Wow. I just finished this book today, and must say that I'm overwhelmed by the experience. Corelli's Mandolin was selected by a book club that I'm in; I don't think that I would have read it otherwise because books and movies about wartime tend to sadden me too much. As did this one, but it was well worth it. I've seen many synopses that paint the novel as a story of a woman torn between two men, and that's not really accurate at all. The book is so much more broad than that, and Pelagia, the book's heroine, never actually debates which man to "choose." 
 I learned so much about the history of Greece by reading Corelli's Mandolin; it really is a historical novel. De Bernieres paints the atrocities of war so clearly that there were a few passages in the book where, I must admit, I cried. Hard. Very few books are able to illicit that sort of emotion from me, but this one definitely did me in. The writing is phenomenal; De Bernieres has a true gift of creating pictures for his readers with his words. Each character is finely chiseled out, clear and immensely memorable. I'm planning to recommend this one to everyone that I know; I read constantly, but I have a feeling it's going to be a while before I come across another book so intense. Very highly recommended.