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The Lost Lyra

Richard’s debut novel released in February 2019 quickly reached No1 in the Amazon Greek Travel charts where it dominated for more than 2 months.

Praise for The Lost Lyra

‘This book was so enjoyable and having some familiarity with Crete helped a little but the book is so addictive you are journeyed through the beautiful island and cannot fail to feel the magic. I always say Crete is like going to heaven without having to die first, read this wonderful book and you will understand exactly what I mean.’ Monica on Amazon

You cannot imagine to what depths your book reached into my inner being. What joy and feelings of yearning to be present to hear the music of the lyra. Thank you for a totally satisfying book. Alexandra on Amazon

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Crete – A Notebook

A series of literary snapshots of Richard Clark’s experiences on an island he has grown to cherish. Less of a travel guide, it is more of a travelling companion. Whether a regular visitor or a first-time traveller to Crete, this book provides a valuable insight into life past and present on this exquisite island.

Praise for Crete – A Notebook

‘I was really surprised and delighted by the book. I read every word. The author is a fine writer and describes the island vividly. He travels around the island in a clockwise direction, writing short essays as he goes, which are a mix of personal memoir, history, and an evocation of place. He really does capture places well.’

Mike Gerrard, author of AA Spiral Guide to Crete

‘I love the way Clark writes, it is personal, it is human and deceptively simple.’

Sara Alexi, bestselling author of The Greek Village Series

‘Unsurprisingly, travel literature constitutes the vast majority of my reading these days. In examining other writers’ style and content, I have become accustomed to dipping in and out of work. The extent to which I have been unable to put Richard Clark’s book down is a tribute to its compulsive readability.’

 Emma French, travel journalist www.phileasfrench.com

Also available in a Greek Language edition (translation by Stella Chatzi, edited by Evi Routoula)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crete-Notebook-language-Richard-Clark/dp/1523871113/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

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Hidden Crete – A Notebook

Following on from his No 1 bestseller Crete – A Notebook, Richard Clark travels to some less well known spots on Crete. In his now familiar style of travelogue and memoir he accompanies the reader on a journey around Hidden Crete, to some of the more out of the way places he has enjoyed visiting.

Praise for Hidden Crete – A Notebook

‘Crete was my first love out of all the islands of Greece but this book has made me realise how little of the island I really know, and how much more there is to explore. To say it was a delightful read would be an understatement. There are others in this series but this is the latest and easily his best.’

Sara Alexi

 

‘Hidden Crete gives a very personal, and positive view of fabulous places to visit when you want to get away from the most obvious tourist spots on Crete. For me it was like meeting old friends’

Yvonne Payne, bestselling author of Kritsotopoula: Girl of Kritsa

 

As with his other books in the Greek Notebook series, Richard Clark has the great knack of making the reader feel he’s just gatecrashed someone else’s chilled-out holiday and is having a rather splendid time in the process. This time the author takes us to places on his favourite island of Crete that are not so much ‘hidden’ as just sidestepped by most visitors for the more touristy haunts.

With the same laid-back charm of his other Greek books, we are taken to places that offer authenticity and also a sense of retreat from the cares of modern life: small coves to be discovered on foot, waterfalls, hillside chapels, tiny islets you can swim to. And there are plenty of tavernas along the way that are gems, discovered during Clark’s many wanderings through Crete. At every turn he wants to lure us towards memorable experiences that are essentially Greek, like a night’s fishing trip with an old friend, out of Heraklion harbour, ending up at a deserted beach where a simple fire is rustled up to cook fish for dinner with nothing but an empty sea and stars to gaze at.

This is a beautifully written book that early on Clark describes as a memoir, rather than a guide book. Even still, if I were going to be a tiny bit picky, I’d have liked some maps and more instructions to finding these wondrous places. But then again, what would be the point of that? They’re supposed to be ‘hidden’ and part of the joy of following his lead will be to see if you have the patience and the urge to winkle them out. Once you’ve read the book, I’d say you will!

Marjory McGinn, bestselling author of the  Things Can Only Get Feta trilogy and A Saint for the Summer.

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More Hidden Crete – A Notebook

A sequel to Hidden Crete in which Richard Clark finds more hidden gems on the island. This best-selling travelling companion has something to offer everyone who shares the author’s love for the mystical landscapes of this wonderful island.

Praise for More Hidden Crete – A Notebook

This book ‘works’ on two levels. Firstly it is an excellent guide directing visitors to gems in Crete they’d otherwise miss. Then, for people like me who know Crete well, it is a chance to visit old friends and ‘see’ the places through the eyes of another person. As I’ve come to expect from a book by Richard Clark, the book is written with a beautiful turn of phrase that really captures the scene in front of him. I particularly love the chapter on Kritsa, my home village.
Unlike the first Hidden Crete book where I had already visited the places described, this book describes places on the south coast that I’ve yet to visit, and I’m now very keen to see them for myself…next year.

