Slovakia Books

Maria Bauer paints a picture of a bygone time in beautiful word pictures. Her life story is as dramatic and colorful as any I have ever read. Brava!

A window on the 20th century (told largely in flashback) but beautiful, beautiful, beautiful; artfulness concealing art. If you like Proust, or if he sounds too forbidding, or if you've never even heard of him, this book is for YOU; you'll wolf it down. If it's really still in print, BUY IT NOW; you'll want to pass it on to your friends... PS I had never heard of Maria Bauer until I stumbled across this book!

This small guide, easy to pop in a pocket, provided us with just about all the information we needed for planning a short stay in this city. Terrific!

This guide book is absolutely wonderful!
It is the first guide I found which really does justice to this fabulous city and doesn't push a few lines into the back of a guide book about the Czech Republic.
It has fascinating details on the complicated history and culture and what looks like an insider's guide to the hip restaurants, cafes and bars.
The eating and drinking section is a pleasure to read on its own, as it is really witty and well-written and I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to know the city better.
Many people say that there is not much to do in Bratislava, but obviously they could not have had this guide.
It is impossible to be bored in Bratislava with this guide, there are dozens of suggestions of day trips, where to stay, eat and drink and some excellent walking tours of the city.
After reading this guide from cover to cover, I can't wait to visit Bratislava and try out the revolving TV tower restaurant on Kamzik hill or the UFO cafe in a flying saucer spacecraft. They sound like such fun destinations!
The pocket-sized Bradt guide is also great as it really does fit in your pocket or hand-bag and is easy to carry everywhere I go.

This short book is an excellent introduction to the new Czech Republic. It begins with a quick look at the geography and climate of the country, and them moves into its history. After that, it does a wonderful job of explaining the Czech Republic, including (but not limited to) its religion, politics, economy, and even the problems facing it. All this is done in a mere 67 pages, but it nonetheless gives the reader a comprehensive understanding of the country.

I enjoyed the layout of this book; it includes many black-and-white pictures, many interesting sidebars, and even a chronology at the back. If you are interested in the Czech Republic, and want a short, concise introduction to the country, then I recommend that you read this book.

My wife and I recently participated in a cultural exchange between Britain and the Czech Republic (CZR). Our library yielded an armful of guide books and coffee-table picture books.

But for our purposes, Mr. Otfinoski's book took the prize. Though intended for younger readers, it offers engaging reading for anyone. The subject matter seems well researched, the writing is lucid, and each chapter includes a selection of bibliographic references. There are plenty of illustrations, mainly black and white but well chosen and relevant to the text they support. Most of all, the book gives a clear outline of the CZR's recent history and paints a believable picture of its current politics, business, culture, and everyday life.

Since the publisher's description hasn't been included in the Amazon listing, here is the table of contents:

1. An Introduction to the Land and Its People

2. From a Medieval Kingdom to a Modern Nation

3. Czechoslovakia under Two Brutal Masters (1918-1985)

4. The Velvet Revolution and the Velvet Divorce (1989-present)

5. Government

6. Religion

7. The Economy

8. Culture

9. Daily life

10. The Cities and Towns

11. Present Problems and Future Solutions

Back Matter: Chronology, Further Reading, and Index

A deeply unsettling yet elegiac collection in symphonic form that explores concentric locations and the sense each have within the author, the reader, and the metaphysical space between both. A personal template for the poetic condition and ambitions therein. Ragan's wide travels and world-class accomplishments as a professor of letters are richly, lovingly documented here. Ratner's review is astonishingly obtuse in the matter of what constitutes 'poetry,' a brush-off as inaccurate as it is absurd

The poems in James Ragan's "The Hunger Wall" are reflective, mixing conscious memory with unconscious imagination. No other poet has so profoundly described the widening abyss between the rich and the poor that prompted both the 1992 Los Angeles riots (unfortunately mistaken by some with the 1965 Watts riots) and the split that occurred six months later between Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The various forms of oppression captured by Ragan's astute personal observations are deftly recreated by one who has been there. These poems are dry ice smoking from contact. Ragan chronicles the near-fatal death of the soul and its ultimate emergence.

There's something about photographs that transport you to a time and place, far away from where you are at present. The collection of photographs by Igor Grossmann in his book "Images Gone with Time" is a tribute to a style of living that has all but disappeared: rural village life before it was touched by modernity.

"Images Gone with Time" illustrates a variety of activities such as farmers working the soil and collecting by hand, women doing the washing in a cold creek, and people dressed in folk clothing and participating in community events such as a holiday or funeral. The photographs were taken by Mr. Grossmann from the 1950s to mid 1960s, mostly from villages around Zilina, the area that Mr. Grossmann grew up.

Because of the impending rapid industrialization that took place after WWII, Mr. Grossmann's photographs are all the more poignant; they showcase a way of life that would soon begin to die out. His photographs capture scenes with vivid detail that you could study endlessly. I've been known to do just that, imagining what life was like in a village in Central Europe. I had already known that life would have been much more difficult than the life I live today, but from Mr. Grossmann's pictures, I realized that the concepts of roots, community, tradition, and values were of such significance that they would have been almost tangible. That's something I would have liked to experience fully.

