Read Around Europe Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Europe.
Best books from Europe (4406)
681.
The Poet and the Idiot and Other Stories by Friedebert Tuglas EN
EstoniaDescription:
Estonian literature in its written form is little more than a century old. As Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, then of the Soviet Union, it is something of a miracle that the powerful presence of the Baltic Germans, the periods of Russification, and other more subtle forms of cultural pressure, have not eradicated Estonian as a serious literary language. One of the central figures to credit for this was Friedebert Tuglas. The nine stories, and the essay, featured here were written during the World War One, or in the first years of Estonian independence in the early 1920s. They reflect t... continue
682.
Die K-Gedichte by Robert Gernhardt DE
Description:
2 Gedichtzyklen, in denen R. Gernhardt zuerst seine Krebserkrankung begleitet und verarbeitet (K wie Krankheit, K wie Krebs), dann den Irak-Krieg auf seine Art kommentiert. / Roland Schwarz
683.
Baltic Belles : The Dedalus Book of Estonian Women's Literature by Elle-Mari Talivee EN
Description:
This anthology presents readers with a broad selection of fiction written between the late 19th century and today. The collection opens with the early realist Elisabeth Aspe, who described both village life and urban fear during the final decades of the 19th century. Early 20th-century works by female writers often discussed the young creative individual's encounters in the transformed urbanised world, some of the most outstanding examples of which are by the great Betti Alver. After World War II, Estonian writing bore the unmistakable signs of Soviet censorship. Nevertheless, Viivi Luik's mom... continue
684.
Walker on Water by Kristiina Ehin EN
Description:
A woman cultivates a knack for walking on water, but is undermined by her husband's brain, which he removes each night when he returns home from work; a couple overcomes the irksome mischief of the gods; a skeptical dragon wonders what sex is all about: this is the world of Kristiina Ehin. From the 2007 British Poetry Society Popescu prize winner for European poetry in translation: a series of comic, surreal adventures. Kristiina Ehin's quirky voice takes each story directly from the dream state, at times stubborn and resistant, at other times masochistically compliant. Ehin offers up modern f... continue
686.
The Conspiracy & Other Stories by Jaan Kross, Eric Dickens EN
Description:
A collection of stories by an Estonian on the daily dilemmas of living in a society ruled by a dictatorship. Thus, trying to stay out of politics is often a disguised form of collaboration and personal survival may require sacrificing a friend. The author spent five years in a Soviet gulag.
687.
Between Two Sounds : Arvo Pärt's Journey to His Musical Language by Joonas Sildre EN
Description:
A graphic novel follows the celebrated Estonian composer through the cultural, political, personal, and spiritual upheavals that led to the distinctive style that has made him the most performed living composer in the world.
688.
The Willow King by Meelis Friedenthal EN
Description:
A deeply engrossing, philosophical novel by a rising Estonian literary star. Wrapped into his long coat against the incessant rain and accompanied by a strange parrot, the young Dutch student Laurentius arrives in Estonia on an icy day at the end of the seventeenth century. On the run from a dark past and suspected of heresy, he has fled to Tartu, 'The City of the Muses', to study at the famous university. Laurentius has been searching obsessively for a cure for the mysterious melancholy which torments him, and is desperate to understand where the soul comes from, and how it relates to the bod... continue
689.
Gogol's Disco by Paavo Matsin EN
Description:
In a parallel or future Estonia, whose language has been outlawed and its native population deported after the invasion by the Russian Tsardom, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol is resurrected, Christ-like, bringing phantasmagoric mayhem to the sleepy town of Viljandi. By the end of the story, four evangelists will have emerged from the novel’s ragtag cast of Russian- speaking beatniks, bohemians, booksellers, blaggers, and Beatles- maniacs to write their subversive Gogol Gospels in the local insane asylum, despite efforts to thwart them on the part of the mysterious Murka, heroine of a criminal under... continue
690.
The Cut Line by Carolina Pihelgas EN
Description:
In the dog days of an Estonian summer, Liine flees to the countryside to put a conclusive end to her toxic 14-year relationship. She undergoes every stage of separation in a lone farmstead amid forests. A lot of physical labor and gardening help her withstand her ex-partner's threats, the incredulity of friends and family, and her own anguish. Dread is pervasive in this novel. Set in the near future, it is filled with vivid depictions of the threat of climate change. All around Liine, nature is facing acute drought and heat. No less menacing is the presence of an expanding NATO base close to t... continue