The Stars Over Paxos

The Stars Over Paxos is a book about paradise - paradise found, lost and regained. It is also a book about running away and coming home, and about the way some people behave in paradise. The small green island of Paxos, south of Corfu in the Ionian Sea, is one of the best-kept secrets in Greece. Blown ashore there by a storm, John Gill fell into a love affair with the island that has dominated his life ever since. During the 1993-4 olive harvest he returned to the island, to write about its lifeblood - olive oil - and its economy and culture, its people and its visitors, its landscapes, skies and seas. Island life is seen through the seasons: from a balmy Christmas to the heatwaves of August and the lashing storms that march through the Ionian autumn. John Gill also takes a sidelong glance at expatriate culture, mass tourism, space travel, earthquakes, meteorite showers and the migratory habits of the great white shark. Funny and touching, The Stars over Paxos is a love letter to a paradise constantly in the author's thoughts but where he knows he will never really belong.