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Europe
Here are some of our favorite guides and literature on Europe that we have previously featured on our home page.

La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy Academia Italiana della Cucina ( Rizzoli, hardback, $45.00) Have you ever had a fabulous pasta dish at an Italian restaurant and wondered how it was made? The answer lies in La Cucina. Researched and written by the Italian Academy of Cuisine, it has over 2000 recipes, from antipasti to desserts. While it is not for the beginner – the directions are fairly brief - it will be a "go-to" book for an experienced home cook. - ADD TO CART	Fado Andrezej Stasiuk ( Dalkey Archive Press, paperback, $13.95) Although Polish novelist Stasiuk calls his travels a "Slavic On the Road," few of us are likely to follow in his tire tracks. His lyrical prose illuminates and brings within our grasp the rural landscapes and border towns nestled in the Carpathian Mountains, an itinerary that includes Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Montenegro and Albania. Through finely chosen detail, he renders the cultural contradictions of contemporary Central Europe, "torn between an east which never existed and a west which existed too much." Time is elusive here, as abandoned fragments of the promised future interact with barely surviving traditions of the past; and as myriad ethnicities negotiate newly designed national boundaries. Like the Portuguese fado music that gives the book its title and animating spirit, it is elegiac, exquisitely painful, and well worth experiencing. - ADD TO CART
The Angel of Grozny Asne Seierstad ( Basic Books, hardback, $25.95) Asne Seierstad's first assignment as a journalist was as Moscow correspondent for a Norwegian newspaper. What she lacked in experience, she made up for in fearlessness and fluent Russian. By stealth, as well as official invitation, she spent over a decade reporting from Chechnya. Her meetings with the Chechen president, (whose image alongside that of his father, the murdered ex-president, is ubiquitous) would be hilarious, were the leadership not so thuggish and brutal. The government co-opts fundamentalist Islam with its own form of the religion, which is elaborated on television by the President's uncle. It is through her portrayals of the average Chechen and Russian, though, that Seierstad brings clarity to a situation almost nobody outside Chechnya knows about. Kidnappings, disappearances, informers are part of daily life. Seierstad could use a few lessons about metaphor and pathos, but as investigative journalism, this is a good one. - ADD TO CART	World Whiskeys Charles Maclean, editor ( DK Publishing, $25.00) Uisge beatha - Gaelic for 'water of life'- has its origins in Scotland. Nowadays whiskey is produced and drunk all over the world. The Japanese began distilling single malt and blended whiskey in the 1920s, and now produce some of the best single malts in the world. The Irish, the Canadians and the Americans produce distinctive whiskey, and so do Indians, Australians and New Zealanders. World Whiskey features photos, histories and tasting notes of seven hundred different whiskeys. There are sections on the distilling process, pot stills, blends, bottles, drinking glasses as well as visits to whiskey makers such as Jack Daniels, Yamazaki and Talisker. - ADD TO CART
Secrets of Rome: Love & Death in the Eternal City Corrado Augias ( Rizzoli Ex Libris, hardback, $26.95) In a city as old as Rome (1700 years older than Paris, according to author Augias), history is first experienced through its buildings and art. But the layers of history are opaque to the outsider. Why is Michelangelo's Moses sitting in San Pietro in Vincoli instead of on the tomb of Pope Julius II? What does the little chapel on Via della Caffarella have to do with England's King Henry VIII's attempted assassination of an English Cardinal? Which apartment house on via Tasso was a notorious Nazi prison? Sure, your guidebook, if it's any good, will fill in some of the stories. Corrado Augias' The Secrets of Rome is a rare sort of travel book: You want to hold its hand and walk alongside you around the city. (As opposed to a mediocre guidebook that simply wants to take you by the hand.) Augias' effortlessly combines art, literature and historical gossip into an easygoing exploration of Rome. The sites become touchstones for Augias to write at length about the history and context of the different eras. The chapter about the Italian Resistance and the Nazi reprisals, for example, is an eye-opener for someone whose familiarity about the era comes from Rosselini's Open City. The beautifully bound, hardback edition just adds to the pleasure of Augias' book. - ADD TO CART	Today I Wrote Nothing: the Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms Daniil Kharms ( Ardis Books, paperback, $15.95) Russian writer Daniil Kharms was known in the Soviet Union for his children's books. Part of the St. Petersburg/Leningrad avant-garde at the time of the Bolshevik revolution, by the 1930s his stories, plays, poetry and journals had been suppressed. Unauthorized copies circulated, but were hard to come by. The release and ongoing translation of Kharms's work in the post-Soviet era reveals one of the most original voices in modern writing. Though often labeled a "proto-absurdist" whose work veiled "inner meaning", translator/editor Matvei Yankelevich writes in his excellent introduction that Kharms was interested in "fragmentation, disruption, and the autonomy of art from logical thought, practicality, and everyday meanings." Though persecuted and arrested (he starved to death in a Leningrad prison during the siege) Kharms' writings are full of wit and humor. - ADD TO CART
