Switzerland Books

Twice my wife and I have used George Drury's book to decide which trains to ride. Where to stay. Where to eat. What order to see the most scenic train rides. George's experienced insight and wit were extremely helpful to us. My favorite is the Bernina Express route. As George points out if you are shooting stills or video ride in a car with windows that roll down. I loved his comment about where the best food and beer are in Tiranno Italy. He says he would have to go back several times to decide. I agree. This is simply The reference book on the subject. I won't go without it. He should know as he has led many tours to this area and still does. This is the guide to train and alpine scenic heaven.

We recently spent two weeks of vacation in a small town in the Swiss Alps. Part of the package was a Swiss Rail pass good for 15 days, so purchasing this guide seemed a logical thing to do. While the guide will be of more interest to the serious railfan, it was very helpful to my wife and I for planning and anticipating what rail travel in Switzerland would be like. The Swiss railways are fantastic; they go virtually everywhere and often. The cars were almost always clean and comfortable. Between this guide and the timetable (an outstanding reference once you figure out how to use it) put out by the Swiss railways, we decided that a car would have been unnecessary. I would recommend this guide to anyone who anticipates traveling by rail in Switzerland.

I recently had the opportuity to travel to Switzerland on business. Before my date of departure, I purchased a copy of The Railfan Guide to Switzerland by George Drury, to get an idea of what type of train trips I could fit into the limited free time I would have. While reading the book, I was pleased that in addition to the wealth of train information it contained, it also included other advice and information that a traveler to Switzerland would need to know. Although this book is definitely intended to be a major reference source for the rail enthusiast such as myself, I think it is also a good guide for the international traveler that wants to travel within Switzerland. Major cities, currencies, dining tips, handy german phrases, tourist railroads and local attractions are all covered in the book. The information it contained, enabled me to get the most out of my limited time in Switzerland.

Gregg Rickman's masterful work is a true "insider's guide" to the Swiss Banks/Nazi Gold issue. Rickman leads the reader through the past, Swiss wartime collaboration with the Nazi regime in profiting from the Holocaust, through the present -- the ongoing pursuit of justice 50 years later.

Far more than an observer, Rickman was a leading actor in this historically unprecedented research and discovery effort. He deftly guides the reader along his journey as the issue developed and exploded on the international scene beginning in 1996. To present the political, historical, ethical and legal aspects of this issue, Rickman incorporates interviews, testimonies, hearing trancripts,and his personal perspective as THE key policy maker involved in stategizing and coordinating the investigation into a supposedly "neutral" government's past.

This book is a MUST READ for anyone interested in World War II, the Holocaust, and the Swiss Banks/Nazi Gold issue. It is also an incredible case study and moral tale of the triumph of good over evil. Rickman shows how he and others tackled the mighty Swiss banking establishment -- and won. Rickman was instrumental in shattering Switzerland's neutrality myth and exposing the hidden secrets of the "Gnomes of Zurich." He has done a valuable public service in writing and sharing this fascinating story. I highly recommend it.

During the past four years I have read probably every book and government report regarding Jewish bank accounts in Swiss banks. Many of the books are quick, journalistic-types; often containing incorrect or misleading information. Most were written by "outsiders," people who have not been directly involved in the identification of Jewish assets in Swiss banks, nor involved in the efforts to bring about restitution of such assets. This book by Gregg Rickman is one of the exceptions. He was directly involved in the identification and restitution efforts. In fact, he put his heart and soul into the efforts to bring justice to victims of the Holocaust and to their heirs. Thus, it is not surprising that the book is written with a real passion. The "bad guys" are identified and taken to task. The "good guys" are also identified and their roles are clarified in the various political, diplomatic, and legal contextes. Rickmann weaves a story containing information about past misdeeds and present injustices and recent efforts to turn history into justice. His book should be mandatory reading for anybody interested in the subject and for anybody interested in how old archival records can be used to right the wrongs of the past.

THIS BOOK IS MUST READING FOR ANYONE WITH AN INTEREST IN THE HOLOCAUST; SWISS BANKS, OR THE ROLE THE SWISS PLAYED DURING WORLD WAR II. THE ENTIRE TRUTH ABOUT THE INVESTIGATION BY SENATOR ALFONSE D'AMATO. VERY WELL WRITTEN. A BOOK YOU CAN'T PUT DOWN UNTIL FINISHED.

I loved this book because it so personalized. Instead of just describing the regular tourist stops of, say, Windsor Castle, Ms. Cranford recounts her personal experiences while traveling, including meals, hotels, shops, taxi drivers and more. She shows the wonders and the warts of her trip. She shares lots of tips to make your own trip easier. Even if you never plan to travel, reading Ms. Cranford's book will make you feel as though you were on the trip she took. I look forward to book two in this series of personal travels.

