Read Around Europe Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Europe.
Best books from Europe (2605)
2111.
El angel de la guarda by Fleur Jaeggy ES
Country: Europe / 
Switzerland
Switzerland
Description:
In a vague place in England, two girls, as output of a photograph by Lewis Carroll, chat with their guardian such vital topics as death, emptiness, power, sources ... Arrogant, harsh and melancholy, the two appear to assume that talking about those great things is legitimate, and with no shame, they believe is a good thing at their age.
2112.
Voces de Chernobil / Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich ES
UkraineDescription:
Chernóbil, 1986. "Cierra las ventanillas y acuéstate. Hay un incendio en la central. Vendré pronto." Esto fue lo último que un joven bombero dijo a su esposa antes de acudir al lugar de la explosión. No regresó. Y en cierto modo, ya no volvió a verle, pues en el hospital su marido dejó de ser su marido. Todavía hoy ella se pregunta si su historia trata sobre el amor o la muerte. Voces de Chernóbil está planteado como si fuera una tragedia griega, con coros y unos héroes marcados por un destino fatal, cuyas voces fueron silenciadas durante muchos años por una polis representada aquí por la anti... continue
2113.
Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories by Sholem Aleichem EN
Description:
Of all the characters in modern Jewish fiction, the most beloved is Tevye, the compassionate, irrepressible, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, who has been immortalized in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and in acclaimed and award-winning theatrical and film adaptations. And no Yiddish writer was more beloved than Tevye's creator, Sholem Rabinovich (1859-1916), the "Jewish Mark Twain," who wrote under the pen name of Sholem Aleichem. Beautifully translated by Hillel Halkin, here is Sholem Aleichem's heartwarming and poignant account of Tevye and his daughters, together with the "Railroad S... continue
2114.
Doce anillos by Yuri Andrujovich ES
Description:
Karl-Joseph Zumbrunnen, fotógrafo austriaco con raíces galitzianas, viaja buscando sus orígenes a la Ucrania de los años noventa del siglo xx. Tras el derrumbe del imperio soviético, encuentra un estado en el que los desajustes por su nacimiento serpentean entre el nacionalismo, la nostalgia por los Habsburgo, la tentación del retorno al régimen anterior, el folklore y el embrutecimiento vulgar de un mercado sin control. Enamorado de su intérprete, viaja con ella a un antiguo observatorio, que, tras ser un centro de espionaje y un complejo deportivo soviético, es hoy un hotel en los Cárpatos. ... continue
2115.
Petersburg Tales: New Translation by Nikolai Gogol EN
Description:
Written in the 1830s and early 1840s, these comic stories tackle life behind the cold and elegant façade of the Imperial capital from the viewpoints of various characters, such as a collegiate assessor who one day finds that his nose has detached itself from his face and risen the ranks to become a state councillor (‘The Nose’), a painter and a lieutenant whose romantic pursuits meet with contrasting degrees of success (‘Nevsky Prospect’) and a lowly civil servant whose existence desperately unravels when he loses his prized new coat (‘The Overcoat’). Also including the ‘Diary of Madman’, thes... continue
2116.
Depeche Mode by Serhiy Zhadan EN
Description:
In 1993, tragic turbulence takes over Ukraine in the post-communist spin-off. As if in somnambulism, Soviet war veterans and upstart businessmen listen to an American preacher of whose type there were plenty at the time in the post-Soviet territory. In Kharkiv, the young communist headquarters is now an advertising agency, and a youth radio station brings Western music, with Depeche Mode in the lead, into homes of ordinary people. In the middle of this craze three friends, an anti-Semitic Jew Dogg Pavlov, an unfortunate entrepreneur Vasia the Communist and the narrator Zhadan, nineteen years o... continue
2117.
Last Witnesses : Unchildlike Stories by Svetlana Alexievich EN
Description:
Selected as a Book of the Year 2019 by The Times and Telegraph 'Astonishing. . . Like the great Russian novels, these testimonials ring with emotional truth' - Caroline Moorehead, Guardian Extraordinary stories about what it was like to be a Soviet child during the upheaval and horror of the Second World War, from Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich What did it mean to grow up in the Soviet Union during the Second World War? In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich started interviewing people who had experienced war as children, the generation that survived and had to live with the trauma that wo... continue
2118.
Vita Nostra : A Novel by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko EN
Description:
“Vita Nostra” — a cross between Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” and Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Historian” [...] is the anti-Harry Potter you didn’t know you wanted.” -- The Washington Post “Vita Nostra has become a powerful influence on my own writing. It’s a book that has the potential to become a modern classic of its genre, and I couldn’t be more excited to see it get the global audience in English it so richly deserves.” -- Lev Grossman Best Books of November 2018 -- Paste Magazine The definitive English language translation of the internationally acclaimed Russian novel—a brilliant dark fant... continue
2119.
Brisbane by Eugene Vodolazkin EN
Description:
In this complex novel from the winner of two of Russia's biggest literary prizes, a celebrated guitarist robbed of his talent by Parkinson's disease seeks other paths to immortality. For readers of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Umberto Eco, and Solzhenitsyn, this richly layered new novel from the author of Laurus follows a musical prodigy in search of inner peace as he faces an incurable disease. Like Vodolazkin's earlier novels, this personal story of a lifetime quest for meaning will resonate with any mortal who has grasped for eternity. At fifty, Gleb Yanovski, an acclaimed guitar virtuoso, is diag... continue
2120.
The Nose by Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich Gogolʹ EN
Description:
Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov awakens to discover that his nose is missing, leaving a smooth, flat patch of skin in its place. He finds and confronts his nose in the Kazan Cathedral, but from its clothing it is apparent that the nose has acquired a higher rank in the civil service than he and refuses to return to his face. The Art of the Novella Series: Too short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognised by academics and publishers but beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. This series celebrates the art form.