Insight Guide:
Greek Islands
APA Publications
£16.99

There's something about the Insight Guides - they're too pristine, too glossy and just too damn heavy to risk taking along on holiday. Better to flick through the pages before you go to whet your appetite and then savour the book as a souvenir on your return.

Apart from gorgeous photographs - as you would expect from the Insight series - this guide offers quirky and often fascinating titbits in the side panels and lively background features on the people, customs and places. The only criticism is that maybe this book is trying to do too much and in the process has sacrificed detail about the islands themselves.

Crete Condensed
Lonely Planet
£5.99

Is this what those who travel light have been waiting for? Lonely Planet describes its new six-title series as the ultimate pocket guides and I'm tempted to agree. Rather than treating the island geographically, the Condensed gives us the highlights thematically. So there are colour-coded sections on the best sights, shopping, eating, entertainment etc.

Nothing is deemed worthy of more than a page (and a small picture) but somehow nothing seems to be missed either. The format works brilliantly but LP may have problems expanding the series' range beyond islands and big cities. Oh, and it really does fit in a pocket!

AA Essential:
Mainland Greece
AA Publishing
£4.99

OK, so the AA series is cheap. And that's about the best compliment I can pay these little guides.

This one deals with mainland Greece in about the same space the Lonely Planet Condensed dedicates just to Crete.

If you're on a package holiday or passing through on business, this guide will probably give you some ideas for add-ons to your trip. But if you're trying to organise anything complicated for yourself, or want to get below the surface of the country, you'll come away little the wiser. Essential it isn't. Invest in a grown-up guide instead.

Eyewitness Travel Guide:
The Greek Islands
Dorling Kindersley
£15.99

The Eyewitness guides are like that great teacher who finally made sense of maths or history for you. This guide takes the dry, worthy stuff of travel - such as archaeology, flora and fauna or architecture - and makes it come alive. The same pictorial quality is brought to other subjects, including a photographic menu of Greek dishes more enticing than anything you're likely to see in a restaurant window. Where it falls down is on practical tips. If you're doing any serious island-hopping, this guide may not stop you missing the boat. But you'll find it indispensable in helping you to decide which boat to catch.

Rhodes and the Dodecanese
Dana Facaros
Cadogan
£9.99

How does the Cadogan series survive when the guides still look like something your grandparents might have taken with them on their holidays in the Forties? The Dodecanese guide, with its ridiculous line drawings, feeble maps and grey pages of text, makes absolutely no concession to its glossy and design-led competitors. But it must have something. And the answer is to be found in the selection of the author, who brings a personal and intimate knowledge to the things she writes about - if you can find what you're looking for amid all that greyness. But £9.99? It's too much.

The Ionian Islands
Rough Guides
£8.99

If you're serious about your travelling, the Rough Guide is still probably indispensable. It provides just about all the information you need apart from comprehensive island-by-island ferry timetables.

That said, there is something a little tired -and po-faced - about the formula. Lots of anoraky detail about what each town and village has to offer, but no help with deciding what's a must-see. It's not as though the handful of pictures provide much of a clue either. Take the Rough Guide along because you'll need it - but treat yourself to something more exciting too.