100 books like Women of Prague

By Wilma Abeles Iggers,

Here are 100 books that Women of Prague fans have personally recommended if you like Women of Prague. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Prague Panoramas: National Memory and Sacred Space in the Twentieth Century

Chad Bryant Author Of Prague: Belonging in the Modern City

From my list on Prague and its hidden histories.

Why am I passionate about this?

Prague has fascinated me my whole life. I first explored the city while an English teacher in the Czech Republic in 1993, shortly after the end of Communist rule there. I’ve been wandering Prague’s streets ever since, always seeing something new and intriguing, always stumbling upon stories about the city and its people. Below are some of my favorite books about a city that continues to surprise me. The author or co-editor of four books, I teach European history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Chad's book list on Prague and its hidden histories

Chad Bryant Why did Chad love this book?

For years, I used to walk past the statues of St. Wenceslaus, František Palacký, and other Czech national heroes without giving them much thought. After reading this book, I came to appreciate how much Prague’s monuments can tell us about the city’s history. Their creators offered a variety of interpretations over the meaning of “Czechness”, and these monuments have inspired passionate debates about nationhood and religion ever since. The book also made me think about ways that monuments can exclude others and inspire hatred, and not just in Prague. Consider, for example, statues celebrating the Confederacy erected by white supremacists decades after the end of the Civil War. Many still dot my part of the country.

By Cynthia Paces,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Prague Panoramas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Prague Panoramas examines the creation of Czech nationalism through monuments, buildings, festivals, and protests in the public spaces of the city during the twentieth century. These \u201csites of memory\u201d were attempts by civic, religious, cultural, and political forces to create a cohesive sense of self for a country and a people torn by war, foreign occupation, and internal strife.

The Czechs struggled to define their national identity throughout the modern era. Prague, the capital of a diverse area comprising Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Poles, Ruthenians, and Romany as well as various religious groups including Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, became central to…


Book cover of A Boy's Journey: From Nazi-Occupied Prague to Freedom in America

Chad Bryant Author Of Prague: Belonging in the Modern City

From my list on Prague and its hidden histories.

Why am I passionate about this?

Prague has fascinated me my whole life. I first explored the city while an English teacher in the Czech Republic in 1993, shortly after the end of Communist rule there. I’ve been wandering Prague’s streets ever since, always seeing something new and intriguing, always stumbling upon stories about the city and its people. Below are some of my favorite books about a city that continues to surprise me. The author or co-editor of four books, I teach European history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Chad's book list on Prague and its hidden histories

Chad Bryant Why did Chad love this book?

I first met Peter here in Chapel Hill, and we became fast friends. A Holocaust survivor from Prague, Peter often spoke to my classes about his experiences. What made his talks so powerful was his ability to remember what it was like to be an eight-year-old boy living in a city under Nazi occupation, and to tell a story that is humbling, moving, and real. Never have I seen a speaker connect better with young people. Peter first became inspired to begin telling his story to students and others after confronting a Holocaust denier, and his many presentations laid the foundation for this book. Part history, part memoir, A Boy’s Journey is also a story about family and the need for tolerance and empathy in our world today. 

By Peter J. Stein,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Boy's Journey as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Peter J. Stein was a witness to history, a keeper of Holocaust memories and teller of its stories. He grew up the child of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father who was forced into slave labor and later disappeared. Nazi-occupied Prague was full of German soldiers everywhere and Peter’s loved ones vanished in mystery and secret. As a 12-year-old immigrant in America, he searched for a new identity that left his past behind.
But as Faulkner tells us, the past is never past. When, as a college professor, a group of students sought his help to challenge a Holocaust…


Book cover of Spartakiads: The Politics of Physical Culture in Communist Czechoslovakia

Chad Bryant Author Of Prague: Belonging in the Modern City

From my list on Prague and its hidden histories.

Why am I passionate about this?

Prague has fascinated me my whole life. I first explored the city while an English teacher in the Czech Republic in 1993, shortly after the end of Communist rule there. I’ve been wandering Prague’s streets ever since, always seeing something new and intriguing, always stumbling upon stories about the city and its people. Below are some of my favorite books about a city that continues to surprise me. The author or co-editor of four books, I teach European history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Chad's book list on Prague and its hidden histories

Chad Bryant Why did Chad love this book?

