A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889

By Frederic Morton

A National Book Award Finalist from the bestselling Frederic Morton

"Frederic Morton's A NERVOUS SPLENDOR is my favorite book about Vienna." —John Irving

On January 30, 1889, at the champagne-splashed height of the Viennese Carnival, the handsome and charming Crown Prince Rudolf shot and killed his teenage mistress and then himself in a suicide pact. The two shots that rang out at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods echo still.

Frederic Morton, author of the bestselling THE ROTHSCHILDS, deftly tells the haunting story of the Prince and his city, where, in the span of only ten months, "the Western dream started to go wrong." Other young men with striking intellectual and artistic talents—and all as frustrated as the Prince—moved through his Vienna. Among them were a young Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Theodor Herzl, Gustav Klimt, and the playwright Arthur Schnitzler, whose La Ronde was the great erotic drama of the fin de siecle. 

Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture

By John Lukacs

"Lukacs's book is a lyrical, sometimes dazzling, never merely nostalgic evocation of a glorious period in the city's history. . . . {His} true sympathy lies . . . not with the famous expatriates, but with the writers and intellectuals who lived and died at home: the poets Endre Ady and Mihaly Babits; the novelists Ferenc Herczeg, Sandor Hunyady, Frigyes Karinthy, Dezso Kosztolanyi, Gyula Krudy, Kalman Mikszath, and Zsigmond Moricz; the political essayist DezsoSzabo; the playwright Erno Szep; the literary historian Antal Szerb; and others. . . . {John Lukacs} sets out to explain Hungarian literature to English-speaking readers. Though I have no idea whether or not he will succeed, few interpreters of Hungarian literature have made a more touching and eloquent attempt." -- The New York Review of Books

Budapest: A History of Grandeur and Catastrophe

By Joe Jajdu

Budapest today is a palimpsest of its history and partially crystallized present. Its earlier history is best seen on the Castle Hill of Buda, the seat of Hungarian royal power since the beginning in the 13th Century. This peaked in the glory years of King Matthias' reign in the second half of the 15th Century, when Buda was one of the largest and wealthiest cities of Europe. The Ottoman conquest that followed a generation later was a catastrophe whose effect would last two centuries. However when the new Castle Hill of Buda arose, it became a version of Baroque central Europe, controlled by Imperial Vienna. Pest, on the opposite banks of the Danube, is a symbol of the grandeur of the late 19th Century metropolis. Elaborate, historicist buildings and monuments first inhabited by the members of the rising bourgeoisie that had achieved prosperity in the booming Budapest around the year 1900. This era still largely defines the visual appearance of the central city. Nearly half a century later Fascism, and then forty years of Communism, again produced economic dislocation and social tumult in the lives of the people. This is best shown through descriptions of the fate of individual families in Budapest. Since 1990 the metropolis and its people have gone through a frenzied transition for which there was no template: authoritarian socialist economy to volatile capitalism and democracy. The story of the key players and groups in this transition make this tumultuous process particularly vivid. Today Budapest is a city whose role in Europe is still being crystallized. However, inventive entrepreneurs and creative artists are making the city a more and more vibrant home for its citizens and a favoured destination for a rapidly increasing flow of visitors.

Danube: A Sentimental Journey from the Source to the Black Sea

In this acclaimed international bestseller, Claudio Magris tracks the Danube River, setting his finger on the pulse of Central Europe, the crucible of a culture that draws on influences of East and West, Christianity and Islam. In each town he raises the ghosts that inhabit the houses and monuments, from Ovid and Marcus Aurelius to Kafka and Canetti, in a fascinating blend of anecdote and history

In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires

By Raymond T. McNally and Radu R. Florescu

The true story behind the legend of Dracula - a biography of Prince Vlad of Transylvania, better known as Vlad the Impaler. This revised edition now includes entries from Bram Stoker's recently discovered diaries, the amazing tale of Nicolae Ceausescu's attempt to make Vlad a national hero, and an examination of recent adaptations in fiction, stage and screen.

The Balkans: A Short History

By Mark Mazower

Throughout history, the Balkans have been a crossroads, a zone of endless military, cultural, and economic mixing and clashing between Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In this highly acclaimed short history, Mark Mazower sheds light on what has been called the tinderbox of Europe, whose troubles have ignited wider wars for hundreds of years. Focusing on events from the emergence of the nation-state onward, The Balkans reveals with piercing clarity the historical roots of current conflicts and gives a landmark reassessment of the region’s history, from the world wars and the Cold War to the collapse of communism, the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the continuing search for stability in southeastern Europe.