Ms. Cranford has written a delightful travel book--warm, personal, informative, and fun. The pen and ink illustrations, of which there are many, are beautiful and add to the text descriptions. Anyone who travels or wants to travel or enjoys reading about traveling will enjoy this book. A great gift for the holidays or special occasions.

TRAVELS was a very enjoyable and easily readable story with interesting hand-drawn images and a clever use of historical quotes throughout. To me it was more than just a story of a couples travels through Europe, but rather it was neat to see how a couple traveled together. What I liked the most was that The Cranfords appear to have developed a balance between "winging it" and "sticking to an itinerary"; something that I think is difficult for many people(including me) to achieve. Again, this introduction to Euro-travel is quite nice and makes for an easy read on a quiet rainy day.

I find it hard to believe this book is out of print considering Harrer's coming back into the vogue with "Seven Years in Tibet" on film. So many people are reading "Into Thin Air" and the latest mountain climbing spectaculars. I urge you to go back to the basics and read this book which is the best of them all. "Harrowing" best describes this history of the North Wall of the Eiger.

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to the Eiger's North face. While in Grindelwald, I came across a copy of "The White Spider" and simply had to pick it up. Harrer's sensitivity toward the mountains that were his life and to his peers is unparalled. This sensitivity is intertwined throughout the book in not only his own first ascent of the face, but the subsequent successes and tragedies that occurred there. An incredible, heartfelt and wonderfully written book made even more fantastic when you can witness where it all took place.

I read this book 28 year ago. I have since been to the N. face of the Eiger to look at it and reflect on this book. It is a great book involving the will of man and his determination to overcome obstacles. Over my life time, when I have thought that things were going rough, I have thought of this book and the story of these men. I am now looking for a copy of this book and have an open order with Amazon. I highly recommend this book to all parents of teen age children. It will be well worth reading to all of you. The specific situation is less relevant than the more global significance of the lessons of commitment, loyalty and endurance.

Recommended for a better understanding of the current crisis facing Europe and the United States. I grew interested in the topic because everyday there is news coverage, including much in the New York Times.

I found this to be a very insightful and sensitive look at modern asylum policies in Europe. It is written for a broad audience--from political scientists to students to individuals interested in this very topical and important issue area.

Over the years many books have been written on the culture of fin-de-siecle Vienna, but no one had attempted a similar study of Basel, Switzerland, a city that blossomed as a cultural center during the Renaissance and then slowly faded over the centuries, as peace and prosperity teamed together to eliminate the tensions that make a city into a center of arts and literature. Vienna was done in by the war, Basel by peace.

Lionel Gossman has written an interesting and lively study of the city, choosing to focus on the four major thinkers that mark its last great period in intellectual history: Jacob Burckhardt, Johann Jacob Bachofen, Frans Overbeck, and Friedrich Nietzsche. and how their ideas were ultimately interwoven with the culture and tradition of Basel itself.

Recommended for anyone interested in the history of ideas and the question of not only whether liberty can co-exist with democracy, but can a culture keep alive in a setting that has escaped the tensions of its day, such as revolution, depression and war?

Lionel Gossman seems to be a student of human nature as well as a professional historian, and he is at his best when examining his main characters: the rather delirious Johann Jacob Bachofen (treated here at length); Friedrich Nietzsche (discussed much more briefly but to great effect); and the central figure of Jacob Burckhardt. For more than two decades, Gossman has been wrestling with the confrontation of these men and modernity in the historical theater of 19th-century Basel. This magnificent book is the result. Gossman writes about his characters with a certain wryness that may be born of familiarity, but his enthusiasm for them (particularly Burckhardt) has not been worn down by time or erudition. His style of intellectual history reminded me of that of Joseph Levenson in his trilogy on Confucian China: large-souled yet agile and ready to be delighted.

Burckhardt was a rebel, in his way; thus, in great part, the "Unseasonable Ideas" of the subtitle. As the previous reviewer noted, the issues being dealt with here are very serious ones for us today as they were in Burckhardt's time. There is a rebellious quality to Gossman's own thinking, when he invites us to re-examine some of our received ideas about democracy, culture, education and the well-lived life.

This is an excellent book, but I have to take issue with its subtitle. By 1750 Calvinism was no longer a majority opinion in Geneva, at least, not the orthodox variety that had made Geneva synonomous with Calvinism. The ideas of the enlightenment had so thoroughly affected the Reformed movement that no conclusions can be drawn from Geneva's place as the capital of calvinism and the increase in suicides there.In fact, a very good case could be made for the opposite. Although a scion of the famous Turretin family was Geneva's leading theologian at the time, it was his watering down of his father and grandfather's calvinism that he was best known for. A better subtitle would have been "Suicide after the decline of Calvinism in Geneva".

