Reading Cypria felt a lot like taking a class with the best college professors I had the pleasure of learning from: Very demanding and richly rewarding and entertaining.

I’ll start by saying that this book is just gorgeously written as a piece of narrative nonfiction, and I loved the way Christofi organized the information. His writing is both lyrical and subtly hilarious at times, and packed with the kind of anecdotal supportive information that creates a truly all-encompassing history of a place and its people.

Like any complete work on a specific place, this begins with history and ends with politics, and I enjoyed the former far more than the latter, though I’ll credit Christofi with doing such a good job on this from start to finish that I found myself riveted by the type of recent political history that I generally don’t take much active interest in beyond the obligation to be relatively well-informed.

If I had a minor gripe about this book it was that I really didn’t need so many graphic and highly specific descriptions of torture, but this is a minor complaint about a book that was wholly successful in what it set out to do and deeply rewarding in its reader experience.

Cypria is a combination of several types of book: a travelogue, an insightful history, and a personal history as well.

Weaving these three elements together, Christofi presents a fascinating look at the island of his ancestors. He moves chronologically, from pre-history -- where there were pigmy hippos (!) -- right through until the present day. Christofi provides special attention to the issues leading up to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the Greek nationalists who instigated it. While Christofi is of Greek origin, he presents a fair assessment of both sides of the conflict, I felt, while keeping up a nostalgia for an undivided Cyprus that I'm sure is common on both sides of the line of control.

Each chapter begins and ends with a meditation of a monastery or historical site on Cyprus, which makes this book such a great one for those who wish to visit the island. And if a family member doesn't wish to read the history, his final chapter celebrates the food and culture of the island and is worth the price of the book alone.

I'm lucky I got to preview this book via NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.

All I knew about Cyprus was the passages of scripture that mention it. Then I picked up this book ... oh my.

Christofi swirls you through the history pages, narrow streets, and conflicts of a small island. Crucial throughout the human story, Cyprus is place just far enough away to require an effort but so close that it is worth fighting for.

Descriptive and well-researched, it's a worthy addition to books about the region. The photos are a bonus. If you are a history buff, if you have Mediterranean roots, or if you just like a good tale, this will be a joy to read.

WAnt to read a great book about a far-away land? This is the one to read. If you just like to have your mind take a cruise, this is the book for you.

A fascinating look at the Island of Cyprus.A book mixing history travel memoir in a truly engaging way.I highly recommend this wonderful read. #netgalley#bloomsbury.

This is an engaging and well-written history of the island of Cyprus. It provides a broad insight into two millennia of Cyprian history, with a heavier focus on modern history, which has been much more interesting than I realized it was. Throughout the whole book, my favorite part is how well the author's love for his homeland shines through.

I'm always interested to read nonfiction books about parts of history that I don't have a lot of knowledge on, so I loved getting to learn more about Cyprus beyond just the little I knew about the ongoing partition. This book had an interesting style that often felt more memoir-esque than a typical historical non-fiction book. I didn't necessarily appreciate those parts, as I prefer my history books to be a bit more textbook-esque, but the author's connection to the subject was still interesting and engaging.

Terrific history of the island of Cyprus from ancient times to today. The book is highly readible and intersperses history with travelogue and memoir. Can’t recommend enough!

In the introduction, the Author describes his struggle with writing a book on Cyprus, until he realizes the way to write the book is to write a series of perspectives about Cyprus that can composite into a book. Having recently read Wild New World, I assert that if you feel like inventing a new way to do history, don't.

The book is the history of Cyprus, the island in the eastern Mediterranean, starting from with before human habitation in pre-history and ending in the contemporary world. It is poetic. Mixing history, memoir, and travel-writing, the text dances. The Author's chops as a writer of fiction are in evidence.

The book has a tendency to print the legend, particularly about history related to but not about Cyprus. If there is some historical ambiguity, it will always take the sexiest option. It gets a bit silly when it plays "that's Cypriot"1 on everything from the house cat to the Ford Administration. True, though, that is one of the things that attracted me to read the book in the first place, in the sense of how often Cyprus is relevant in Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean History.

But then there is a second book within the book.

Second book is a history of the more troubled points of Cyprus' recent past, from the British annexation to the division of Cyprus. The second book is a conventional history. Notably, these chapters still have the personal anecdotes of the other chapters, but they are a brief aside as opposed to chapter theme as in the rest of the book, and most of the time feel tacked on. Notably, after the modern status quo arrives, the lyrical style and strong personality of the book returns for the closing.

The internal second book is more what you would expect from a popular history, with the exception that it is achronological. This is infuriating. The other part of the book is a little like this, but it is less disorienting when the text is dealing with generalities and trends instead of facts and dates. I think that, per the introduction, the intent is to group things more conceptually than orderly, but the results are odd.

For instance, the chapter on the post-war colony is before the chapter on what happens during the war. I think that this is meant to emphasize the divisions within Cypriot society, but putting reasoning after events British look more like foppish incompetents instead of the evil but reasoned realpolitik. There are a few things like that, where the choice creates what I think are unintended consequences.

I think that the author is trying to emphasize cultural norms and how that explains historical events. But whatever the reason, it meant a lot of page-flipping.

There is a real moral weight to this section. Colonialism and colonial projects are treated as something that happened Out There to The Other, but Cyprus (and Ireland, and Ukraine) are clear examples that the call is coming from inside the house. Cyprus is of critical import there. Cyprus does not scuttle the idea of The West, but it sure leaves some portholes open.

I also think that there is a question about how well a book written only by a Greek Cypriot can accomplish the sort of multifaceted gem approach of the Introduction. I know that the author did research there, and I would refrain from calling the book biased, but there were points where I felt that I needed more to the story, specifically in the context of the dual island cultures.

A good book, with a good topic, and an important message - an immediate and really important message, but structurally unpleasant. And like a movie, be sure to stick around for the post-credits sequence in the Acknowledgements. I teared up.

Up until now, my knowledge of Cyprus's past was meager, at best - and that may itself be a bit of an overstatement, if anything. So when the opportunity to read "Cypria" came my way, I was immediately interested. And to my very happy surprise I felt like my expectations were exceeded within just the first chapter. Not only was there so much to learn about the island's past (and present), but it was all relayed to me with a wonderful narrative and passionate flair on author Alex Christofi's part that I wish I could even get a fraction of in other nonfiction works. It's not only an excellent starting point for anyone looking to learn more about Cyprus, but overall just a great experience for all those searching for their next historical read.