Though we may be saddened that images depicted by Mr. Grossmann are "gone with time", through my own experiences of living in Slovakia for five years, I'm glad to see that the spirit of many elements of rural life, such as the active participation in folk culture, the observance of religion, and strong ties to nature, still can be felt in many places in Slovakia today.

Images Gone With Time: Photographic Reflections Of Slovak Life 1950-1963 is a fascinating and visual historical and anthropological record of a place and way of life now gone. Igor Grossman's starkly beautiful black-and-white photographs capture the essence of Slovak village life in a mountainous region of Central Europe at the moment of encounter between the old ways and the new day of European development, when centuries of tradition were about to give way to the modern age. This is a striking survey, a powerful visual tool documenting what was about to be altered forever by the technologies and ideologies of the second half of the twentieth century. An informative text by Martin Slivka places the images into a sound cultural context and enhanced Images Gone With Time as a significant and invaluable overview of a people and a way-of-life now but a bit of European history, a yesteryear culture that will never come again.

I grew up in the small Ohio town Mrs. Kemeny spoke of and knew her family. I found the book profoundly moving. I have the utmost respect for Mrs. kemeny and all the hardships she and her family endured. It was good to know that she and Judy have found happiness in San Francisco.

My brother and I were the people she dedicated the book to. I know she wrote it especially to reach out to the younger generation, to teach us the truth about an era during which most of the survivors are no longer alive to tell their tale. I've read this book many times and, though my opinion may be biased, I am incredibly proud of her for re-living these horific moments in her life for the benifit of us all.

Then take a look at Mike Kukral's account of the 1989 events in Prague. This is the ONLY, day-to-day, non-media, non-government writing of an America who was present from start to finish. Chapter 3, which covers about 70 well-written pages, is a diary of the historic events leading up to, during, and after the "Velvet Revolution". Kukral's voice is deep and full of detail, yet can be easily understood by most anyone. As the events proceed, the excitement leaps off the pages and makes you feel as though you were standing alongside the author in Wenceslas Square on a chilly November evening. The social aspect of an Ohio University education played a crucial role in the accessability of this work - how often does the Smiths album "Strangeways" get mentioned alongside Havel and humanistic political geography? This is a very worthwhile read for anyone traveling to Prague or peace-loving revolutionaries who haven't yet broadened past Ghandi and MLK.

This book is a stunning account of Kukral's day to day adventures as an American caught in the middle of the Velvet Revolution in Prague. His writing is brilliant as he captures the mood and atmosphere of the time and city. Kukral's view from the streets in Chapter 3 is a wonderfully written personal journal in which his observations on Czech culture, Prague history and architecture, and the last days of communism shine brilliantly from the pages. Other chapters deal with Prague history and culture in a somewhat unique 'humanistic' method. If you want to experience the city of Prague during a revolution read this book. The Prague Post gave this book a very high rating in its review and I recommend it above the works of T.G. Ash and other writers on the Velvet Revolution.

John Banville, in many of his novels, conjures up the alchemical and scientific wonders of early modern Europe: Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Dr Faustus. His prose always has daunted me from taking on his dense, serious fiction, but perhaps, after this wonderfully self-deprecating, nimbly observed, and precisely rendered collection of thoughts inspired by events and people in Prague, I will try his novels! As Banville prefaces this small but pleasingly compacted assemblage of ruminations, it is not a guidebook but (my words) a momento urbi, a reminder of this city.

He avoids post-Wall sightseeing (contrast Myla Goldberg's Time's Magpie), limits his Kafka citations wisely (compare nearly any other journalist!), and steers clear from tiresome dynastic recitals (unlike Peter Demetz' City of Black & Gold). Out of his travels there, starting in 1975, he instead opts to build slightly interrelated essays. The first, "Sudek's City," tells of the Professor and Marta, who show him and his companions prints by Josef Sudek, a photographer (two of which I presume grace this book's covers), who reveals tangibly yet tangentially the post-war era. Banville links the dislocation of the jet-lagged traveller in the hotel room with the wider struggle by a people to overcome alienation in their home city, yet such connections are left subtle, for us to tie together. The description in a page or so of the Professor, who himself threatens to become effaced after so many decades of having to blend in to such surroundings, is one of the most powerful depictions in print I have ever read of summing up another human in a few well-chosen words.

"Threshold," from which the name for Prague was derived, merges the background on the city with its monuments, even as Banville insists that they do not make Prague what it is, this essence too elusive. Fittingly, such fluidity blends into an account of Rudolf and the intellectual climate that lured some of Europe's most creative minds in the later 16th c. to study magic, astronomy, the occult, and the rational, or mixes thereof.

