Read Around Europe Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Europe.
Best books from Europe (2973)
401.
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hašek EN
Country: Europe / 
Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
In The Good Soldier Svejk, celebrated Czech writer and anarchist Jaroslav Hasek combined dazzling wordplay and piercing satire in a hilariously subversive depiction of the futility of war. Good-natured and garrulous, Svejk becomes the Austrian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of World War I—although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards and getting drunk, he uses all his cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the police, clergy, and officers who chivy him toward battle. Cecil Parrott's vibrant... continue
402.
Die kleine Hexe by Otfried Preussler EN
Country: Europe / Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
Warum soll eine gute Hexe nicht auch auf den Blocksberg d¿rfen? Ab 6 Die kleine Hexe ist leider erst 127 Jahre alt und wird deshalb von den gro¿n Hexen nicht f¿r voll genommen. Da sie nun keine gro¿ Hexe ist, will sie wenigstens eine gute sein. Mit diesem Entschluss beginnt ein aufregender Wirbel. Autorenportr¿ Otfried Preu¿er wurde am 20. Oktober 1923 in Reichenberg/B¿hmen geboren. Nach dem Krieg und f¿nf Jahren hinter sowjetischem Stacheldraht kam er nach Oberbayern. Er lebt mit seiner Familie in der N¿ von Rosenheim, war bis 1970 Volksschullehrer und widmet sich seither ausschlie¿ich seiner... continue
403.
Příspěvek k dějinám radosti by Radka Denemarková CS
Country: Europe / Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
The suicide of a wealthy elderly man soon proves to be improbable. The perceptive policeman tirelessly searches for the real reasons for the strange death, which will lead him to the mysterious house under Petrin. The mysteries and motives increase as the hours spent with the young widow increase. The main characters are three, perhaps four women, educated, bold and devoted to a higher justice, according to which the victim and the culprit lose their original duality. And the burning question echoes: how much more violence and wars await us before all this human misfortune finally becomes huma... continue
405.
R.U.R. Rossum Universal Robots by Karel Čapek PT
Country: Europe / Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
A phenomenal Czech science fiction play that introduced robots to modern literature. R.U.R. - Rossum's Universal Robots explores the ethical implications behind humanity’s enslavement of a man-made race. Opening in the Roboti factory, this play poses moral and ethical questions as we watch humans create a new life form. R.U.R. are intelligent robots built with the ability to think, feel, and act as freely as humans, but they are being sold as servants. As the robots tire of their ill-treatment and begin to revolt, could humanity have created its own death sentence? First published in 1920, Kar... continue
406.
No Saints Or Angels by Ivan Klíma EN
Country: Europe / Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
Ivan Klima has created a remarkable portrayal of a woman striving to be both lover and mother, to unravel her father's secret past, and to protect her daughter in the nihilist present. Both a striking statement on the universal struggle between parents and children and a portrait of the chaos as a newly free society attempts to define itself.
407.
Closely Observed Trains by Bohumil Hrabal EN
Country: Europe / Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
A classic of postwar literature, a small masterpiece of humour, humanity and heroism from one of the best Czech writers For twenty-two-year-old Milos, bumbling apprentice at a sleepy Czech railway station, life is full of worries: his burdensome virginity, his love for the pretty conductor Masha, the scandalous goings-on in the station master's office. Beside them, the part he will come to play against the occupying Germans seems a simple affair, in Bohumil Hrabal's touching, absurd masterpiece of humour, humanity and heroism. Closely Watched Trains, which became the award-winning Jiri Menzel ... continue
408.
Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera, Aaron Asher EN
Country: Europe / Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
The author initially intended to call this novel The Lyrical Age. The lyrical age, according to Kundera, is youth, and this novel, above all, is an epic of adolescence; an ironic epic that tenderly erodes sacrosanct values: childhood, motherhood, revolution, and even poetry. Jaromil is in fact a poet. His mother made him a poet and accompanies him (figuratively) to his love bed and (literally) to his deathbed. A ridiculous and touching character, horrifying and totally innocent ("innocence with its bloody smile"!), Jaromil is at the same time a true poet. He's no creep, he's Rimbaud. Rimbaud e... continue
409.
RUR by Karel Čapek EN
Country: Europe / Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Description:
We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation? R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots is a play written in 1920 by Karel Čapek, a Czech writer who wrote many plays and novels, many of them with science-fiction and dystopian themes. R.U.R. is perhaps the most well-known of these works in the English-speaking world because it brought the word “robot” into the language. “Robot” is derived from the Czech word meaning “worker.” The play is set in the island headquarters of th... continue
410.
Babette's Feast by Karen Blixen EN
DenmarkDescription:
These five rich, witty and magical stories from the author of Out of Africa include one of her most well known tales, ‘Babette’s Feast’, which was made into the classic film. It tells the story of a French cook working in a puritanical Norwegian community, who treats her employers to the decadent feast of a lifetime. There is also a real-life Prospero and his Ariel in ‘Tempests’, a mysterious pearl-fisher in ‘The Diver’ and a brief, tragic encounter in ‘The Ring’. All the stories have a mystic, fairy-tale quality, linked by themes of angels, the sea, dreams and fate. They were among the last t... continue