of heat, a small haven of comfort and love is concentrated. For the issue at stake is emotion, the emotional bond, the openness to human connection. In Nolla’s earlier prose, the world appeared immutably bleak, definitively inhospitable, perpetually hostile; a dystopia whose consistently negative character was due to the unfriendly individuals, the passive subjects and the rootless beings who inhabited it. A world fashioned from the aimless trajectories of the fated and the misfits, it comprised people who struggled to fit into the community. The unemployed, the swindlers and the misfits; the dreamers, the wavering and the half-mad; the humiliated, the degenerate and the gravely ill. Absent-minded gazes, people who were forgotten, figures who wandered, figures who were lost; in labyrinths, in wells and in arcades; figures who strayed, went astray, were led astray. A world with no refuge for the lost, no shelter for the destitute, no haven of a warm embrace. Inevitable, Nolla’s merciless, heartless, alien universe was derailing and drowning in blood. Thus, alongside the two-faced and the stripped bare, the wretched and the defeated, within the twilight universe the unthinkable was taking place. Envious, shameless, greedy, filthy and unrestrained figures plunged knives into chests, fired guns and detonated explosive devices. It was a world of enmity and strife with no place for affection, tenderness or love. With ‘The Place’, Dimitris Nollas contrasts the previous poetics of inhuman alienation with a new poetics of friendship. Not, of course, something radically different, but a slightly tweaked version of the older one. For his heroes continue to find themselves on the social and psychological margins (fanatical bachelors, solitary old men, the romantically wounded, isolated outcasts). In his earlier work, the emotional element intruded through emptiness and absence. Here, by contrast, it is presented directly as an expression of responsibility for the other: the pursuit of caring for a defenceless infant and the reciprocal offering of companionship (in ‘Burnt Papers’ and ‘Baby in the Hammock’, two prose pieces which, not coincidentally, are Christmas stories). ‘A Bagel for Two’ and ‘Inevitable Encounters’, which are governed by the Gospel saying ‘it is not good for man to be alone’. Finally, ‘Matzikert’, ‘Still Life on the Water’ and ‘The Price of Dreams’, which legitimise the cultural otherness of the outsider in the embrace of the immigrant community.In the new collection, Nollas walks a tightrope and triumphs. In ‘The Old Enemy’ there were stories involving critical social issues and sensitive matters of political correctness which perhaps exceeded the capacity of their fictional material (‘No One Alone and Sad’, ‘The Mute Other’). In contrast, in ‘In the Place’, the central idea is established, digested and assimilated through a variety of circumstances whose common element is the circumvention of reason – through the sudden revelation that pierces like a ray, through the reckless devotion offered freely, through unwavering obsession, through generous giving, through superstitious faith.