Here are 47 books that The Lost Library of the King of Portugal fans have personally recommended if you like
The Lost Library of the King of Portugal.
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I am a historian at the University of St Andrews, and an expert in the history of books, media, and communication. My working life has revolved around libraries: I stacked shelves at my local university library while I was an undergraduate, and have since worked as a researcher in some hundred reading rooms in twenty countries (and I am therefore the proud owner of many library cards, expired and current). I am also an avid book collector, and have a growing collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century books, mostly printed in my native Netherlands. Writing a history of libraries was an enjoyable tribute to those fine institutions, historic and present.
Why do our libraries, those at home, at university, or in the public library network, look the way they do? Many people would agree that books are best stored upright on shelves, spine out, but how did we come to that conclusion? This delightful book offers all the answers, and incidentally reveals more than you could ever think of to ask about the manner in which we take care of, store, and display books. It might even give you some inspiration on how to arrange your own collection.
He has been called "the poet laureate of technology" and a writer who is "erudite, witty, thoughtful, and accessible." Now Henry Petroski turns to the subject of books and bookshelves, and wonders whether it was inevitable that books would come to be arranged vertically as they are today on horizontal shelves. As we learn how the ancient scroll became the codex became the volume we are used to, we explore the ways in which the housing of books evolved. Petroski takes us into the pre-Gutenberg world, where books were so scarce they were chained to lecterns for security. He explains…
I became fascinated with history when I moved to Gloucester in the nineties. The city is hugely historical from the early Roman settlers through to the industrial age of the nineteenth century. What is more fascinating is that many of the streets and buildings I write about still exist in the city today. I carried out extensive research when writing my first historical fiction novel to immerse myself in the medieval city as it would have been in 1497. When I came to write my second novel, listed below, the first book in the Hebraica Trilogy, I already had a good idea of the layout of the city.
I loved this book because it’s a medieval detective story set in 1327 in Italy. I learned a lot about the intrigue and corruption of religious life in the medieval period and how closed and isolated communities could lose their way with murderous consequences.
It’s a fascinating insight into the world of a monk’s life in 14th-century Italy, packed full of the atmosphere of religious life inside the abbey. It is a dark and gothic tale of corruption, murder, and power-grabbing at all costs.
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective.
William collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.
I am a historian at the University of St Andrews, and an expert in the history of books, media, and communication. My working life has revolved around libraries: I stacked shelves at my local university library while I was an undergraduate, and have since worked as a researcher in some hundred reading rooms in twenty countries (and I am therefore the proud owner of many library cards, expired and current). I am also an avid book collector, and have a growing collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century books, mostly printed in my native Netherlands. Writing a history of libraries was an enjoyable tribute to those fine institutions, historic and present.
What does true bibliomania look like? Read no further than Stephen Grant’s Collecting Shakespeare, the story of the couple who created the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. Henry Folger was a wealthy oil baron, but with the devoted help of his wife, poured all his money into buying up copies of Shakespeare editions, especially the famous First Folio of 1623 (he ultimately ended up with 82). The couple erected an enormous library building opposite the Library of Congress (flattening several blocks of housing in the process) to become the permanent home to the largest collection of books by and on Shakespeare in the world. Although Henry died before the library opened, this is a rare story of success in a long history of eccentric library curation that generally ends with the dispersal of the collection.
In Collecting Shakespeare, Stephen H. Grant recounts the American success story of Henry and Emily Folger of Brooklyn, a couple who were devoted to each other, in love with Shakespeare, and bitten by the collecting bug. Shortly after marrying in 1885, the Folgers started buying, cataloging, and storing all manner of items about Shakespeare and his era. Emily earned a master's degree in Shakespeare studies. The frugal couple worked passionately as a tight-knit team during the Gilded Age, financing their hobby with the fortune Henry earned as president of Standard Oil Company of New York, where he was a trusted…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
By
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
I vividly recall learning about public libraries as a kid: if I signed up for a library card I could take ANY of these books home to read?! From the first, I loved books as physical objects on library shelves—savoring their covers and carefully reading their spines as clues to the stories within. I ended up as a professor of literature who does not just study the words, or texts, of novels (my specialty), but how stories are made into books and circulate in the culture. Everything from graphic design to price can influence our interpretation of a story, even before we read the first word...
I love this utterly unexpected book for its deadpan humor, animated prose, and strange and wondrous facts about the horror-filled history of libraries and the humans who run these book depositories. That CIA-trained librarians, a mere few decades ago, guillotined newspapers and books in the worship of microfilm is an incredibly painful truth in today’s digital age.
Baker’s outrage is palpable, and yet he made me laugh out loud on almost every nerdy page. I’m jealous of his way of speaking. I put this one on syllabi whenever I can.