The Black Sea: A History

By Charles King

The lands surrounding the Black Sea share a colorful past. Though in recent decades they have experienced ethnic conflict, economic collapse, and interstate rivalry, their common heritage and common interests run deep. Now, as a region at the meeting point of the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East, the Black Sea is more important than ever. In this lively and entertaining book, which is based on extensive research in multiple languages, Charles King investigates the myriad connections that have made the Black Sea more of a bridge than a boundary, linking religious communities, linguistic groups, empires, and later, nations and states.

The Danube: A Cultural History

The Danube is the longest river in western and central Europe. Rising amidst the beautiful wooded hills of Germany's Black Forest, it touches or winds its way through ten countries and four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea through a vast delta whose silt-filled channels spread
across eastern Romania.

Art in Vienna 1898-1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and their contemporaries

By Peter Vergo

The artistic stagnation of Vienna at the end of the 19th century was rudely shaken by the artists of the Vienna Secession. Their work shocked a conservative public, but their successive exhibitions, their magazine Ver Sacrum, and their application to the applied arts and architecture soon brought them an enthusiastic following and wealthy patronage. Art in Vienna, 1898–1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and their Contemporaries, now published in its 4th edition, brilliantly traces the course of this development. Klimt, Kokoschka and Schiele were the leading figures in the fine arts; Wagner, Olbrich, Loos and Hoffmann in architecture and the applied arts. In other fields, Mahler, Freud and Schnitzler were influencing the avant‐garde.

The book includes eye‐witness accounts of exhibitions, the opening of the Secession building and other events, and the result is a fascinating documentary study of the members of an artistic movement which is much admired today. Some 150 color images and 75 black and white archival illustrations make this a sumptuous and historically engrossing study of a period when Vienna was the centre of the European art world.

Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague

By Rick Rodgers

Transporting readers to three of the most romantic cities in the world, this beautiful book brings to life their old-world charms and architectural gems, and presents 150 impeccable recipes for recreating their legendary cakes and pastries in the home kitchen.

Vienna, Budapest, and Prague have a special hold on our imaginations, conjuring up a sense of timeless elegance, of historical and cultural riches–and of tables laden with the most extraordinary desserts imaginable. Rick Rodgers explores all these treasures in Kaffeehaus, a cook’s tour enhanced with stunning full-color photographs.

Rodgers visits such culinary landmarks as Café Slavia in Prague and Café Sperl in Vienna, sampling apple strudel, the Emperor’s pancakes, hot chocolate, and other classics and gathering the recipes (and secrets) of master bakers. With an attention to detail developed through years of teaching, he explains how to make the perfect accompaniments to a cup of coffee, as well as spectacular endings to elegant meals.

Filled with food facts and lore (from when coffee first came to Vienna to the great Sachertorte controversy), Kaffeehaus is a treat for armchair travelers and cooks alike.

The Gothic Enterprise: A Guide to Understanding the Medieval Cathedral

The great Gothic cathedrals of Europe are among the most astonishing achievements of Western culture. Evoking feelings of awe and humility, they make us want to understand what inspired the people who had the audacity to build them. This engrossing book surveys an era that has fired the historical imagination for centuries. In it Robert A. Scott explores why medieval people built Gothic cathedrals, how they built them, what conception of the divine lay behind their creation, and how religious and secular leaders used cathedrals for social and political purposes. As a traveler’s companion or a rich source of knowledge for the armchair enthusiast, The Gothic Enterprise helps us understand how ordinary people managed such tremendous feats of physical and creative energy at a time when technology was rudimentary, famine and disease were rampant, the climate was often harsh, and communal life was unstable and incessantly violent.

While most books about Gothic cathedrals focus on a particular building or on the cathedrals of a specific region, The Gothic Enterprise considers the idea of the cathedral as a humanly created space. Scott discusses why an impoverished people would commit so many social and personal resources to building something so physically stupendous and what this says about their ideas of the sacred, especially the vital role they ascribed to the divine as a protector against the dangers of everyday life.

Scott’s narrative offers a wealth of fascinating details concerning daily life during medieval times. The author describes the difficulties master-builders faced in scheduling construction that wouldn’t be completed during their own lifetimes, how they managed without adequate numeric systems or paper on which to make detailed drawings, and how climate, natural disasters, wars, variations in the hours of daylight throughout the year, and the celebration of holy days affected the pace and timing of work. Scott also explains such things as the role of relics, the quarrying and transporting of stone, and the incessant conflict cathedral-building projects caused within their communities. Finally, by drawing comparisons between Gothic cathedrals and other monumental building projects, such as Stonehenge, Scott expands our understanding of the human impulses that shape our landscape.

