As that time of year is here again, I’ve put together some reading go with the ultimate musical event. Here’s a selection of books that are set in a major European city (or multiple ones) that I think provide a memorable snapshot of their setting in some way. They’re all either in English or read in an English translation—I welcome other people’s additions regardless of language.
- The Tin Drum by Günter Grass (Gdańsk, formerly Danzig) – A combination of politics, magical realism, and a distinctive and unreliable narrator, The Tin Drum isn’t a story about a city, but its setting is important and very memorable when I think back on the novel.
- Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (Paris) – Baldwin’s hugely famous novel about a man having an affair with a guy called Giovanni has a Parisian backdrop for the highs and lows of their time together and as the world outside the room in which they spend so much time together.
- N-W by Zadie Smith (London) – The London conjured up by Smith in this novel is so real, a snapshot of particularly the north-west of the city as shown through four intertwined characters whose experienced are shaped by class, race, and opportunity.
- ABBA ABBA by Anthony Burgess (Rome) – Perhaps an odd suggestion for a Rome novel (unlike Angels and Demons), but Burgess’ novel about Keats’ last days—part of which is a load of dirty sonnets—is both distinctive and does give a real feel of the city. Read alongside canto IV of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage for the full Romantics in Rome effect.
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (Prague) – Kundera’s novel about intertwined characters and their loves during the Prague Spring is both hugely quotable and moving and an interesting look at a political situation and a city.
- A Guide To Berlin by Gail Jones (Berlin) – A novel about a group of strangers—all travellers who love Nabokov in some way—who meet weekly in Berlin to share stories and talk about the city, until a shocking event occurs that changes their meetings.
- Nightwood by Djuna Barnes (Paris, Berlin, Vienna) – Get in many cities at once with Barnes’ short and punchy novel about Europe between the wars and how expression of sexuality, religion, and class was suddenly very different.
Fiendfully Reading 