Under Communism, two hundred thousand spectators gathered every five years to fill the largest concrete stadium in the world, Strahov Stadium, on a hill not far from Prague Castle. Why? To watch tens of thousands of their fellow countrymen perform synchronized gymnastics movements. Why? They were all taking part in a ritual, called the Spartakiad, which tells us much about Communist ideology as it evolved over time. For many participants and spectators, the Spartakiad was also an opportunity to visit their capital city and return with memories that were not part of the Communists’ ideological script. In Roubal’s telling, the Spartakiad also shows that Czechoslovak citizens were not simply cogs in a totalitarian machine. In 1960, for example, performers staying in Prague dormitories forced organizers to remove high-calorie butter cakes with cheese curd. They got beef goulash instead.

By Petr Roubal, Daniel Morgan (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Spartakiads as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Every five years from 1955 to 1985, mass Czechoslovak gymnastic demonstrations and sporting parades called Spartakiads were held to mark the 1945 liberation of Czechoslovakia. Featuring hundreds of thousands of male and female performers of all ages and held in the world's largest stadium-a space built expressly for this purpose-the synchronized and unified movements of the Czech citizenry embodied, quite literally, the idealized Socialist people: a powerful yet pliant force directed by the regime.

In this book, Petr Roubal explores the political, social, and aesthetical dimensions of these mass physical demonstrations, with a particular focus on their roots in the…


Book cover of Of Kids & Parents

Chad Bryant Author Of Prague: Belonging in the Modern City

From my list on Prague and its hidden histories.

Why am I passionate about this?

Prague has fascinated me my whole life. I first explored the city while an English teacher in the Czech Republic in 1993, shortly after the end of Communist rule there. I’ve been wandering Prague’s streets ever since, always seeing something new and intriguing, always stumbling upon stories about the city and its people. Below are some of my favorite books about a city that continues to surprise me. The author or co-editor of four books, I teach European history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Chad's book list on Prague and its hidden histories

Chad Bryant Why did Chad love this book?

I believe that I’ve read this short novel three times now. The story follows a son and his father as they walk through the outskirts of gritty, post-Communist Prague, chatting along the way. They, of course, stop at a few pubs as well. Narrated with wry humor and sympathy, their stroll reveals much about generational differences and efforts to remember troubling episodes from the past. Each man describes experiences that could only happen in this city. This novel inspired me to think long and hard about how walking can create a sense of place and belonging, and how walking is so often central to urban life. Most importantly, this book is a true joy to read. 

By Emil Hakl, Marek Tomin (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Of Kids & Parents as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Europe, taking a walk is a cultural phenomenon having an almost mystical import. It connects physical activity with meditation, inner silence with the outer tumult of the world. Taking its cue both from Joyce's Ulysses and Hrabal's freely associating stream of anecdote, Of Kids & Parents is about a father and son taking a walk through Prague, over the course of which, and in the pubs and bars they stop into, their personal lives are revealed as entwined with the past sixty years of upheaval in their corner of Europe. One's "small history" is shown to be inseparable from…


Book cover of Laughable Loves

Norrin M. Ripsman Author Of Song Book

From my list on short stories for a cottage trip.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love a good short story that can convey character, emotion, and complexity. While a novel allows the writer (and the reader) to delve into the chaotic complexity of a single set of characters, a good short story collection can explore a range of humanity and a diversity of moods or feelings.  This was my motivation in writing my book. I believe a good short story collection on a well-grounded theme (such as the contributions to this list by Doerr, Kundera, and Munro) can often reveal more about human nature than an excellent novel.

Norrin's book list on short stories for a cottage trip

Norrin M. Ripsman Why did Norrin love this book?

Milan Kundera is a master of human psychology. In these seven stories, which portray the paranoia of ordinary life in Czechoslovakia under communism, Kundera lays bare the tragic comedy of human vanity and insecurity and how they prove to be our undoing. 

I personally will never forget the perceptive “Nobody Will Laugh” or his brilliant story “The Hitchhiking Game,” which illustrates more about what it means to be human than almost anything else in print.

These are what every short story writer dreams of when s/he puts pen to paper.

By Milan Kundera,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Laughable Loves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A dazzling collection of stories - originally banned in 1968 Prague - by the author of modern classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Milan Kundera is a master of graceful illusion and illuminating surprise. In one of these stories a young man and his girlfriend pretend that she is a stranger he picked up on the road-only to become strangers to each other in reality as their game proceeds. In another a teacher fakes piety in order to seduce a devout girl, then jilts her and yearns for God. In yet another girls wait in bars, on beaches, and on…


Book cover of The Hundred-Year Flood

Rosanna Staffa Author Of The War Ends At Four

From my list on the unexpected ways we find home.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm an Italian-born writer living in Minneapolis. I experienced being an outsider early on in my childhood when my family moved from Naples to Este, a small town in the hills near Venice. My fascination with language started then as I had to master the different Northern dialect. I was a listener rather than a talker. My shyness was painful in life but turned out to be a gift as a writer. When I left Italy for America, once again I was an outsider, too visible or invisible, and facing a new language. I relate to estrangement and longing, but I treasure that being an outsider still gives me a sense of wonder about reality.

