The Hydra Book Club

If you are one of those people who loves to immerse themselves in the literature of a place while traveling, or just want to be transported there, The Hydra Book Club is a trove. Conceived by Josh Hickey of the community-building platform Applied Research Group, this community bookstore is stocked with books by dozens of the writers and creators who have at one time or another lived on this Saronic island. We asked Josh about his process and for a few of his selections:

“Hydra has a literary heritage spanning nearly 100 years and includes titles by many very important artists who have lived or worked here. To make a selection of recommended reading could surely begin with the most well-known authors: Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi or Leonard Cohen’s much loved verse. But to suggest these works is to state the obvious. Some lesser-known writers have lived intriguing lives on the island and have written some of the most compelling books. My selection reflects a less frontal view of Hydra and its residents and instead, one that goes deeper through its winding alleyways, higher up the mountain, and more directly into the complexity of this very unique Island.”

1. The Sleepwalker, by Margarita Karapanou

This was the story that surprised me the most, a completely hallucinatory novel whose main character is the island policeman who is also part God and part serial killer. Tensions between locals and foreign “artists” become deadly as the Island is scorched by heat and eventually swallowed by garbage. If it sounds crazy, it is, yet written with a quiet elegance typical of Karapanou’s work.

2. A Rope of Vines, by Brenda Chamberlain

Welsh writer Brenda Chamberlain journaled her personal experience living on the island. Her Greek lover “accidentally” killed an English tourist at the port and was sent to Athens to await trial. Brenda was horrified by the libertine artists and hangers-on in the tavernas around the port, so took refuge in the monastery, living high on the mountain with the nuns. Her poetic observations are accompanied by her strange line drawings of the island.

3. An Accidental Autobiography, letters of Gregory Corso

This is a fascinating collection of letters written by the American Beat Generation poet Gregory Corso to his contemporaries like Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, among others. Though these letters cover a lot of the distance Corso traveled, there are some absolutely remarkable ones written from Hydra. In one, Corso recounts first how he assaulted a LIFE magazine photographer sent to Greece to cover Leonard Cohen and continues to describe a (substance-induced) awakening he had while hiking out to the tip of the island. He speaks of the light and powerful, rugged nature as teachers—familiar, violent, yet loving.

4. Three Summers, by Margarita Liberaki

Liberaki is the mother of Margarita Karapanou and was also a great writer living between Hydra, Athens and Paris, where she was a friend of JP Sartre. Though this novel takes place in an Athens suburb, the pace and detail with which she unravels the events that occur to three sisters over three summers gives great insight into Greek village life. Penguin just released a new edition, which includes an introduction by Polly Samson, the bestselling author of A Theatre for Dreamers (see below).

5. Peel Me a Lotus, by Charmian Clift

Perhaps the most underrated yet influential foreign writer on the island, Charmian Clift was known to be extremely generous, tending to a flock of artists and writers all in various stages of anxiety, depression, ecstasy and often alcoholism. She was the hub of the artists’ community of Hydra for decades. In Peel me a Lotus, she tells the very personal story of her early days in Hydra, buying a run-down house, having a child, navigating Greek tradition and invasive neighbors all while holding court to a nightly social scene of foreign artists. Another great novel to be re-published this year after being several decades out of print.  Polly Samson has written the introduction to this new edition as well, and her intro gives a great context from which to start reading.To this list I would add one more, from a genre also unique to Hydra: writers on Hydra writing about writers on Hydra, telling the often dramatic and always captivating stories of writers from Henry Miller and George Seferis to Charmian Clift and the scene around Leonard Cohen. The previously mentioned Polly Samson has written A Theatre for Dreamers, a fun and bestselling beach read about Clift, Cohen, and the eccentric characters that gravitate to them.