Discover GEEO’s recommended books to read before you travel to Central Europe. Our book club is a way for travelers to learn through literature about the places they will be visiting.

These are some of our favorites about Central Europe, so if you’re heading there, take a look (the GEEO book club is not a required element of our programs, just a bit of added fun)! We hope you will enjoy the books we have selected and they will enhance your experience.

You should be able to find most of our selections through the links below and in your local library system as well. Do you have any feedback on our selections or suggestions for additions? Contact us and let us know!

Recommended books to read before traveling to Central Europe:

Fiction:

• The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The War With The Newts by Karel Capek (Bookshop.org)

Nonfiction:

• The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

For those looking for more suggestions, here are some other books you may want to consider:

Germany:

• In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story, with Recipes by Luisa Weiss (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Invention of Curried Sausage by Timm Uwe (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse by Hermann Hesse (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Mephisto by Klaus Mann (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-1945 by Max Hastings (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

Poland:

• The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War by Halik Kochanski (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Street of Crocodiles & Other Stories by Bruno Schulz (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True by Brigid Pasulka (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow by Krystyna Chiger (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Violin of Auschwitz by Maria Angels Anglada (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

Czech Republic:

• The Trial by Franz Kafka (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Cowards by Josef Skvorecky (Amazon)
• The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Skvorecky (Amazon)
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

Austria:

• The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Thunder at Twilight by Frederic Morton (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889 by Frederic Morton (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Little Book by Selden Edwards (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna by David King (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

Hungary:

• Night by Elie Wiesel (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• Celestial Harmonies by Peter Esterhazy (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• A Guest in My Own Country: A Hungarian Life by George Konrad (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

For those looking for general books on Europe’s history:

• Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (Bookshop.org | Amazon)
• The Hidden Europe: What Europeans Can Teach Us by Francis Tapon (Amazon)
• Extreme Politics: Nationalism, Violence, and the End of Eastern Europe by Charles King (Bookshop.org | Amazon)

Recommended films and videos to watch before traveling to Central Europe:

GEEO travelers can register with SIMA Academy for free using a unique access code that we provide after our programs end. Feel free to contact us if you would like to receive the access code early. For this program, we recommend watching Home/Aamir, The Promise of Gene Therapy, and Girl-hearted. SIMA Academy utilizes the storytelling power of award-winning global short documentaries to nurture globally competent and socially active learners worldwide.

GEEO utilizes both Bookshop.org and Amazon Associates links for the above-suggested books. If you purchase a book through one of the links above, you’re supporting us as a nonprofit and helping more teachers travel through GEEO!