Resource Guides: GEN: Read Around the World: Europe

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Zlata's Diary by Zlata Filipovic; Christina Pribichevich-Zoric (Translator)
Call Number: 949.702 FIL
The diary of Zlata Filipovic begins with the typical concerns of an eleven-year-old girl: piano lessons and birthday parties, new skis and grades at school. Eight months later, as blasts of gunfire destroy her happy world, Zlata witnesses and records instead the horrors of war: the deaths of friends, food shortages, and days spent seeking refuge from bombs and artillery in a neighbor's cellar

The Golem by Uri Shulevitz (Illustrator); Isaac Bashevis Singer
Call Number: 398.2 SIN
"Isaac Bashevis Singer's retelling of the legend of the golem is magical and compassionate, redolent with the warmth and philosophical wisdom for which this Nobel laureate is celebrated." --The New York Times

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Call Number: FIC DUM
Set in the 17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos and Aramis, inseparable friends who live by the motto "all for one, one for all"
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Call Number: YA FIC PER
Anna is less than thrilled when her father decides to send her to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year. But despite not speaking a word of French, Anna meets some cool new people, including the handsome Étieene St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Call Number: FIC DOE
A blind French girl and a German boy find their paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Call Number: YA FIC ZUS
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors
A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Call Number: YA FIC NIE
When the Berlin Wall went up, Gerta, her mother, and her brother Fritz are trapped on the eastern side where they were living, while her father, and her other brother Dominic are in the West--four years later, now twelve, Gerta sees her father on a viewing platform on the western side and realizes he wants her to risk her life trying to tunnel to freedom.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin
Call Number: FIC TOI
Widowed at forty, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world to which she was born. And now she fears she may be drawn back into it.
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
Call Number: 941.6 KEE
Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book -- as finely paced as a novel -- Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Call Number: FIC FER
from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, this rich, intense, and generous-hearted story gives a meticulous portrait of two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship.
The wings of the sphinx: An Inspector Montalbano mystery by Andrea Camilleri
Call Number: FIC CAM
The Wings of the Sphinx is the eleventh book in the wickedly funny Inspector Montalbano series by Italian author, Andrea Camilleri.Things are not going well for Inspector Montalbano. His long-distance relationship with Livia is on the rocks, he feels himself getting even older and he's growing tired of the violence in his job.Then the dead body of a young woman is found in an illegal dump, with half her face missing.
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim; Cathleen Schine (Introduction by)
Call Number: FIC ARN
A recipe for happiness: four women, one medieval Italian castle, plenty of wisteria, and solitude as needed. The women at the center of The Enchanted April are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives.

The Dinner by Herman Koch
Call Number: FIC KOC
It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Call Number: FIC CHE
Chevalier transports readers to a bygone time and place in this richly imagined portrait of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer's most celebrated paintings. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is the story of 16-year-old Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius, even as she herself is immortalized in canvas and oil.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
Call Number: YA FIC SEP
In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers by burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil
Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire
Call Number: YA FIC MAG
An improverished Russian country girl Elena Rudina and the aristocratic Ekatrina meet and set in motion an escapade that includes mistaken identity, a monk locked in a tower, a prince traveling incognito, and the witch Baba Yaga

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Call Number: FIC HEM
A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation
The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
Call Number: FIC SEP
At the Castellana Hilton in 1957 Madrid, eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson connects with Ana Moreno through photography and fate as Daniel discovers the incredibly dark side of the city under Generalissimo Franco's rule.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman
Call Number: FIC BAC
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson
Call Number: FIC ATK
What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.
Murder Is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens
Call Number: YA FIC STE
At an English boarding school in the 1930s, crime-solving friends Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells struggle to find an exciting mystery to investigate and hit pay-dirt when Hazel discovers the dead body of Miss Bell, the science teacher.