“Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else,” said Mark Twain. We will probably never find out if he really said it or if it is just a widely copied quote. In any case, we bring you tips on books that will come in handy in moments when you will really be somewhere else – for example by the sea or by the river. This is a diverse list of summer tips from the editors of Forbes.
Michal Bernáth, editor Forbesu
Jack Turner: Spice: The History of a Temptation
It will be twenty years since its publication next year, and yet I return to this spicy epic a few times a year. Few people know how much spice spoke to the history of mankind, that because of it cities burned, people died and new empires were built.
All this because of something that you can buy for a few crowns in the nearest samoška in alley number eleven. Despite the fact that, for example, cloves or nutmeg were more expensive by weight than gold.
Spices, for example, drove Christopher Columbus literally halfway around the world, and when he discovered chili peppers on the Caribbean islands, they drove him to the latrine. But what will most likely cross your mind while reading is the question, what is such a spice of today?
Miroslav Němý, editor of Forbes
Narine Abgarjanová: Three apples fell from the sky
One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the best books in history, it plays in a league of its own. It makes no sense to copy it, but to be inspired by it and plant a variation on Macondo in the Caucasus, that’s different.
“On Friday, shortly following noon, when the sun swung gracefully over the zenith and made its way to the western edge of the valley in an orderly manner, Anatolia Sevjantsova clung to her death…” How Márquezian such an introduction to the plot sounds!
On the basis of this sentence, which by the way, like the first letters of One Hundred Years of Solitude, immediately speaks of death, the Armenian woman Abgarjanová will publish a beautiful book regarding life, love, pain, cruelty, joy and hope.
Whether we want to call it magical realism or whatever, it is above all a demonstration of the power that literature can have even in today’s talkative and letter-filled era. As a result, the abandoned mountain village of Maran becomes a Macon of sorts for the 21st century.
Rodrigo Fresan: Argentina! Argentina!
In one of the scenes of this work, the aspiring writer collides with Jorge Luis Borges on the street, but what is even more strange and unexpected is that this first work by another Argentinian, Fresán, is being sold by Cheap Books for a surreal nine crowns; even Borges himself would surely have faintly cheered at such a detail. Especially since it’s a great book.
In terms of genre, it seems to oscillate between short story and novella, some characters appear once more, others light up and disappear, so that at the end everything is wrapped up in an unexpectedly compact whole.
Everything is permeated by the spirit of Fresán’s best compatriots: Borges, Julio Cortázar or Ernesto Sabato – or the Chilean Roberto Bolaň, Fresán’s great supporter.
Regarding the story, a quick sip is enough, that it is based on the realities of Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s and mixes dictatorship, the Falklands war and football. On the contrary, you need to read slowly and sip word by word like the best maté.
Anna Nosková, head of Forbes Life
Evy Poumpouras: Becoming Bulletproof
Resilience is a muscle, discomfort a necessity for a better life. Evy Poumpouras looks like a Hollywood celebrity, but she was a special agent and investigator.
She took care of the security of several American presidents as well as the first lady Michelle Obama. Then she retired, studied journalism at Columbia University and gave birth to her first child at 46.
Why read her book? It acts as an instant motivation to stop seeing yourself as a victim, no matter how many difficulties you have faced in life. As a second-generation Greek immigrant in America, Poumpouras suffered financial hardship as a child, was the only woman discriminated once morest in secret service agent training, and miraculously survived the 9/11 skyscraper collapse.
When you finish reading the book, you will understand and sing to yourself the hit by Michal David: Nonstop. Because Eva Poumpouras’ narration will make you want to fight with everything to come.
Irena Cápová, deputy editor-in-chief of Forbes
Krystyna Wanatowiczová: Miloš Havel, Czech film mogul
He co-created the atmosphere and the economic miracle of the First Republic. He was a successful large-scale industrialist with enormous entrepreneurial talent, he was a lobbyist who interacted with politicians and public figures, and he was also an admired idol who dazzled with an extravagant lifestyle, the ability to take risks and the courage to negotiate.
He knew how to make big money – and he also knew how to enjoy it. He built the Barrandovské studios, and his company Lucernafilm produced famous films such as Kristian, The Girl in Blue, Eva Tropí hluposti or Hotel Modrá hvězda. If anyone can be described as a true film mogul, it was Miloš Havel. After the war, however, damnation and the end of his life in almost complete oblivion awaited him.
The ten-year-old book by journalist Krystyna Wanatowiczová is based on never-before-published information from the Havel family archive and the German Bundesarchiv, from StB documents and from the memories of witnesses, and presents an extremely colorful collage of an incredible life story.
Miloš’s nephew, brother of the former Czech and Czechoslovakian president Ivan Havel characterized the book in the preface with the following words: “A book has been created that is simultaneously a document, a historical monograph and a captivating biographical novel. Documentary reliability is a great thing, but what the book breathes on us is a more important thing.”
“We learn something regarding the qualities and intricacies of Czech and perhaps human nature in general, both in good and bad times. We learn regarding the art of entrepreneurship, which today we often confuse with the skill of swindlers, we learn regarding the difference between true trust and deceptive credulity. We learn regarding the illusions of enthusiasts and the tricks of profiteers…”
Silvie Friedmannová, editor of Forbes
Fatma Aydemirová: Djinové
When my favorite author, Viktorie Hanišová, wrote regarding the book that Djinov is the best novel she had ever translated, I perked up. I was interested in who the German writer with Kurdish-Turkish roots, Fatma Aydemirová, is and why the novel arouses such enthusiasm, confirmed by the first ranks among book bestsellers across Europe.
