LIFELINES in paperback – Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month

It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since my book Lifelines was first published in May 2025, but there’s a paperback edition on my desk right now telling me that it has. Published in the UK by the wonderful team at Elliott & Thompson last week, this new edition has a beautifully refreshed cover by Ola Galewicz and contains the same stunning interior illustrations and map of the Prespa lakes basin by the Greek artist Matina Galati. Plus it’s a more affordable, lighter and easier version to carry around this summer!

The story, of course, remains the same. Lifelines is a book of homecoming. It tells, in part, the story of how my wife, Julia, left London more than quarter of a century ago to try and put down roots in a place called Prespa in northern Greece. All we had to go on at the time was a book about the region that had convinced us to move there after reading it over too much wine one evening. Showing up, of course, was just the beginning of our journey, because the far greater, more challenging and much richer one was the journey into a place itself. The journey into its communities of people and wild species in this crossroads landscape of mountains and lakes shared by three countries: Greece, Albania and North Macedonia.

Lifelines is about the people of these mountains, the rare pelicans nesting on the lakes, the borders that divide the waters and the brown bears that forage in the valley behind our house. It’s a story of incredible generosity and welcome, having arrived here with overloaded rucksacks holding everything we thought we might need in these new lives of ours but with absolutely no idea of what would come next on our journey. It’s a story, ultimately, of a shared place. It’s about the ways in which the lifelines of the world hold together the greater home of us all.

I’m also thrilled to be able to share that Lifelines is a Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month, so it’ll be on display throughout July in their shops right across the UK as well as a few in Europe too. I’m so thrilled and honoured by the Waterstones selection, especially as their second non-fiction book of the month is Mother Mary Comes to Me by the incredible Arundhati Roy, one of my literary heroes. It’s been wonderful and moving to see photos of the various displays from Waterstones bookshops in recent days. If you come across one, please send along a photo as I’d love to see it!

For the Waterstones blog I wrote a short piece about how books can change lives, given that our journey to Greece was inspired by reading Prespa: A Story for Man and Nature in our North London flat (sadly I’ve forgotten the make of wine which helped make our decision that evening!). The author, Giorgos Catsadorakis, captivated us from the start, enough to convince us to make the leap of faith that brought us to these ancient lakes and mountains in the spring of 2000.

If you’re a Waterstones Plus customer, there’s a Prize Draw that’s free to enter until August 2nd. The winner will receive a stunning A3 coloured print of Matina Galati’s bee-eater illustration that appears in the book, together with a Key Gardens x Falcon Greek Olive Gift Set from the Key Gardens shop. More details here. Along with Waterstones shops and website, the Lifelines paperback can now be found at all your favourite independent shops as well as Bookshop.org, which helps support indie shops in the UK through online purchases. There’s also a new audio version of the book beautifully read by Call the Midwife and Coronation Street star Chris Harper. It’s available on Audible. Details about the North American edition can be found here.

Finally, I was absolutely over the moon and deeply honoured to have the book win the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award last month. Particularly as the shortlist for the prize, given to a book in English each year with a strong connection to Greece, contained so many remarkable books. If you’re keen to explore some excellent books related in some way to Greece I would highly recommend the rest of the superb shortlist:

Joshua Barley: Athens Tales

Agnes Callard: Open Socrates – The Case for a Philosophical Life

Peter Jeffreys and Gregory Jusdanis: Alexandrian Sphinx – The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy

Daniel Mendelsohn (tr.): Homer, The Odyssey

Hugo Shakeshaft: Beauty and the Gods – A History from Homer to Plato

Brian Sneeden (tr.), Phoebe Giannisi: Goatsong

That’s all for now – thanks so much for reading!