Greece is a heady experience, with the hot sun and whitewashed homes, the sea, the food and people, the ruins, culture, and history. No matter which guide books one takes and how well versed one is in Homer and Sophocles, who doesn't sail into Pira us feeling woefully ill-prepared to appreciate the glories of Greece? The 24 finely crafted short stories by modern Greek writers (many appear in English for the first time), arranged geographically (by Athens, the Peloponnese, Crete, and so on), help weave together some understanding of ancient, literary, and modern Greece.