Some Dream For Fools Faiza Guene ( Houghton, Miffilin, Harcourt, hardcover, $20.00) This is Guene's second novel. Her first Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow, written when she was a teenager, introduced us to the unrelentingly sardonic, hip-hop inflected voice of an Algerian girl in the projects of Paris. Some Dream For Fools has a similarly dark and cutting voice, but the narrator Ahlï¿½me is olderï¿½in her early twenties. Again, the Paris that she portrays isn't cozy or quaint; itï¿½s a place of alienation and separation. Ahleme resides in the space in between the culture into which she was born and the city she inhabits, her ten years in Paris making her not quite Algerian, not quite French. Guene uses this in-between space to craft a narrative that is as much about the immigrant experience as it is about coming of age and the subsequent constant negotiation of identity. The monotony of meaningless entry level jobs, the long nights out, the bind of family, and the idea of home as being something you create are woven together to create a somewhat loose, yet compelling second novel. - ADD TO CART	Italy for the Gourmet Traveler Fred Plotkin ( Kyle Books, $24.95) Fred Plotkin’s updated Italy for the Gourmet Traveler is long overdue. I don’t know how he does it, but Plotkin manages to find consistently good food in every region of Italy. On my last trip to Italy, his book was responsible for some of the best pastries, coffees and meals I have ever had. His chapters start off by listing the various specialties of the region before recommending the cafés and restaurants to find them in. Town by town he lists walks that take in amazing bakeries, cafés, confectioners, farmers’ markets and restaurants. This is the sort of book that will have you taking detours to try something that sounds too good to pass up. - ADD TO CART
Homage to Catalonia George Orwell ( Harvest Books, $14.00) Written during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Orwell manages to capture the real-world feelings of a war on the ground- dirty, hungry, and sleep-deprived. In his early career as a journalist, Orwell was adept at detailed descriptions that can move you with the horrors of war and astonish you with the inanities of political processes, ammunition failures, and the gritty realities of trench warfare. While our modern warfare sounds so different with guided missiles and smart bombs, the experiences of soldiers on the front lines must be similar which makes this book extremely relevant even today. - ADD TO CART	The Oxford Companion to Italian Food Gillian Riley ( Oxford University Press, $35.00) Much like the Larousse Gastronomique for food from France, The Oxford Companion is an encyclopedia on Italian food. Organized alphabetically, it includes all things food related in Italy: ingredients, food writers and regions of the country. While “peanut” gets barely a 40 word description, 1000s of words define “Parmesan” cheese. Naturally, broccoli, offal, pig’s fat and the Veneto are covered. You don’t necessarily want to carry around a book this large. But, on a cold winter’s night, sit by an open stove, flip the pages of this book and sigh. - ADD TO CART
Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris Graham Robb ( W.W. Norton, hardback, $28.95) Paris is a character, sometimes central but often incidental, in Peter Robb's Parisians. Paris is the setting for the historical figures whom Robb sometimes recovers from obscurity: Hitler so admired Parisâ€™ architecture as a template for future German city planning, that he personally gave Albert Speer and his entourage a tour of the city after its capture; Henry Murger lived an impoverished life there before finding fame and fortune by writing a hit play, La Vie de BohÃ¨me. Robb's meticulous research, bringing to print mostly forgotten stories makes for fascinating story-telling. - ADD TO CART	Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance Ian Buruma ( Penguin Books, paperback, $15.00) Mohammed Bouyeri shot, stabbed and slit the throat of writer and filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh on a street in Amsterdam one day. Bouyeri believed that Van Gogh, a provocateur with a strong distain for religiosity of any kind, had insulted Islam and its prophet. Author Ian Buruma explores this distinctive Dutch immigrant Islamic fundamentalism in a country known for its open-mindedness and defense of Enlightenment values. Buruma makes clear that the situation in Holland and in Europe is more complex than secularism vs. fundamentalism. Dutch emancipation from strict Calvinism occurred only in the 1960s, just as immigration to Holland from Turkey and Morocco was taking off. Buruma finds a second generation of Moroccan-Dutch squeezed between tradition and secularism, and a movement of intellectuals like Theo Van Gogh, and Pim Fortuyn before him, who break with Dutch notions of acceptance of cultural diversity. The many voices and points of view that Buruma engages have resonance throughout Europe and the US. The politics of immigration and assimilation are international issues that also have particularly local characteristics. - ADD TO CART
