BootsnAll Travel Community

For me, a large part of planning for a trip is reading about the places I'm going to visit. I like to read about the culture and the history of a place. Right now, I'm planning a trip through Eastern Europe so I'm looking for books to read before hand.

I've all ready read:

Prague Pictures
by John Banville
More information Here

And I've just started:

Time's Magpie: A Walk In Prague
by Myla Goldberg

What are some of your favorite Travel books? Both about EE and in general?

Milan Kundera is one of my favorite authors (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and his novels take place in Czechoslovakia. Not necessarily super informative for travel, but certainly a portrait of Czech culture and history. I always like novels with a vivid portrayal of the time and place, as though the geography was another character.

I just started an autobiography of an African man in Greenland. Seems like it'll be a fascinating read.

Thanks, I'll check him out.

Another travel book I'm obsessing over lately is Carnet De Voyage by Craig Thompson. It's a travel sketchbook/journal documenting his time in Morrocco and France. It's what I wished my travel sketchbooks looked like.

I would read "A Time of Gifts" by Patrick Leigh Fermor. This book is about the author's walk from England (basically) to the Danube. It covers part of the Czech area and this was the most interesting part of the book to me and really made me want to travel there.

If nothing else he is an excellent travel writer and the book will inspire you for your journey.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did a bit of a search for that book and it seems to be mostly out of print.

And thanks to who ever moved this thread into the proper category. I realized after posting it that it wasn't in the most appropriate spot.

I thought they had re-issued it - but if all else fails you can get it at amazon.com - the british version. The book is still in print in the uk and you should be able to get it through them - I also believe amazon (US) has copies (used probably).

Are you close to a library?

There are a few used copies available at Abebooks.com

And one here for $5.95 alibris

alibris rocks in my limited experience.

>And one here for $5.95 alibris

alibris rocks in my limited experience.<

Funny, I ended up ordering it through Alibris just this afternoon. Thanks for the suggestions all, I'm looking forward to reading it.