Rosanna's book list on the unexpected ways we find home

Rosanna Staffa Why did Rosanna love this book?

I’m deeply affected by the poetic, haunted quest of a Korean adoptee who seeks his place in the world, shifting back and forth in time— Tee’s present in a Massachusetts rehab facility with his time in Prague. 

I respond to how present the awareness of being other is, while I can occasionally pretend to forget mine. I share the question about the past.

Tormented about being an adoptee, Tee left his family behind after facing the tragedy of an uncle’s suicide and a disturbing revelation from his father. In Prague, he has newfound happiness interrupted by a forced evacuation because of an epic flood that comes every 100 years.

Tee decides to remain with his lover: “If the water did rise and cut them off from the rest of Prague, they would be unreachable,” Tee thinks, “even from his pasts.”

By Matthew Salesses,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Hundred-Year Flood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the tradition of Native Speaker and The Family Fang, Matthew Salesses weaves together the tangled threads of identity, love, growing up, and relationships in his stunning first novel, The Hundred-Year Flood. This beautiful and dreamlike debut follows twenty-two-year-old Tee as he escapes to Prague in the wake of his uncle's suicide and the aftermath of 9/11. Tee tries to convince himself that living in a new place will mean a new identity and a chance to shed the parallels between him and his adopted father. His life intertwines with Pavel Picasso, a painter famous for revolution; Katka, his equally…


Book cover of Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories

Thersa Matsuura Author Of The Carp-Faced Boy and Other Tales

From my list on a mix of wry humor and real horror.

Why am I passionate about this?

I can’t remember a time I haven’t been drawn to and fascinated by the link between absurdity/humor and horror. Both genres involve setups and payoffs. The tension built up needs to be released in either a gasp or a laugh. In my own writing, I try to make myself giggle in joy at the ridiculousness of a situation and then recoil at the underlying horror that anchors it to the real world. It’s a balance I constantly try to reach and that I personally find is a joy to read.

Thersa's book list on a mix of wry humor and real horror

Thersa Matsuura Why did Thersa love this book?

I read somewhere that Franz Kafka would laugh so loud when writing his stories that he woke up his neighbors. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I get it. It’s not what is commonly thought of when someone talks about Kafka’s stories. I mean, his name has come to mean a certain style. “Kafkaesque” is used to describe stories that are absurd, nightmarish, offensive, and heavy with bureaucratic pretentiousness and deceit.

Where is the humor? Oh, it’s there. I think sometimes readers get caught up in the horror and bizarreness of it all that they miss the subtle, absurdist, dark, and very dry humor dripping in all these stories in this collection.

By Franz Kafka, Nahum N. Glatzer (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Franz Kafka as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE TRIAL; THE CASTLE; AMERICA- Both Joseph K in THE TRIAL and K in THE CASTLE are victims of anonymous governing forces beyond their control. Both are atomised, estranged and rootless citizens deceived by authoritarian power. Whereas Joseph K is relentlessly hunted down for a crime that remains nameless, K ceaselessly attempts to enter the castle and so belong somewhere. Together these novels may be read as powerful allegories of totalitarian government in whatever guise it appears today. In AMERICA Karl Rossmann is 'packed off to America by his parents' to experience Oedipal and cultural isolation. Here, ordinary immigrants are…


Book cover of Helga's Diary: A Young Girl's Account of Life in a Concentration Camp

Elizabeth B. Splaine Author Of Swan Song

From my list on WWII with unique plot lines and perspectives.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a retired opera singer, I have sung many of the songs that are featured in the book. I first became interested in Terezin when I sang with an opera company that was performing Brundibar, a children’s opera (composed by Hans Krasa, who was imprisoned in the camp) performed more than 50 times in Terezin. As a psych major (having written several medical/psych thriller books as well) I am constantly questioning the idea of choices and the consequences that fall from them. War challenges our notion of humanity, hope, and choice, and perhaps writing helps me work through some of those questions I have…what would I do in that situation? 

Elizabeth's book list on WWII with unique plot lines and perspectives

Elizabeth B. Splaine Why did Elizabeth love this book?

