Travelers' Tales Prague and the Czech Republic: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides)

Paperback - 28 February, 2006 - Travelers' Tales
Usually ships in 24 hours
By: David Farley, Jessie Sholl and Ivan Klima
ISBN: 1932361332

Buy this book from Amazon.com

List Price: ~~$17.95~~
Amazon.com Price: $11.67
You Save: $6.28

Other books you may find interesting

Reviews by readers

Czech it Out!

Travelers' Tales Prague and the Czech Republic is a delicious buffet of flavors and impressions. A carnivorous romantic of kafkaesque cast of mind, I liked it for the quirky angles: pig slaughter, English lessons at the bordello, love, lust and other malarky; and for the spin of its sentences. These words travel well.

Reminder for why I love all things Czech...

Famous Czech author Ivan Klima opens this book with a promising observation: "I do not like stories about tourist experiences, and I refuse to accept generalizations about a place, let alone people. Fortunately, my concerns were unfounded."

Indeed!

First hearing of Travelers' Tales Prague, I believe I'd read about David Farley and Jessie Sholl's new anthology in some obscure Prague online newsletter I make a habit of scanning over my Czech "turk" coffee in the morning. I fell in love with the idea, as it was described in the article, and I immediately popped by the title's Amazon page. I was shocked to discover then that there was only the *single* Amazon review of this work?!

I just finished this book today and there was still that lone review. For the life of me, I can't explain why. One review out of a multitude of tasteless reviews for works of much lesser calibre and quality. The mother of all unfairnesses!

Let me be completely clear: TRAVELERS' TALES were bang on the money by deciding to invite co-editors Jessie Sholl and her husband David Farley helm this little pocket rocket of literary might! This is a divine book gifted by a rugby team of contributions from too-talented-to-be-true scribes who tell of lives lived, loves forged and lost, and adventures experienced during meanders about the former Czechoslovakia and its present-day successor, the Czech Republic.

In assmebling this coterie of sage scribblers from across the globe, Travelers' Tales Prague provides an at times humourous, at other times shocking, and at most times tender portrait of a world which is old, and new and sometimes both in-between.

For a short story collection to be considered "good," in this reviewer's opinion, the material inside has got to brook the constant jarring readers often experience coming about from the frequent changes in character, tone, or setting. Editors Farley and Sholl did a stellar job ensuring this book's overall "voice" remained consistent. On average, these stories were of a consistent length, weren't at all cliched, and rarely dished up the all-too-familiar version of touristy Praguer debauch that seems to permeate the pages of most expatriate/foreign literature emanating from the Czech capital.

Contributors were all people who at some stage either:

** lived in Prague.
** journeyed throughout the Czech Republic.
** or, who were returning exiles who left Communism's gloomy iron grip for the greener pastures of the West.

The authors were people with heaps of street cred and moxie, each in their own right really knowing how to spin a good yarn. On many occasions, I was left craving more information on what became of certain people or events described. Compelling paragraphs lulled me into trance-like love for places and personages depicted. The stark recounting of certain not-so-memorable experiences had me feeling deeply for those who underwent them.

Here I am, as I sit in Prague, wondering why the *heck* this book's not available on English bookshelves in town? Will someone please explain this to me?!

If anything, within the pages of Travelers' Tales, Farley and Sholl have obliterated that dark spell which for a long time hung -- albatross-like -- limpidly about the necks of foreigners writing about the Czech Republic.

To bandy about a cliche: the whole is certainly greater than the sum of its parts.

Your heart will tell you so. See for yourself and pick yourself up a copy if you can.

Czech it out!

I've never been to Prague, but traveled there by way of this book. David Farley deftly weaves together the contributors' essays about a city and state of mind that inhabits the dreams of many.... Some of the topics and styles didn't pull me in immediately, but the feel of the book elevated them to a perfect place- like puzzle pieces fitting together and revealing a wondrous landscape, language and outlook.

Okay. Add this to your shopping cart and then check out my book: [...]

Top of page