Read Around Europe Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Europe.
Best books from Europe (2973)
2411.
Renia's Diary : A Holocaust Journal by Renia Spiegel EN
UkraineDescription:
The long-hidden diary of a young Polish woman's life during the Holocaust, translated for the first time into English Renia Spiegel was born in 1924 to an upper-middle class Jewish family living in southeastern Poland, near what was at that time the border with Romania. At the start of 1939 Renia began a diary. “I just want a friend. I want somebody to talk to about my everyday worries and joys. Somebody who would feel what I feel, who would believe me, who would never reveal my secrets. A human being can never be such a friend and that’s why I have decided to look for a confidant in the form ... continue
2412.
Klotsvog by Margarita Khemlin EN
Description:
Klotsvog is a novel about being Jewish in the Soviet Union and the historical trauma of World War II--and it's a novel about the petty dramas and demons of one strikingly vain woman. Maya Abramovna Klotsvog has had quite a life, and she wants you to know all about it. Selfish, garrulous, and thoroughly entertaining, she tells us where she came from, who she didn't get along with, and what became of all her husbands and lovers. In Klotsvog, Margarita Khemlin creates a first-person narrator who is both deeply self-absorbed and deeply compelling. From Maya's perspective, Khemlin unfurls a retelli... continue
2413.
Reden An Den Kleinen Mann by Wilhelm Reich DE
Description:
Listen, Little Man! (Reden An Den Kleinen Mann) is a great physician's quiet talk to each one of us, the average human being, the Little Man. Written in 1946 in answer to the gossip and defamation that plagued his remarkable career, it tells how Reich watched, at first naively, then with amazement, and finally with horror, at what the Little Man does to himself; how he suffers and rebels; how he esteems his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he gains power as a "representative of the people," he misuses this power and makes it crueler than the power it has supplanted... continue
2414.
The Radetzky March : Introduction by Alan Bance by Joseph Roth EN
Description:
By one of the most distinguished Austrian writers of our century, a portrait of three generations set against the panoramic background of the declining Austro-Hungarian Empire. Translated by a three-time winner of the PEN Translation Prize.
2415.
Perto do coração selvagem by Clarice Lispector PT
Description:
O surgimento de Perto do coração selvagem, em 1943, causou grande impacto no cenário literário brasileiro, proporcionando à autora aclamação imediata da crítica e de seus colegas escritores. Houve quem encontrasse no livro a influência de Virginia Woolf, ao passo que outros apostavam em Joyce, seguindo a falsa pista da epígrafe da qual Clarice pinçou seu título: "Ele estava só. Estava abandonado, feliz, perto do coração selvagem da vida." Ambos os grupos estavam errados, apesar do uso do fluxo de consciência pela escritora estreante a justificar tais correlações. Ocorre, no entanto, que esse h... continue
2416.
The Dogs and the Wolves by Irène Némirovsky EN
Description:
"This wonderful, panoramic novel goes right back to Ir ne Nemirovsky s roots, sweeping the reader from the Jewish quarter of a Ukrainian city in the early years of the twentieth century to Paris in the twenties and thirties, and back again to eastern Europe in a snowy winter on the eve of war. At its heart is a tragic love, between Ada from the poor Jewish quarter and Harry, son of a rich financier. The dogs are the comfortable, assimilated rich Jews up on the hill, while the wolves, their distant cousins, struggle below in the ghetto. Ada grows up motherless, looked after first by her father,... continue
2417.
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky EN
Description:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control during World War II—a heartrending "portrait of a small French town under seige, and the people trying to survive, even to live, as Hitler’s horrors march closer and closer to their doors" (New York). “Stunning.... A tour de force.” —The New York Times Book Review Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940, as Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at... continue
2418.
The Wine of Solitude by Irène Némirovsky EN
Description:
Imbued with melancholy, and regret, this work explores the troubled relationship between a young girl, her distant, self-absorbed mother and her mother's lover, Max. We follow the family through the Great War and the Russian Revolution, as the young Helene grows from a dreamy, unhappy child into an angry young woman."
2419.
The Fires of Autumn by Irene Nemirovsky EN
Description:
This panoramic exploration of French life between the wars reads like a prequel to Irène Némirovsky’s international bestseller Suite Française. At the end of the First World War, Bernard Jacquelain returns from the trenches a changed man. Broken by the unspeakable horrors he has witnessed, he becomes addicted to the lure of wealth and success. He wallows in the corruption and excess of post-war Paris, but when his lover abandons him, Bernard turns to a childhood friend for comfort. For ten years, he lives the good bourgeois life, but when the drums of war begin to sound again, everything aroun... continue
2420.
De oorlog heeft geen vrouwengezicht by Svetlana Alexijevitsj NL
Description:
Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog vochten ongeveer een miljoen vrouwen in het Rode Leger, maar hun verhaal is nooit verteld. In De oorlog heeft geen vrouwengezicht verzamelde Svetlana Alexijevitsj de herinneringen van honderden van hen die scherpschutter waren, tanks bestuurden of in veldhospitaals werkten. Hun verhaal is niet het verhaal van strijd alleen, maar dat van mensen in oorlog: wat gebeurde er met hen, hoe werden ze door de oorlog veranderd? Hoe was het om te leren te doden? Samen vertellen ze het niet-heroïsche verhaal van de oorlog, dat ontbreekt in eerdere getuigenissen van veteranen... continue