Choosing Death: Suicide And Calvinism In Early Modern Geneva by Jeffrey R. Watt (Associate Professor in History, University of Mississippi) is a thorough, scholarly, deftly presented case study of the Republic of Geneva and its history of suicide. From views of the suicide in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that regarded self-destruction as the result of demonic possession, and that harshly appropriated the property of those who took their own lives, to the late eighteenth century turn of thought that recognized the role that mental illness and personal trauma often played in suicide. Choosing Death is a fascinating, informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking social history of an admittedly grim subject within the historical context of a proud and sovereign European nation.

As a collector of children's illustrated books, I am in constant search
of books that have their locales in European countries. Other than
Great Britain, Paris and Venice (and Germany, if you include fairy tales), these not easy to find. It is amazing how much easier it is to
find books placed in Africa or Asia and Central America than it is in
much of Europe.

This delightful little book fits the bill to a tee." It has a charming
story written in the form of letters from a grandmother to her granddaughter. She writes about the events in her small mountain village. The architecture is quaint and could be from a much earlier
time but the overhead power lines and the clothes on the line are giveaways that we are in relatively modern times.

Grandmother talks about the pets and the farm animals and the festivals
and the weather - all those things that are not only chatty between
the two of them but informative in explaining a way of life in the
mountains. A truly wonderful book.

If you like this sort of book, I also recommend a Bell for Ursli, another
book translated into English with a Swiss setting.

We first visited Törbel, over Vispertal, in 1/87, while skiing nearby. Complete Walliser Bergdorf, perhaps once the most beautiful in Europe (terribly ugly new church, though), with farmers wearing red bandanas carrying milk jugs through snow-covered dirt streets and feeding the cows that lived in the stables beneath the log houses.

Years later when we saw 'Lieber Alex' (the original German version) in a bookstore in Augsburg we immediately bought it and read it often to our son Hans, then a few years old. He loved it, and so did we. We returned (with two young sons) to Törbel in 7/95, carrying the book under one arm and looking for scenes that might lead us to Bruno's house. Leaving out the details, which are wonderful, let me just say that this beautifully-written book reflects reality. Bruno really exists and is the last fulltime farmer in Törbel. And the author, who is a fantastic artist, lives with him.

Dear Cara is a book about a man and a woman, across the world from one another, both in miles and the lives they lead. Otto Frank, who survived the death camps of the Holocaust but lost his daughter there, shares his hope and inspiration with a young American woman whose life is unfolding. His shares his unfailing human spirit and his love with Cara, a young woman who first wrote to him at the age of 13. Throughout her life, from her teen-age years, to college to marriage to motherhood, Otto Frank is there with her, offering his support and his inspiration. He listens to Cara's dreams, her troubles, her worries and through their correspondence, she feels the joy that a young person feels when someone is listening. A young woman's voice is heard. When, as an older woman, Cara's world is turned upside down, the wisdom and hope that Otto Frank gave her for twenty years, sustains her through her pain and provides her the support she needs to endure and accept, and ultimately, to grow from her own experiences. This book is must-read for young people and for adults who believe, or want to remember, through pain and turmoil, how important and precious hope, and love, is.

"I received your kind letter and thank you for it. It was very nice of you to send me your photo, so that I have a better impression of you as a person..."

So begins Otto Frank's first letter to a young American girl in 1957, a suburban California girl named Cara as much in the mainstream of American society as the pop songs she listens to on the radio. That girl had read Anne's diary, had been deeply moved by it, and had written to Anne's father.

He wrote back.

Cara wrote to him again. Otto wrote back. She wrote again. He wrote again. And so on and so forth...for decades. They grew close. Cara faced all the same questions we face, about school, love, marriage, child-rearing, politics, family. But she had a very, very special mentor.

This book is her story of that relationship. Yes, it's a remarkable pairing. But it's also a remarkable tour through the last half of the 20th century, through the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam, the Watergate days, too many wars in the Middle East; all reflected in a single woman's coming of age. The letters back and forth are always revealing and quite often gripping. They are about private troubles and public issues. And when Cara, as a woman, goes to visit an ailing Otto, by now an old man, it would take a reader with a hard heart indeed not to feel a lump in the throat, at least. Then, when Otto her a collection of something that takes us, the reader, completely over the edge, in the best possible way.

We recommend this book to anyone, of any age. It is just special.

This charming book is presented as a children's book, but is suitable for all ages. The large, beautiful illustrations and reproductions coupled with the whimsical text make this imaginative book a delight to look at and read. Small children will appreciate the bright colors of the artworks, and the parents will appreciate the inventive way the author introduces an artist to children - without pretension or difficulty. Any parent wishing to raise culturally educated children should buy this book today! (PS: I say this with experience, both my 3 year old and my 10 year old love this book, but for very different reasons -- and I even catch my husband flipping through it at times)

If you are in early education this book is great for children to see line and patterns. Paul Klee is know for his childlike artwork and it gives children ideas of what to look for in his paintings. The history of his life is also very interesting and that is on the last 2 pages.