The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. But for fifty years our country’s libraries–including the Library of Congress–have been doing just the opposite, destroying hundreds of thousands of historic newspapers and replacing them with microfilm copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age.
With meticulous detective work and Baker’s well-known explanatory power, Double Fold reveals a secret history of microfilm lobbyists, former CIA agents, and warehouses where priceless archives are destroyed with a machine called a guillotine. Baker argues passionately for…
Louise Ross is a non-fiction and fiction writer, speaker, and podcaster. Originally from Australia, she moved abroad in the mid-'80s, living in the UK, France, the US, and since 2014, Portugal. Her book, Women Who Walk: How 20 women from 16 countries came to live in Portugal, (2019), is a collection of mini-memoirs. In 2020, she released the sequel and comparative read, The Winding Road to Portugal: 20 Men from 11 Countries Share Their Stories. Louise lives on the Estoril coastline where she continues to interview women living in Portugal, and around the world, for her podcast, Women Who Walk.
Zimler is an award-winning American writer who has lived in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city, since 1990. I admire Zimler’s historical fiction for its fact-based accuracy, and The Last Kabbalist is a beauty for that reason. His acclaimed novel details the Portuguese inquisition and the massacre of its Jews in 1506. Via his incisive research and great storytelling, Zimler sheds light on this period of history unknown to many Portuguese; as a result, there is now a Jewish Memorial Plaque in Rossio Square in Lisbon’s city center, honouring the two to five thousand Jews who were massacred.
Berekiah Zarco, a young manuscript illustrator, searches for the killer of his uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist discovered murdered in a secret synagogue, in a historical mystery set in sixteenthcentury Lisbon, Portugal. Reprint.
I’ve always been fascinated by history, by the way that the past informs the present, how it makes us who we are. And I’ve found myself drawn, as a reader and as a writer, towards those stories that incorporate some element of magic into the past. I’ve written two magical historical novels. And my third book, which I hope to be finished with soon, is a fabulist tale set in the future, which I like to say is history that hasn’t happened yet.
I first read this book nearly twenty years ago and have been thinking about it ever since. It’s a relatively simple story, about a bored proofreader who literally rewrites the history of his hometown. But in the hands of a master storyteller like Saramago, the topic takes on a raft of existential questions about history, place, and our relationship to the past.
An editor at a Portuguese publishing house, Raimundo Silva, undertakes to rewrite a crucial episode in Portuguese history as a romantic saga, with the amorous encouragement of his supervisor.
An Italian Feast celebrates the cuisines of the Italian provinces from Como to Palermo. A culinary guide and book of ready reference meant to be the most comprehensive book on Italian cuisine, and it includes over 800 recipes from the 109 provinces of Italy's 20 regions.
Alyson Sheldrake is the author of the award-winning Algarve Blog, and she is also a feature writer for the Tomorrow Magazine in the Algarve. She is an accomplished and sought-after artist working alongside her husband Dave, a professional photographer. She has published three books about their Algarve Adventures: Living the Dream – in the Algarve, Portugal, Living the Quieter Algarve Dream, and her latest book is a new anthology of expat stories entitled A New Life in the Algarve, Portugal. When she is not painting or writing, you can find her walking their rescued Spanish Water Dog called Kat along the riverbank in Aljezur.
This is a real treat of a book, with sumptuous photography and detailed descriptions. A book to treasure and rest on your coffee table with pride. Portugal is such a beautiful and picturesque place to photograph – I know, I am married to a professional photographer! This book is a treasure-trove of images and information that will make you want to visit – or even pack your bags and move here to live – which is exactly what we did ten years ago. It was the best move we ever made.
Anne de Stoop shares her infectious delight for Portugal via a tour of the diverse country: the Minho and Douro regions in northern Portugal, renowned for their fertile landscapes and port wines; the busy markets of Oporto; elegant country estates and lavish gardens, whose sophisticated designs reflect a rich architectural heritage; the urban pleasures and baroque opulence of Lisbon; the sparkling white villages of the sun-drenched Alentejo; and the unspoiled beaches of the Algarve.
Alyson Sheldrake is the author of the award-winning Algarve Blog, and she is also a feature writer for the Tomorrow Magazine in the Algarve. She is an accomplished and sought-after artist working alongside her husband Dave, a professional photographer. She has published three books about their Algarve Adventures: Living the Dream – in the Algarve, Portugal, Living the Quieter Algarve Dream, and her latest book is a new anthology of expat stories entitled A New Life in the Algarve, Portugal. When she is not painting or writing, you can find her walking their rescued Spanish Water Dog called Kat along the riverbank in Aljezur.