The Ice Museum Joanna Kavenna ( Penguin Books, $15.00) Thule (pronounced TOOLAY) is a wild mythical place supposedly discovered by the Greek explorer Pytheas, which lies just beyond civilization somewhere in the wilds north of Scotland. The Ice Museum is an investigation into the national identity, myth and landscape of Northern Europe that has grown from the idea and myth of Thule. Kavenna eloquently describes the vast, empty Northern wildernesses, which few humans call home, introducing various explorers, historians and scientists gripped by the mysteries of this mythic North. Throughout her travels she attempts to piece together the exact location of the place, but ultimately The Ice Museum becomes more enthralling for its historical weaving of people’s obsession with the idea of Thule. - ADD TO CART	The City of Falling Angels John Berendt ( Penguin Press, paperback, $15.00) In The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt weaves the story of the burning of the Fenice Opera House in Venice while ferreting out the political and social rivalries of the powerful elites in that insular city. Berendt himself becomes a character in the drama. Over a period of seven years, Berendt follows the threads of small tales that, taken together, form the complex fabric that makes up a city. The sites Berendt visits are the palazzo and artists’ studios of the characters in these tales. He tells the story of Ezra Pound’s lover, Olga Rudge, stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, deeding Pound’s cottage in Venice and all his papers to a “foundation” for $7000.00. Through interviews with Pound and Rudge’s daughter, Mary, he understands the troubled relationship between Olga and Mary and Olga’s dependence on a “good Samaritan” who has her eyes on the prize. It is so Henry James. Berendt has written a page turner, full of gossip, jealousies and back-stabbing. It is an operatic story with the destroyed Opera House’s demise and rebirth as the central tale. - ADD TO CART
Proust's Overcoat Lorenza Foschini ( Ecco Press, hardback, $19.99) When Marcel Proust died, all his possessions, including the final three unpublished volumes of In Search of Lost Time, went to his brother, Dr. Robert Proust. Family resentment and retribution led many of those possessions to the ash heap or to a local junkman. It was only through luck and the determination of a rare book collector and Proust devotee, Jacques Guerin, that much of Proust's estate was saved. Lorenza Foschini's investigation reads like a good Sebald novel: sexuality, infidelity, and wealth are as integral to the story as one man’s passion for all things Proust. With the simple question –how did Proust’s overcoat end up in a box at the Musée Carnavalet –Foschini tells a fantastic tale. - ADD TO CART	Soviet Posters: The Sergo Grigorian Collection Maria Lafont ( Prestel Verlag, $25.00) In the last decade the Soviet propaganda poster has received much attention from both researchers and collectors. Besides reflecting the ever-evolving ideas of the Soviet Union, these posters also reflect an impressive visual language that is uniquely Soviet. When I have thought of propaganda posters in the past, I admit that I thought mostly of the brainwashing variety. With a few exceptions in this beautiful collection, these posters are anything but. The images span from the post-Revolution ideas after 1917 through the Cold War era, and ends with a handful since the 1980s. For some artists these posters were the only way to make a living in times of instability, and those who did contribute to the propaganda poster pushed themselves in talent and creativity, often yielding visually-stunning results. The most humorous images are probably the political cartoon-like anti-Hitler propaganda of the 1940s, but other ï¿½funï¿½ images include topics like anti-alcoholism campaigns, the need for books and education, cartoon examples of the warmongering capitalist, health and hygiene tips, and common courtesy reminders. There does seem to be a lack of description with individual posters, yet on their own, many of these 200 or so full-page color images are as stunning as they are framable. - ADD TO CART
The Basque History of the World Mark Kurlansky ( Penguin, paperback, $15.00) The Basque History of the World is a well-written, impassioned look at the enigmatic “first people” of Europe. Author Mark Kurlansky has a very informative and engaging style that is particularly helpful in setting a background for the Basques’ striving for a nation-state. It is, however, a rather devoted portrayal of the Basques as protagonists in all of their endeavors. This is certainly a plus if the reader is sympathetic to the Basque perspective. In any case, it is a great read guaranteed to satisfy one’s curiosity about the Basques, their cultural heroes and their many contributions to European history. - ADD TO CART	Banksy: Locations and Tours Martin Bull, paperback ( PM Press, $20.00) This pocket sized guide compiles a selection of graffiti orientated tours around London, focusing on Banksy, but including other renowned international graffiti and stencil artists from FAILE, to Shepard Fairey of OBEY fame. It's an interesting way to uncover the secret undercurrents of a city; true representations of the cliche 'off the beaten path,'perhaps? The distinct characters of the different neighborhoods of London are one of its most enduring charms, and maybe some of the neighborhoods that you will walk through do not come recommended by Lonely Planet, but you'll get much more of a sense of place, and of how people live in the city. One of the more notable aspects of the book is that the work that has been buffed, or covered over is also shown, which gives a sense of the transient nature of graffiti art. Ironically, as Banksy's profile has risen some of his pieces have had perspex coatings placed on them to preserve them. - ADD TO CART