Mozart: A Life

Mozart’s music has enthralled listeners for centuries. In this brilliant biography, acclaimed historian Paul Johnson draws upon his expert knowledge of the era and Mozart’s own private letters to conjure Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s life and times in rich detail. Johnson charts Mozart’s life from age three through to his later years—when he penned The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. Along the way, Johnson challenges some of the popular myths that cloud Mozart’s image: his allegedly tempestuous personal relationships and supposedly bitter rivalry with Salieri, as well as the notion that he was desperately impoverished when he died. The result—a bold, invigorating portrait of one of the most popular and influential composers of all time—is a welcome addition to Johnson’s extraordinary body of work and makes a perfect gift for classical music lovers and fans of biographies. 

The Habsburgs: Dynasty, Culture and Politics

The death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 not only sparked the beginning of World War I—it also initiated the beginning of the end of the six-hundred-year-old Habsburg dynasty, which fell apart when the war ended, changing Europe forever. But how did the Habsburgs come to play such a decisive role in the fate of the continent? Paula Sutter Fichtner seeks to answer this question in this comprehensive account of the longest-lived European empire.
 
Tracing the origins of the house of Habsburg to the tenth century, Fichtner identifies the principal characters in the story and explores how they were able to hold together such a culturally diverse and multiethnic state for so many centuries. She takes account of the intertwining of culture, politics, and society, revealing the strategies that enabled the dynasty’s extraordinarily long life: its dazzling mix of cultural propaganda, public performances, and cunning political maneuvering. She points out the irony that one of the crowd-pleasing performances that had enabled the Habsburg success—visiting beds of the injured—led to Ferdinand’s death and the empire’s downfall. Breathing fresh life into the history of the Habsburg reign, this accessible and authoritative history charts one of the pivotal foundation stories of modern Europe.

Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph

No ruler in modern times reigned in full sovereignty for as long as Francis Joseph, emperor of Austria and king of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia. Titular master of central Europe from 1848 until 1916, he was center stage in Europe throughout the dramatic era in which Italy and Germany emerged as united nation states. His personal decisions were vital both to the outcome of the Crimean War and to the onset of World War I, sixty years later. Far more than a biography of a great ruler, Twilight of the Habsburgs is a social, cultural, political, and military history of Europe from the end of the Napoleonic era to the assassination at Sarajevo. "Just the right balance between the story of Francis Joseph's life and the history of his times." -- The New York Times Book Review; "Excellent and absorbing . . . A compelling read." -- Evening Standard (London).

Dracula

By Bram Stoker and Joseph Valente

A true masterwork of storytelling, Dracula has transcended generation, language, and culture to become one of the most popular novels ever written. It is a quintessential tale of suspense and horror, boasting one of the most terrifying characters ever born in literature: Count Dracula, a tragic, night-dwelling specter who feeds upon the blood of the living, and whose diabolical passions prey upon the innocent, the helpless, and the beautiful. But Dracula also stands as a bleak allegorical saga of an eternally cursed being whose nocturnal atrocities reflect the dark underside of the supremely moralistic age in which it was originally written -- and the corrupt desires that continue to plague the modern human condition. Pocket Books Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. This edition of Dracula was prepared by Joseph Valente, Professor of English at the University of Illinois and the author of Dracula's Crypt: Bram Stoker, Irishness, and the Question of Blood, who provides insight into the racial connotations of this enduring masterpiece.

Journey by Moonlight

By Antal Szerb

A major classic of 1930s literature, Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight (Utas és Holdvilág) is the fantastically moving and darkly funny story of a bourgeois businessman torn between duty and desire.

'On the train, everything seemed fine. The trouble began in Venice ...'

Mihály has dreamt of Italy all his life. When he finally travels there on his honeymoon with wife Erszi, he soon abandon her in order to find himself, haunted by old friends from his turbulent teenage days: beautiful, kind Tamas, brash and wicked Janos, and the sexless yet unforgettable Eva. Journeying from Venice to Ravenna, Florence and Rome, Mihály loses himself in Venetian back alleys and in the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside, driven by an irresistible desire to resurrect his lost youth among Hungary's Bright Young Things, and knowing that he must soon decide whether to return to the ambiguous promise of a placid adult life, or allow himself to be seduced into a life of scandalous adventure.

Journey by Moonlight (Utas és Holdvilág) is an undoubted masterpiece of Modernist literature, a darkly comic novel cut through by sex and death, which traces the effects of a socially and sexually claustrophobic world on the life of one man.