I am often asked for recommendations on where to go and what to see for visitors to Portugal, and I always recommend Rick Steve’s book. He doesn’t just cover the major attractions, he takes you into the small towns and villages, the remote beaches, and the local restaurants and cafés that will introduce you to the ‘real’ Portugal. Top tips, must-see destinations and clever itineraries will help you to pick out the best spots and the most memorable locations of this beautiful place I am proud to call home.
Stroll Lisbon's cobbled lanes, cruise the Douro River, and soak up the sun on Algarve beaches: experience Portugal with Rick Steves! Inside Rick Steves Portugal you'll find:
* Comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring Portugal * Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites * Top sights and hidden gems, from the bone chapel of Evora and the palaces of Sintra to seaside street food and lush vineyards * How to connect with culture: Chat with friendly locals over a glass of vinho verde,…
Louise Ross is a non-fiction and fiction writer, speaker, and podcaster. Originally from Australia, she moved abroad in the mid-'80s, living in the UK, France, the US, and since 2014, Portugal. Her book, Women Who Walk: How 20 women from 16 countries came to live in Portugal, (2019), is a collection of mini-memoirs. In 2020, she released the sequel and comparative read, The Winding Road to Portugal: 20 Men from 11 Countries Share Their Stories. Louise lives on the Estoril coastline where she continues to interview women living in Portugal, and around the world, for her podcast, Women Who Walk.
Part spy novel, part historical fiction, this book tells the tale of a young Jewish boy who’s been deposited by his parents at the Hotel Palacio in Estoril for safekeeping during WWII, when the hotel was home to exiled European nobles and royalty, British and German spies. We meet the Polish pianist, Yan Paderewski; Ian Fleming, the British spy novelist and creator of James Bond; French writer and flyer Antoine de St. Exupery; the ex-king of Romania, Carol II, and his mistress Elena Lupescu, the woman for whom he renounced the crown. We’re privy to the goings-on at the Hotel via the lives of this cast of colourful characters in a way that’s reminiscent of the quirky movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Set in a luxurious grand hotel just outside Lisbon, at the height of the Second World War, Estoril is a delightful and poignant novel about exile, divided loyalties, fear and survival. The hotel's guests include spies, fallen kings, refugees from the Balkans, Nazis, American diplomats and stateless Jews. The Portuguese secret police broodingly observe the visitors, terrified that their country's neutrality will be compromised.
The novel seamlessly fuses the stories of its invented characters with appearances by historical figures like the ex-King Carol of Romania, the great Polish pianist Jan Paderewski, the British agent Ian Fleming, the Russian chess grandmaster…
I don’t especially like Nietzsche, and rarely agree with him. As a professor of philosophy, I find that he is less original than is popularly assumed and less clear than he should be—not out of some mysterious profundity—so much as a recalcitrance or maybe inability to make plain what he thinks. Even so, I find it quite impossible to break away from Nietzsche. For my part, and I suspect for many readers who came upon him during their formative years, Nietzsche’s thought is so close to me that I’m always wrestling with it. Maybe that’s not a ‘result of’ but a ‘condition for’ reading it?
Reading Nietzsche without understanding the contexts he was working in and against is a bit like trying to interpret a text thread among friends from only one of their vantages. Without the context of ‘who,’ ‘what,’ and ‘when’ Nietzsche was reading and responding to, interpreters cannot grasp why he used the particular terms, phrasings, or rhetorical devices he did. Campioni, D’Iorio, Fornari, Fronterotta, and Orsucci—each remarkable scholars in their own right—deserve our gratitude for having cataloged Nietzsche’s (mostly) still-preserved personal library as it stands in the Weimar archives. Even better, they chronicled the margin notes, dog-eared pages, and various frustrated cross-outs or excited approbations that Nietzsche scribbled into those books. Nietzsches persönliche Bibliothekhas sat next to my keyboard for years, and still offers surprises when I wonder ‘did Nietzsche read Dostoyevsky in German or French translation’ or ‘which biology anthologies influenced his understanding of Darwinism?’
Der Band verzeichnet erstmals samtliche Werke und Noten aus Nietzsches persoenlicher Bibliothek (BN) bis Anfang Januar 1889. Er listet sowohl die Bestande der Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek als auch die des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs in Weimar auf. Die kritische Analyse anderer Bestandslisten ermittelte zudem zahlreiche heute nicht mehr vorhandene Titel. Ferner wurden samtliche Bucherrechnungen und -quittungen von Buchhandlern und Buchbindern ausgewertet, die im Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv aufbewahrt werden.
Neben den ca. 2.200 Titeln aus Nietzsches rekonstruierter Bibliothek enthalt der Band auch ein Verzeichnis samtlicher 'Lesespuren' Nietzsches (ca. 20.000), z.B. Anmerkungen, Unterstreichungen und Eselsohren. Erganzt durch zahlreiche Faksimile-Reproduktionen sowie durch philosophische,…
