So you want a house on the Greek island of Corfu? It is going to take a lot of work...as Emma Tennant's parents soon found out. In A House in Corfu it is the 1960s and Emma's parents have been entranced by a spot at the mouth of a mythological bay. Supposedly, this is the spot where Odysseus came ashore; where Nausicaa took him in. The Tennants decide to build a house they name Rovina. Emma Tennant's romantic descriptions make Rovina sound like a fairytale when it was all said and done, but first there was the initial build where troubles naturally abounded. Water was difficult to find. (The search went on for seven weeks while the family relied on rainwater.) Supplies needed to come by boat from a tiny harbor and hauled up the countryside. Then there were the island politics to navigate. The locals used the land as shortcuts to fishing spots. Then there was the one time Tennant couldn't return to London. Because of a military coup led by Colonel Papadopoulos the planes refused to fly.
Tennant pays tribute to other Corfu writers like Homer, Durrell, and Edward Lear.
While I enjoyed Tennant's romantic descriptions, her parenthetic comments and run-on sentences were tiring. ( )

In the early sixties, the authors parents happened to be on a cruise around the mediterranean island of Corfu, when they spotted a perfect bay. On a whim they decided there and then that this was the place that they wanted to live. Having bought the land, all 43 hectares of it, they set about building a beautiful house over looking the bay.

Tennant tells of how the house was built, and her new family life split between the UK, and this peaceful idyllic place. As the UK went through dramatic social changes, Corfu still continued the unique social customs that had taken place for centuries, but slowly things were beginning to change in the island. She writes too about the local characters who worked for them and played a part in the family's life.

There are no huge or traumatic events here, just a series of events and anecdotes of the life spent on Corfu. It is a nicely written account of this part of the world.
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charming and well-written. The house in Corfu was built by author's parents after spotting its bay while on a cruise. The house was built on the hillside and for the longest time there was no road to it. The book is the result of the author's many visits with her family. She writes of the beauty of Corfu and its people. ( )

This is the nineteenth book I've read this year that focused on travel. Still, I've not lost interest in this genre. What I liked best about this book was Tennant's descriptions of the water; I finally had to go to the net and see photos of the Ionian Sea. Wow. Exactly as Tennant described: a startling blue. Beautiful. ( )

Disappointing - written as a tourist - it was more on Corfu, less House. ( )