Read Around Europe Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Europe.
Best books from Europe (2679)
1611.
PolandDescription:
Boleslaw Prus is often compared to Chekhov, and Prus’s masterpiece might be described as an intimate epic, a beautifully detailed, utterly absorbing exploration of life in late-nineteenth-century Warsaw, which is also a prophetic reckoning with some of the social forces—imperialism, nationalism, anti-Semitism among them—that would soon convulse Europe as never before. But The Doll is above all a brilliant novel of character, dramatizing conflicting ideas through the various convictions, ambitions, confusions, and frustrations of an extensive and varied cast. At the center of the book are three... continue
1613.
Politiek zonder partijen by Alicja Gescinska NL
Description:
Zijn politieke partijen de oplossing, of eerder een oorzaak van het democratisch deficit en de vele problemen van het politieke theater? De Franse filosofe Simone Weil pleitte in een visionair, postuum gepubliceerd essay voor een radicale afschaffing van alle politieke partijen. Het is een messcherpe analyse, geschreven na het Europese democratische debacle aan de vooravond van de Tweede Wereldoorlog, waarin ze het vaak gewetenloze cynisme van het partijensysteem aanklaagt. Weil gaat op zoek naar alternatieven en een andere manier van politiek voeren.00Filosofe Alicja Gescinska pleitte in vers... continue
1615.
Description:
By the Koscielski Prize-winning author of Dream and Stones, In Red is the gripping cautionary tale in which real and unreal combine explosively, making us question the nature of the work itself. Set in an imaginary fourth partition of Poland, In Red retraces the turbulent history of the Twentieth Century in a labyrinth of greed, inheritance, and entropy, enacting—word by tremulous word—the claustrophobia of a small town from which there seems to be no escape. Never have Tulli's trademark precision of language and her crystalline storytelling been put to such brilliant use.
1616.
The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer EN
Description:
Yasha the magician - sword swallower, fire eater, acrobat and master of escape - is famed for his extraordinary Houdini-like skills. Half Jewish, half Gentile, a free thinker who slips easily between worlds, Yasha has an observant wife, a loyal assistant who travels with him and a woman in every town. Now, though, his exploits are catching up with him, and he is tempted to make one final escape - from his marriage, his homeland and the last tendrils of his father's religion. Set in Warsaw and the shtetls of the 1870s, Isaac Bashevis Singer's second novel is a haunting psychological portrait of... continue
1618.
The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy by Stanislaw Lem EN
Description:
'A giant of twentieth-century science fiction' Guardian 'This Room Guaranteed BOMB-FREE. From the Management' Hapless cosmonaut Ijon Tichy has been sent back to earth to attend the Eighth Futurological Congress in smog-bound, overpopulated Costa Rica, holed up with an assortment of scientists in a luxury hotel (fully equipped with tear gas sprinklers in case things get out of hand). But when an unfortunate incident occurs involving a revolution and hallucinogenic drugs in the water supply, Tichy finds himself shot, frozen and thawed out in a future beyond anything he could ever have imagined.
1619.
The Boy on the Wooden Box : How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler's List by Leon Leyson EN
Description:
“Much like The Boy In the Striped Pajamas or The Book Thief,” this remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list, “brings to readers a story of bravery and the fight for a chance to live” (VOYA). This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s list child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and ... continue
1620.
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski EN
Description:
Tadeusz Borowski’s concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where where the will to survive overrides compassion and prisoners eat, work and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the line between normality and abnormality vanishes. Published in Poland after the Second World War, these stories constitute a masterwork of world literatu... continue