Yvonne Payne, bestselling author of Kritsotopoula: Girl of Kritsa

Wow!!! Well where on earth do I begin……
The author has painted a beautiful ‘picture’ with this book and not only that I felt I was on a journey with him around Crete. Whether it was visiting secluded beaches or driving over snow covered plateaus or reversing down a mountain side to escape a fire…I was blooming there!!
An absolute gem of a read having me gripped since picking it up a few hours ago right through to the end!!

Brian Neill

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Rhodes – A Notebook

Little more than a stone’s throw from the Turkish coast, Rhodes was the final piece in the jigsaw of what is now modern Greece. In Richard Clark’s bestselling travelogue he travels the island on a voyage of discovery, finding out about the familiar and less well known lives and landscapes on the ‘Island of Roses’

Praise for Rhodes – A Notebook

‘Richard Clark writes with great authority and a deep affection for his subject, which comes from his long association with Greece… This is an excellent read.’

Marjory McGinn, bestselling author of Things Can Only Get Feta, Homer’s Where the Heart Is, A Scorpion in the Lemon Tree

 

‘Well worth a read – and don’t miss the Crete book too. The book made me long to see some of the places he describes so lovingly.’

 Jen Barclay, bestselling author of Falling in Honey, An Octopus in My Ouzo

 

‘This is a book that has been written with great care and love and it shows. An absolute pleasure.’

E.J. Russell bestselling author of Return to the Aegean and Aegean Abduction

‘There is poetry in Richard Clark’s words and through his eyes. I recommend anyone missing Greece, visiting Greece or just wishing they could go to Greece to take a look!’

Sara Alexi

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Corfu & The Ionian – A Notebook

The Ionian Islands stand at the gateway to Greece, with Corfu its gatekeeper. Richard Clark travels on a voyage of discovery to find out more about the people and culture of those who inhabit these beguiling islands.

Praise for Corfu – A Notebook

‘This is another delightful book in the Notebook series of guides to the Greek islands. Richard Clark has an easy, relaxed style and his journey around Corfu feels like spending a leisurely few days with an old friend in a favourite location, enjoying long meals in seaside tavernas or enjoying dramatic moments on a beachside terrace while a thunderstorm rolls in from the mainland.’

Marjory McGinn

 

‘Richard Clark’s descriptive prose instantly transports the reader there to these mellow and beautiful places. You know you are onto a good thing when the way an author writes makes images that remain in your mind long after you have finished reading. Buy this book, feast on it, then visit the places that have already become your friends.’

E.J. Russell

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The Greek Islands – A Notebook

A travelogue about journeys and places, culture, history, people and island life on Greece’s enchanted triangle of islands – Corfu, Crete and Rhodes, and the islands in between. The author’s first book about Greece went on to be a No 1 bestseller and a critical success and paved the way for the books that followed in its wake.

Praise for The Greek Islands – A Notebook

‘Clark is particularly good on the colours, flavours and scents of Greece. He has got under the skin of the place in a way few outsiders have been able to.’

Mark Hudson, winner of Somerset Maugham Award, Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, Samuel Johnson Prize

‘This is a beautifully written book, it is an education in itself and I found myself so much the richer in having read it.’

E.J. Russell

 ‘What I liked most about the book was that it was personal and with that came an honesty, no wrappings, no embellishments other than descriptions of Greece itself. I would recommend this book both to people who have never been to Greece as well as to seasoned travellers. It was a joy.’

Sara Alexi

 

‘My library contains almost all of the noteworthy books about Greece and her islands and this will be a welcomed addition. I will place it next to my collection of books by the late and great Patrick Leigh Fermor, because I think Richard Clark’s writing is as close to Fermor as we will ever come again.’

Aurelia Smeltz, author of Labyrinthine Ways, A Lone Red Apple

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Richard Clark’s Greek Islands Anthology

A compilation of Richard Clark’s first three Greek notebooks about Crete, Rhodes and Corfu & The Ionian.

Praise for Richard Clark’s Greek Islands Anthology

‘You can either sit in your an armchair and island hop from Crete, Rhodes, Corfu and to the Ionian between the covers of this book, or you can tuck it under your arm and head for the airport. It is packed full of facts and history intermingled with personal account. The snippets of experiences Richard Clark shares are so alive and immediate they haunt you long after you have read the last page. His use of words is so beautiful, subtle and soft it pulls you wholeheartedly into his journey. For me this is a page turner. I would recommend this to anyone wanting a guide book, but then again, in places, it is almost a history book, but what makes it special is that it is a very personal view of a fascinating country written by someone who knows it well.’

Sara Alexi

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The Crete Trilogy 

A compilation of Richard Clark’s first three Greek notebooks about Crete, Rhodes and Corfu & The Ionian.

Praise for The Crete Trilogy

‘Thanks, Richard, for adding your great eye to your gifted pen in service to sharing the essence of Greece with the world!’

Award-winning US crime writer, Jeffrey Siger

 

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Eastern Crete – A Notebook

Richard Clark draws on knowledge gleaned from his long association with Crete to focus on the East of the island. Spinalonga, Vai, Agios Nikolaos and the Lassithi Plateau are just some of the places he visits and writes about in his now familiar mix of travelogue and memoir.