Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968
by Heda Margolius Kovaly
from Holmes & Meier Publishers
I Escaped From Auschwitz
by Rudolf Vrba
from Barricade Books
This is the first hand account of Rudolf's Vrba's experience as a registrar in the prison camp as well as the story of his daring escape.
A Romantic Education
by Patricia Hampl
from W. W. Norton & Company
A now classic memoir, described by Doris Grumbach as "unusually elegant and meditative," once more available with an updated afterword by the author. Golden Prague seemed mostly gray when Patricia Hampl first went there in quest of her Czech heritage. In that bleak time, no one could have predicted the political upheaval awaiting Communist Europe and the city of Kafka and Rilke. Hampl's subsequent memoir, a brilliant evocation of Czech life under socialism, attained the stature of living history, and added to our understanding not only of Central Europe but also of what it means to be engaged in the struggle of a people to define and affirm themselves. Reissued now, during the tenth anniversary of that astonishing upheaval known as the Velvet Revolution, A Romantic Education includes an extensive updated afterword based on Hampl's annual return trips to Prague and the Czech countryside. Here is an excellent introduction to what was once the unknown "other Europe" behind the Iron Curtain and is now the continent's hottest new travel destination. Once again, as she did in a darker time, Hampl sees the texture beneath the surface of things and intuits the changing life of one of Europe's most bewitching cities. A Romantic Education is an exquisite journey into history and into the conundrum of personal memory.
Prague: A Cultural and Literary History (Cities of the Imagination)
by Richard D. E. Burton
from Interlink Books
A History of Slovakia, Second Edition: The Struggle for Survival
by Stanislav J. Kirschbaum
from Palgrave Macmillan
Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City
by Peter Demetz
from Hill and Wang
Prague Then and Now (Then & Now Thunder Bay)
by Jenni Meili Lau
from Thunder Bay Press
Experience the magnificent beauty and often-tragic history of this 'Golden City' through seventy pairs of remarkable photographs.
Stand atop Prague's most familiar monument, the Charles Bridge (completed in 1400), for a magnificent vista of the city; a fascinating inset photo illustrates the destruction of the bridge after a flood in 1890.
Visit Golden Lane, home to the city's goldsmiths in the 17th century and later to author Franz Kafka.
Marvel at then-and-now images of treasures like St. Vitus' Cathedral (it's first stone was laid in 1344 by Emperor Charles IV!) and St. George's Basilica (founded in the 10th century).
Today, Prague is a favorite destination for tourists from all over the world. This is a tour you won't want to miss!
From Good King Wenceslas to the Good Soldier Svejk: A Dictionary of Czech Popular Culture
by Andrew Lawrence Roberts
from Central European University Press
Roberts' book follows in the tradition of recent scholarship that seeks to emphasize the importance of popular culture and the wealth of knowledge that can be gained through an analysis of the daily lives and practices of individuals. Focusing on popular songs, movie stars, famous athletes, traditional dishes, and children's games that are second nature to every Czech, Roberts' work serves as an introduction to Czech popular culture. This dictionary is a sizeable achievement as it offers an English readership an invaluable source of information to a rich body of material that has thus far remained ephemeral. The six hundred entries are cross-referenced and allow readers to pursue particular topics in greater depth. Written in a readable style this work is easily accessible to a wide readership.
Prague Pictures: A Portrait of the City (Writer and the City.)
by John Banville
from Bloomsbury USA
From one of the foremost chroniclers of the modern European experience, a panoramic view of a city that has seduced and bewitched visitors for centuries.
Prague is the magic capital of Europe. Since the days of Emperor Rudolf II, "devotee of the stars and cultivator of the spagyric art", who in the late 1500s summoned alchemists and magicians from all over the world to his castle on Hradcany hill, it has been a place of mystery and intrigue. Wars, revolutions, floods, the imposition of Soviet communism, and even the depredations of the tourist boom after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 could not destroy the unique atmosphere of this beautiful, proud, and melancholy city on the Vltava. John Banville traces Prague's often tragic history and portrays the people who made it: the emperors and princes, geniuses and charlatans, heroes and scoundrels. He also paints a portrait of the Prague of today, reveling in its newfound freedoms, eager to join the European Community and at the same time suspicious of what many Praguers see as yet another totalitarian takeover. He writes of his first visit to the city, in the depths of the Cold War, and of subsequent trips there, of the people he met, the friends he made, the places he came to know.
The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown (Studies of Nationalities)
by Hugh Lecaine Agnew
from Hoover Institution Press
In this much-needed chronicle of a fascinating people, Hugh Agnew offers the first up-to-date single-volume history of the Czechs, providing an introduction to the major themes and contours of Czech history for the general reader. Agnew presents the most detailed chronology of the region currently available, from prehistory and the first Slavs to the Czech Republic's entrance into the European Union. Taking into account both Western and Marxist insights—as well as the input of the newest generation of Czech historians—he furnishes a comprehensive fusion of three different focuses on Czech history: a political-diplomatic view, a social-economic view, and a cultural-intellectual view.