The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found Mary Beard ( Harvard University Press, paperback, $17.95) Mary Beard leaves no pumice unturned and no ash unsifted as she explores what the ruins of Pompeii can teach us about everyday life in the Roman Empire. Beard, one of the foremost living classical scholars, is also a gifted storyteller, with a fine sense of humor and a wonderful instinct for the telling detail. The pleasure of this book lies not only in what she tells us about politics, religion, work and, yes, sex in the first century, but in the way she extrapolates from the evidence; for example, deducing the dietary and hygienic regimens of the inhabitants from the fossilized remains of tapeworms. She also entertainingly demolishes misguided assumption that has become "common knowledge." The book works on three levels: as a guidebook that profoundly enriches the experience of the site; as a casebook in archaeological method; and as a triumph of the historical imagination. It is the best single book that has ever been written on Pompeii. - ADD TO CART	The American Girl Monika Fagerholm ( Other Press, paperback, $15.95) This book was initially marketed as another The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.The comparison doesnâ€™t ring true, despite having a Scandinavian author and murder-mystery undercurrents. It fits somewhere between Jeffrey Eugenides' Virgin Suicides and Tarjei Vesaasâ€™ The Ice Palace. It is written in a dreamy fractured voice, which gives the setting an evocative atmosphere, perfectly capturing the early â€˜70s drift away from the ideals of the 1960s. Eddie is the American girl who disappears and winds up drowned in a small resort town outside of Helsinki. She leaves behind a pile of books, a guitar and a record-your-own 7â€ made in Coney Island of her singing a Melanie song. It becomes a totem for two pre-adolescent girls, Doris and Sandra, whose close bond is the focus of most of the book. They play ritualistic games based on the missing American Girl, singing her song, and draping themselves in the abandoned silks from Sandraâ€™s jet-setter mother. Fagerholm builds up different threads of the narrative, creating an all encompassing and consuming read. The impressionist non linear writing can get confusing, and some of the translation is a little clunky (â€œLook What Theyâ€™ve Done To My Songâ€ becomes â€œLook Ma They Destroyed My Song,â€ for example) but The American Girl is at once satisfying and open ended, creating as many mysteries as it solves. - ADD TO CART
The Solitude of Primary Numbers Paolo Giordano ( Viking Press, hardback, $25.95) The extremely awkward, profoundly self-conscious characters in Paolo Giordano’s debut novel are physically and psychically scarred by the traumatic incidents that open the book. But you are never quite sure whether claustrophobic family life might better explain the loneliness at the heart of the story. Mattia, a mathematical genius, retreats into calculus and geometric equations when in interpersonal settings. His classmate Alice is anorexic, unhappy and physically disabled. These damaged souls at the heart of the novel, find their only intimacy in their fragile friendship. More melancholic than dark, Giordano’s characters are the twinned prime numbers he describes: extremely isolated and very rare. An oddly hopeful novel. - ADD TO CART	A Time of Gifts Patrick Leigh Fermour ( New York Review Books, $16.95) After being unceremoniously removed from a renowned and ancient English boarding school for unseemly behavior, Patrick Leigh Fermour decides to temporarily escape his inevitable future at a military academy by walking alone from Holland to Constantinople. Set between the two World Wars, this is an enchanting look at a long extinct Europe. This was a time when well educated teenage boys could quote epic poems in the original Latin and refer to the actions of 13th century Kings as well as see the tracings of 15th century landscape painters in the hills, fortress and skies of 1930’s Europe. He writes eloquently about European identity, about the violent ebb and flow of borders and the sweep of different conquering populations across the centuries. Which is especially pertinent when you consider that his 1934 journey mirrors the rise of the Nazis, with glimpses of jackbooted Hitler youth in military formation and foul breathed SS troops in beerhalls already casting a grim view onto the near future. In her introduction Jan Morris refers to Leigh Fermour as the finest living travel writer and I wouldn’t hesitate to agree. - ADD TO CART