Translated from the Hungarian by the renowned and award-winning Len Rix, Antal Szerb's Journey by Moonlight (first published as Utas és Holdvilág in Hungary in 1937) is the consummate European novel of the inter-war period.

The Last Hundred Days

By Patrick McGuinness

The socialist state is in crisis, the shops are empty, and old Bucharest vanishes daily under the onslaught of Ceaucescu's demolition gangs. The author creates an absorbing sense of time and place as the city struggles to survive this intense moment of history.Longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa First Novel Award.Longlisted for the 2012 Desmond Elliot Prize.

They Were Counted

By Miklós Bánffy, Patrick Thursfield, Kathy Bánffy-Jelen and Patrick Leigh Fermor

Painting an unrivalled portrait of the vanished world of pre-1914 Hungary, this story is told through the eyes of two young Transylvanian cousins, Count Balint Abady and Count Laszlo Gyeroffy. Shooting parties in great country houses, turbulent scenes in parliament, and the luxury of life in Budapest provide the backdrop for this gripping, prescient novel, forming a chilling indictment of upper-class frivolity and political folly, in which good manners cloak indifference and brutality. Abady becomes aware of the plight of a group of Romanian mountain peasants and champions their cause, while Gyeroffy dissipates his resources at the gaming tables, mirroring the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself. The first book in a trilogy published before World War II, it was rediscovered after the fall of Communism in Hungary and this edition contains a new foreword.

The Perfect Horse: the Daring U.S. Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis

By Elizabeth Letts

Croatia: A History from the Middle Ages to the Present Day

By Marcus Tanner

In this updated edition of his acclaimed history, Marcus Tanner takes us from the first Croat principalities of the Early Middle Ages through to the country’s independence in the modern era
 
“Full of absorbing stories and important insights, Croatia deserves to be read.”—Aleska Djilas, New York Times Book Review
 
“A lucid, expert account of Croatia’s past at the bloody crossroads of big-power ambitions—Turks, Austrians, Italians, Russians—leads smoothly into a riveting close-up view of the 1990s fight for independence.” Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-2011

By Misha Glenny

This unique and lively history of Balkan geopolitics since the early nineteenth century gives readers the essential historical background to more than one hundred years of events in this war-torn area. No other book covers the entire region, or offers such profound insights into the roots of Balkan violence, or explains so vividly the origins of modern Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Now updated to include the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the capture of all indicted war criminals from the Yugoslav wars, and each state's quest for legitimacy in the European Union, The Balkans explores the often catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the Great Powers, raising some disturbing questions about Western intervention.

Cracking Croatian Wine: A Visitor-Friendly Guide

By Charine Tan and Matthew Horkey

This book is meant to be a practical guide for people who enjoy wine either casually or with great curiosity and vigor.

The most common problem encountered by wine lovers when visiting a wine country is how to spend their limited amount of time in the area sifting through the many wines and producers. Add that to the challenges of figuring out where to buy wines, what varieties are grown, and what the bottle labels in a foreign language mean, and the adventure of discovering a new wine country may appear rather daunting.

Cracking Croatian Wine is our way of helping wine lovers save time, money, and effort. This book will provide the pertinent information to help wine tourists get started on exploring Croatian wines and identifying the types of wines they will enjoy.

Mother Tongue: A Saga of Three Generations of Balkan Women

By Tania Romanov

The unrelenting consequences of 100 years of Balkan wars force three generations of Croatian women-Katarina, Zora, Tania-to flee their homelands multiple times. Eventually Tania, a successfully integrated American, journeys back to her fractured homeland with her mother to unravel the secrets of their shared past.

Rivers of Power: How a Natural Force Raised Kingdoms, Destroyed Civilizations, and Shapes Our World

By Laurence C. Smith

Rivers, more than any road, technology, or political leader, have shaped the course of human civilization. They have opened frontiers, founded cities, settled borders, and fed billions. They promote life, forge peace, grant power, and can capriciously destroy everything in their path. Even today, rivers remain a powerful global force -- one that is more critical than ever to our future.

In Rivers of Power, geographer Laurence C. Smith explores the timeless yet vastly underappreciated relationship between rivers and civilization as we know it. Rivers are of course important in many practical ways (water supply, transportation, sanitation). But the full breadth of their profound influence on the way we live is less obvious. Rivers define and transcend international borders, forcing cooperation between nations. Huge volumes of river water are used to produce energy, raw commodities, and food. Wars, politics, and demography are transformed by their devastating floods. The territorial claims of nations, their cultural and economic ties to each other, and the migrations and histories of their peoples trace back to rivers, river valleys, and the topographic divides they carve upon the world.