When Hüseyn happily unlocks the new apartment in Istanbul where he plans to live, he has no idea that he will spend only a few hours there. However, Djinn is a novel with many narrators, united by blood ties and many sorrows. Parents and children. Years in Germany, where thousands of Turks flocked for a better life. Tradition versus modernity. If you fancy a great novel, here it is.
Dagmar Mai, Forbes Social Media Editor
Anthony Bourdain: Kitchen Confidentials
If you managed to watch the series phenomenon The Bear, then it’s time to turn your attention to timeless classics, such as the book Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, the legendary chef, traveler and storyteller who forever changed the way we perceive food and culture.
The American bestseller is a mixture of memoirs and sharp observations from the culinary world, which reveals the raw and undistorted reality behind the scenes of a prestigious kitchen, where an uncompromising struggle for perfection takes place. And it happens on the border between absolute order and chaos.
Bourdain’s style, combining honesty and sharp humor, guarantees not only an engaging read, but also an insight into the dynamic world of gastronomy, from which you can take some practical advice for cooking and life. At the same time, the author is not afraid to reveal its dark side, but at the same time, with love and respect, he pays tribute to all those involved in the culinary craft.
For lovers of good food and great stories, the book is an indispensable companion on long summer evenings.
Petra Šimůnková, editor of Forbes Life
Marek Torčík: You will destroy the memory
It is not for nothing that the debut novel of the writer, publicist and poet Marek Torčík is compared to the books of the Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux. While she will take you on a trip through the memories of her life in France, the young Czech writer will transport you to Přerov in Moravia with his narration.
How does one grow up in an environment where bullying, alcohol and resistance to otherness rule? And how much can fate throw at you, watching all this from the position of a teenage queer boy? Marek Torčík’s book deservedly won the Luxor Litera prize for prose this year, its author also recently won the Jiří Orten Award for young authors under thirty.
Olga Tokarczuk: Empusion
When you get hot this summer, reach for the latest book by award-winning Polish writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature Olga Tokarczuk. Empusion takes you back to 1913 in the Görbersdorf spa. It’s dry, chilly here and you can feel the slowly approaching winter in the air.
How does all this affect the young Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, a student from Lviv, who came to the local sanatorium in the hope that innovative methods and clean air will stop the progress of his disease, tuberculosis?
And are the dark magical stories circulating among patients based on truth? Olga Tokarczuk masterfully builds tension and keeps the reader with the book until the last sentence.
Zdravko Krstanov, editor-in-chief of Forbes.cz
Neil Postman: Love yourself to death
If you’ve even caught a glimpse of the US presidential debate, it’s likely crossed your mind how the race for the most powerful man on the planet can turn out the way it does.
How did this happen? Especially in the land of the founding fathers? The answers are offered by Postman’s brilliant book, following reading which you will see everything in clear outlines. It’s similar to wiping a fogged window. Or maybe a mirror.
Lukáš Grygar, editor of Forbes.cz
Michael Mechanic: Jackpot
If you read Forbes, you’re probably just as interested in money as we are: who has a lot of it, how they spend it, how they think regarding their wealth. The book by an experienced journalist is interested in the super-rich, and the author goes straight following them to find out how they live in fabulous wealth.
This is not just a report from the world of luxury, but a probe into the universe of money and power, which is increasingly distant from the rest of humanity. If you were fascinated by the series Succession (Czech, Boj o moc), Jackpot is a complementary read.
Pavla Francová, Forbes editor
Tim Voors: Nesamota
A great and new read if it takes you somewhere very far, but right now it’s not really going. Tim Voors will take you on the furthest possible trek, as in the book he describes his journey on the three thousand kilometer long Te Araroa Trail across New Zealand.
Of course, beautiful photos, drawings and authentic and wild experiences of the wonderful wilderness are what attract the attention at first. But this book also offers an open view of what it’s like to disappear from your normal life and family for a long time, and what a difficult journey can give a person.
In addition, Dutch native Tim Voors can also write easily and legibly, which cannot always be said regarding similar books. If on a trip, then with Nesamota.
Kateřina Petroušková, head of social networks at Forbes
Jean-Michel Guenassia: The Club of Incorrigible Optimists
It’s been a few years since I read this book, but I still remember the impact it had on me and how I was speechless until I finished reading it.
I liked the mood of the artistic-intellectual Paris of the 1960s, as well as the incorporation of refugees from Eastern Europe into the story. Just a little warning: at five hundred pages, this is a book for a longer vacation.
Aneta Šaferová, editor of Forbes
Karin Lednická: Leaning church
If you haven’t read the award-winning bestseller yet, you have a great opportunity to get started now, because the trilogy is now complete and you’ll save yourself the impatient wait for the next installment. Once you are absorbed by the first pages of the book, you will not believe that you have not heard of this forgotten chapter of our history.
How might a city of twenty-five thousand with schools, several breweries and castles disappear from the face of the earth? The story spans an area of almost seventy years and describes the golden age and the gradual demise of the old Karviná, of which only the church remained due to mining in the 1960s – more inclined than the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa due to the unstable ground.
Karin Lednická has spent many years researching, studying period documents and interviewing witnesses in order to play out the captivating stories of her perfectly drawn fictional characters, Czechs and Poles, once morest the background of real events.
By the way, the author was able to devote a generous amount of time to her work also because, following twenty-two years, she successfully sold her Domino publishing house to the giant Albatros.
The vividly described fates of Barka, Ludwik, Ženka or the lost Tomaszko will absorb you and you will not avoid finding similarities and differences with today’s times and perhaps even your own life.
And if that’s still not enough for you, take a trip to Karviná-Dola during the holidays, where you can follow the footsteps of characters and a forgotten town to a real leaning church. The place is truly magical.