"The Prague Orgy", while never mentioning Philip Roth, starts with Banville's teenaged longing for a minor Czech actress, Eva Bartok, and his longing for such dark beauties, often with (sans makeup!) pale plum-hued shadows under their eyes. He segues into his friend Phil who boasts of "The Company," the Havel era, the "putative parents" of his hostess at a doomed dinner party, to conclude, paraphrasing another Philip (Larkin) that "nothing, like something, can happen anywhere. Banville again evokes psychological dislocation marvellously, keeping control of his shifting scenes while hiding from we his readers his manipulative strings. He's too good a writer to let his craft show so nakedly.

From one who wrote a novel called "Kepler," the chapter "Great Dane, Little Dog" relates the long story of Tycho Brahe, his unfortunate death for the sake of royal etiquette, and his somewhat unwilling apprentice Johannes Kepler. Prague itself fades a bit even more than in the rest of the book, but Banville keeps the tale engaging. I found this segment of the volume readable, but since I do not share Banville's obvious love of this period, its comparative detachment from the city itself made it too tangential. On a related note, he incorporates references to a far more obsessive text, Angelo Maria Ripellino's "Magic Prague," nicely into his volume, so you feel you get the gist of that admittedly appealing but immensely detailed study without all of its laborious asides. Their common concentration on the hermetic, the mathematical, and the malcontent does show why Prague thrived as an asylum and a laboratory for so many ambitious quacks, mad scientists, and rogues.

"Snapshots" takes Banville out of Prague to Bratislava, but not for the sights. He conveys here being out of place as a modern intellectual at a conference where his ignorance (so he assumes, though we readers might disagree) his unmasked before the restless native audience. The tale of an old communist, Goldstucker, and the saga of the Golem and the Jewish ghetto is recounted to sum up the condition of the latter-day dreamers and thinkers in a more recent regime that reigned over the Castle.

Finally, in two brief codas, "The Deluge" tells of the 2002 summer floods, with a marvelously apt quote from Eliot's "Four Quartets," and "After-Images" leaves us with Banville's fading scenes from his Prague travels. A short bibliography adds to the value of this short but elegant and never predictable meditation.

Pg. 83 sums up his motif for this volume, except for its covers devoid of visual "pictures" that rather he brings out of his mind's eye into our receptive faculty: "These are the things we remember. It as if we were to focus our cameras on the great sights and the snaps when developed all came out with nothing in them save undistinguished but manically detailed foregrounds." The unreliable and capricious state of memory, then, is Banville's true souvenir that he shares with us from this city.

Lovers of Banville's fiction will appreciate the same feel for language and beautiful writing which is this writer's hallmark. His knowledge of Prague spans more than 20 years of both pre- and post-communist rule, and very nicely gives the flavour of these two very different periods, without reverting to clichés about the Cold War, etc. Filled with wondeful personal anecdotes as well as more general interesting knowledge, the book may to some seem incoherent. However it not only makes you want to visit Prague, but gives much appreciated sections on Czhech art photography (I fell in love with the cover - especially the back), astronomy (perhaps not too surprising, given some of Banville's novels), and the strange behaviour of European royalty. Its wide span is to be applauded rather than seen as a shortcoming - it is after all not *meant* to be a traditional travel guide. I finished this book while on vacation (regrettably not in Prague), moved on to some currently popular crime novelist, and almost immediately threw that book away in disgust when comparing the prose to what Banville (true to form) serves up in this little gem.

As a resident of Prague for many years, this book won me over as a rare find, especially for non-Czech speakers. The writer has obviously invested quite a lot of research, and the text is a pleasure to read: informative and interesting, combining insights of social and political transformations with a keen appreciation for architectural details. The well-selected images cover a wide span of the city, from the much-touted tourist favorites to equally significant sites off the beaten track. I found myself looking with renewed interest upon places I had passed often and typically taken for granted in this city of wonders. Whether you are a long-time resident or first time visitor, this book will be an invaluable guide to revealing one of Europe's most fascinating capitals through an informed historical perspective.

I cannot tell you how happy i was after looking through this book. I have been to Prague and loved it. This book made me fall in love with it all over again. The photoes are excellent and the text is informative with being over the top. I cannot recommend this enough to people that have been here and i cant tell you (if you have never been to Prague) how much you will want to go after reading this book.
Everyone says how great this place is and I can assure you, no matter how much they build it up, it will not dissappoint.

Buy now! I was busy the day this book arrived in the mail but I had to stop and look through the whole book page by page - all 136 of them. Large format book with spectacular pictures of all the well-known and many of the lesser known sites around Prague. Every page is jam-packed with beautiful pictures and concise legends. Not an academic-type book but plenty of text present as well for those who can stop looking at the pictures long enough to read it. Highly recommended and worth many times its price. Only drawback at all is I would have liked to have seen more on Vysehrad and those 4 incredible statues in the park next to Sr. Peter and Paul Church but that is only a personal wish and in no way detracts from this spectacular book.

Simply beautiful in its layout, this book explores the popular and hidden corners of this old city, untouched by the wars that so damaged much of old Europe. The photos are simply perfect in bringing the feel of Prague.

This is a must buy for your coffee table collection and may just inspire you to go stroll its streets in person!

Enjoy!