There are several books I could recommend written by adults who were imprisoned as children in Terezin during the war, but this one stands out because of its artwork interspersed with factual accounts of daily life. Indeed, it’s the factual perspective she takes in her descriptions that makes them so heart-wrenching. Her map was my primary tool in writing descriptions of the camp, and her artwork, imitating her writing style, comes across as stark and factual. Written as a diary, not a novel, I cried at the cruelty with which her life unfurled before her. At the same time, however, she manages to capture the beauty of being a child, full of hope and promise. That balance makes the book a jewel.

By Helga Weiss, Neil Bermel (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Helga's Diary as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1939, Helga Weiss was a young Jewish schoolgirl in Prague. As she endured the first waves of the Nazi invasion, she began to document her experiences in a diary. During her internment at the concentration camp of Terezin, Helga's uncle hid her diary in a brick wall. Of the 15,000 children brought to Terezin and deported to Auschwitz, there were only one hundred survivors. Helga was one of them. Miraculously, she was able to recover her diary from its hiding place after the war. These pages reveal Helga's powerful story through her own words and illustrations. Includes a special…


Book cover of The Night of Wenceslas

Aly Monroe Author Of The Maze of Cadiz

From my list on how people become spies.

Why am I passionate about this?

Looking at photographs after my father died, when still living in Spain, I reflected on what life had been like for young men of the WWII generation. This sparked the start of my Peter Cotton series. Living abroad for so long, having more than one language and culture, gives people dual perspective, a shifting identity, which is something that fascinates me—and makes Cotton ideal prey for recruiting as an intelligence agent. I also wanted to explore the complex factors in the shifting allegiances after WW2, when your allies were often your worst enemy. All these are themes that recur in the books chosen here.

Aly's book list on how people become spies

Aly Monroe Why did Aly love this book?

The Night of Wenceslas was the first thriller I read. I was in my teens, and into reading poetry at the time. My parents knew the author—we had even spent Boxing Day together—so Lionel Davidson was the first real novelist I met in person and I remember being excited to read this book.

The protagonist, Nicholas Whistler is young, half English and half Czechoslovakian. He hates working in his father’s business and is in debt because of his dissolute lifestyle. As a way out of his problems, he is lured into carrying out a mission in Prague and finds he has been duped into becoming an unwitting spy.

This book did not stop me from reading poetry—but spurred me to read much more widely.

By Lionel Davidson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Night of Wenceslas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The award-winning debut thriller from the bestselling author of Kolymsky Heights

'Quite simply the best thriller writer around.' Spectator

Nicolas Whistler is young, bored and in debt. When an opportunity to make some money arises, he can't turn it down. He is sent to Prague to carry out a simple assignment, but he soon finds himself trapped between the secret police and the clutches of the mysterious Vlasta. Whether he likes it or not, Nicolas is now a spy.

'Fast-moving, exciting, often extraordinarily funny.' Sunday Times

'Brilliant. Don't miss it.' Observer


Book cover of There Was Still Love

J. Shep Author Of The December Issue

From my list on strong inter-generational relationships.

Why am I passionate about this?

From books to television, one of my favorite qualities of good writing is a rich, inter-generational cast of characters, especially ones that feature significant roles for characters young and old. These stories do not span multiple generations; instead, they showcase characters of all ages interacting at one time, which makes for dynamic plots and relationships.

J.'s book list on strong inter-generational relationships

J. Shep Why did J. love this book?

1980s Czechoslovakia and Australia—worlds apart—are the backdrops for two simultaneous stories I came to enjoy. Both stories incorporate young children being raised primarily by grandparents, the reasons for which are eventually explained, as are the connections between the two.

I liked the characters in this book, where the plot plays second fiddle to the characters and setting in many ways. I especially enjoyed the relationships. The sense of home and the strong love seeping from the actions of the guardian figures in this novel seem to welcome the reader, as well.

By Favel Parrett,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked There Was Still Love as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A beautifully crafted book from a wonderful storyteller. It sings with humanity.' Sarah Winman

AUSTRALIAN INDIE BOOK AWARD WINNER 2020 BOOK OF THE YEAR & FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE STELLA PRIZE 2020

PRAGUE, 1938: Eva flies down the street. A man steps out suddenly.
Eva runs into him, hits the pavement hard. His hat is in the gutter.
His anger slaps Eva, but his hate will change everything,
as war forces so many lives into small brown suitcases.

PRAGUE, 1980: No one sees Ludek. A young boy can slip right under
the heavy blanket that covers…


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