My Dam Life: Three Years in Holland Sean Condon ( Lonely Planet, paperback, $13.99) Amsterdam is not New York; but then again, it's not Melbourne. When a job transfer leads Sean and Sally into the land of everything Dutch, they put aside their dream of living in the Big Apple and leave behind their lives Down Under. However, soon after their arrival, the magazine Sally works for folds. And so Condon begins his humorous account of his and his wife's scramble to stay in the city as legal residents. This involves moving several times, avoiding the housing authority, entering the US Green Card lottery, several fleeting jobs for both Sean and Sally, a meeting with Francis Ford Coppola and rambling commentary on everything Dutch: the color orange, clogs, the double vowelled language, dikes, beer and bicycles. Included at no extra cost is Condon's very serious analysis of the merits of movies starring orangutans, with focused commentary on Every Which Way But Loose and Dunston Checks In. - ADD TO CART	Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds Stephen Kinzer ( Farrar, Straus and Giroux, paperback, $15.00) Stephen Kinzer, a well-seasoned foreign correspondent, produced an excellent introduction to modern Turkey in Crescent & Star. Though touching on some unique Turkish cultural phenomena, this book focuses on his view of how Turkey can achieve true democracy. Besides reducing the military's power, this includes publicly acknowledging past tragedies (e.g., the Armenian genocide and recent atrocities against the Kurds,) getting over its somewhat paranoid isolationism (sound familiar?) and incorporating more Muslims in governing institutions. Turkey divides Europe from the Middle East geographically, socially and politically; its success or failure with democracy will undoubtedly affect the future relations between these regions. - ADD TO CART
The Clumsiest People in Europe, or: Mrs. Mortimer’s Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World Todd Pruzan and Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer ( Bloomsbury Publishing, $9.95) Little remembered Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer was in the mid-19th century a best-selling English children’s storybook writer. She also published a geography trilogy, that today is unintentionally, yet wickedly funny. Mrs. Mortimer wrote during the era of British imperial expansion, which is apparent by her unspoken certitude of the moral rectitude of the English. Despite her pronouncements on everyone and everywhere, the fact is Mrs. Mortimer, the authority, didn’t visit many of the countries she profiled. As the mileage between England and other countries grows, so does Mrs. Mortimer’s disdain for a place. By the time she arrives in Portugal, we learn that the Portuguese “are proud like the Spaniards, but they are more deceitful.” And that, “No people are as clumsy and awkward with their hands as the Portuguese.” If she finds a country ugly, she may find the people clean, like in Holland. If she finds the country beautiful, she will remark that the children are unkempt, dirty, little creatures, as in Switzerland. Despite the fact that her observations grow ever meaner the farther from home she goes, she manages to denounce slavery and white racism in her tour of the Caribbean and the United States. Mrs. Mortimer’s legacy until now has been her invention of flashcards. This book gives a glimpse onto a woman and her time. - ADD TO CART

Baba Yaga Laid an Egg
Dubravka Ugresic
( Canongate, hardback, $23.00)

She lives in a hut on a mound of dried chicken legs with severed hands for doorknobs and severed heads on the gateposts. She sometimes gives birth to frogs and spiders and sometimes devours her own daughter. She is the Slavic mythic figure Baba Yaga, the ultimate repository of societies deeply charged feelings about older women. Does she represent fear of female sexuality? Fear of death? Or just the scapegoating of women throughout history? Croatian author Ugresic spins themes and variations on every aspect of the myth, in a dazzling mixture of memoir, fable, satire, travel writing and folkloric scholarship. Her stories of older women in contemporary Eastern Europe are saturated with mythic overtones; yet she never allows us to forget the way in which women throughout history have had to struggle with and overcome the stigma of the myth.
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The Stranger
Max Frei
( Overlook Press, $29.95)

A novel that opens with a narrator describing his earliest memories of being unable to fall asleep at night is right out of the Overture of Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Max, the narrator of The Stranger, isn't going to reflect on childhood and family relations, however. His sleeping habits are the introduction to his dreamlife in the city of Echo. It is in this fantastic town of mosaic streets and turbaned magician-citizens that the novel takes place. If you are expecting a novel that straddles two realities, this is not your book. And though the narrator is a neurotic insomniac, this is not a character driven novel. The Stranger is equal parts fantasy, mystery and adventure. It's also funny. Some have called The Stranger an adult Harry Potter. This is the first in the Labyrinths of Echo series by Russian writer Max Frei (Svetlana Martynchik) to be translated into English.
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