Beautifully told and expansive in scope, Rivers of Power reveals how and why rivers have so profoundly influenced our civilization, and examines the importance this vast, arterial power holds for our present, past, and future.

Next to Me

Steven Filipovic

Olja, a high school history teacher, is attacked by a group of masked hooligans after her husband’s latest paint exhibition provokes violent reactions from Serbian nationalists. Soon after, Olja learns that some of her students were responsible for the attack. Originally titled Pored mene.

Bolse Vita

Ibolya Fekete

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, three young Russians arrive in Budapest seeking their fortunes in this revealing portrait of life after Communism.

Woman in Gold

Simon Curtis

Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, takes on the Austrian government, determined to recover artwork that she believes belongs to her family and find justice for the destruction inflicted by the Nazis. Filmed in multiple locations including Vienna.

Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story

Lamont Johnson

Based on a true story, this film tells the story of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish banker and diplomat who saved more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust while living in Budapest.

Before Sunrise

Richard Linklater

When an American man and a French woman meet on a train from Budapest to Vienna, they end up sharing one evening, knowing it will probably be their only night together. Filmed in Vienna.

The Shop on Main Street

Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos

This film takes place in Slovakia during World War II. After authorities offer Tono the responsibility of taking over the Jewish widow Lautman’s little shop for sewing material, he accepts, and Tono and Lautman form a bond. But later the authorities decide that the Jews must leave the city. Originally titled Obchod na korze. Filmed in Savinov, Slovakia.

The Garden

Martin Sulik

After Jakub’s life reaches a dead-end, he leaves his job and begins to argue with his father. Finding solitude in the countryside, in his grandfather’s old garden, Jakub falls in love with an angel. Originally titled Záhrada. Filmed in Myjava, Slovakia.

Uncle Marin, the Billionaire

Sergiu Nicolaescu

When Romanian peasant Nea Marin visits a friend who works at a hotel on the Black Sea, he is mistaken for Mr. Juvett, a rich American businessman who is being followed by the American mob. Mr. Juvett, on the other hand, is mistaken for Nea Marin. Hilarity ensues. Originally titled Nea Marin miliardar. Filmed in multiple locations including Bucharest.

Toni Erdmann

Maren Ade

When practical joker Winfried visits his daughter, Ines, in Bucharest, his visit is cut short when he annoys Ines with his less-than-serious lifestyle. But instead of going home, Winfried takes on an alter ego dressed in disguise, Toni Erdmann. In order to get closer to Ines, Toni tells her that he is her CEO’s life coach. This film was a 2017 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. Filmed in Bucharest.

Just Between Us

Rajko Grlić

Set in Zagreb, this movie follows two middle-aged brothers leading parallel lives and navigating a web of relationships with their wives, children and mistresses. Filmed in Zagreb, Croatia.

My Beautiful Country

Michaela Kezele

This film shows how love can grow in a time of hatred. When a young Serbian widow with two sons finds a wounded Albanian soldier on the run and in her home, she takes him in and nurses him back to health. Originally titled Die Brücke am Ibar. Filmed in Croatia and Serbia.

Circles

Srdan Golubovic

Twelve years after five people were affected by a tragically heroic act, they must confront the past and overcome frustrations, guilt and vengeful urges. Originally titled Krugovi. Filmed in multiple locations including Belgrade.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

Cristi Puiu

When 63-year-old Mr. Lazarescu feels ill and calls an ambulance, the paramedic thinks he should take him to one hospital and then another, and another. Mr. Lazarescu’s health begins to deteriorate fast as the night unfolds. Originally titled Moartea domnului Lazarescu. Filmed in Bucharest.

The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner

Stephan Komandarev

When a young Bulgarian man living in Germany is in a car accident and loses his memory, his grandfather organizes a spiritual journey to take him back to his past, to the country from which he came. Originally titled Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakade. Filmed in multiple locations including Karlovo, Bulgaria.

Eva Nová

Marko Skop

Once a famous actress, Eva is now trying to stay sober and desperate to make amends with her estranged son. This film touches on the importance of giving people second chances.

Bucharest Non Stop

Bucharest Non Stop

This film, set in a neighborhood of Bucharest, conveys the stories of everyday people in extraordinary situations. Originally titled Bucuresti Non Stop. Filmed in Bucharest.

The Happiest Girl in the World

Radu Jude

When a young Romanian girl wins a beautiful new car in a contest organized by a soft drink company, she travels to Bucharest with her parents to collect her prize. But Delia and her parents have different ideas about what to do with the new car. Originally titled Cea mai fericita fata din lume. Filmed in Bucharest.