After University and Business School John Mole spent fifteen years criss-crossing Europe, the Middle East and Africa for an American Bank. He was was based in the USA, London and Greece.
His fortieth birthday present to himself was to quit employment. The main incentive was to write full time. Published works include three comic novels - “Sail or Return” “The Monogamist” and “Thanks, Eddie!”“Management Mole” is about going back as a temp in the back offices of the kind of organisation he used to manage. The best-selling "Mind Your Manners" is about how to manage people of different cultures. For a few years he had a consultancy business focussing on how to get people from different nationalities and cultures to work together.
Meanwhile John tried his hand at various entrepreneurial ventures. An attempt to establish a chain of baked potato restaurants in Moscow came to an end when the Russian Mafia took an interest. He had more success with INBIO Ltd, which imported Russian biotechnology for environmental protection and with a project to control the spread of water weed on Tanzania's Lake Victoria. “I was a Potato Oligarch" is the sorry but comical tale of the Russian venture.
In Greece with his family he restored an old stone house on the island of Evia, which they go back to every year. This resulted in “It’s All Greek To Me!”, which has just been republished and updated. A British / Australian movie production company optioned it and commissioned him to write the script. It is under development.
When not at the laptop he sings and plays the baglama, a miniature bouzouki, with a Greek band in London. He loves to travel, especially around the Mediterranean and the Middle East, although backpacking has been superseded by trundle-casing. Journeys have inspired more books. “The Sultan's Organ” is the diary of a musician who took an automated organ and clock to Constantinople as a gift of Queen Elizabeth to the Sultan in 1599. It’s such a great read that he put it into modern English. “The Hero of Negropont” is a comedic novel about an English Lord, who gets shipwrecked on Evia in 1792, when Greece was still under Turkish rule. For “Martoni’s Pilgrimage” he translated the diary of an Italian lawyer who travelled to the Holy Land in 1394 and had a hard time getting back home - it’s a great traveller’s tale.
