Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on
bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
Blue Guide Travels in Transylvania
by Lucy Abel-smith
With maps, plans and photographs, this accessible guide to Transylvania's "land that time forgot" focuses on its small towns, cultural heritage and wondrous landscapes.
In Europe's Shadow
by Robert D. Kaplan
In this engaging personal account of more than three decades of visits to Romania, prolific writer and journalist Kaplan presents a comprehensive portrait of an often overlooked country, which he argues is key to understanding Europe as a whole.
Romania Moldova Map
by Freytag & Berndt
This handy fold-up map at a scale of 1:500,000 includes a multilanguage legend and city plans.
Rough Guide Romania
by Rough Guide
An informative, up-to-date guide that combines general information on the country with practical travel details.
Bucharest Map
by Cartographia
Full-color map at a scale of 1:20,000.
The Balkans, A Short History
by Mark Mazower
With eloquence and clarity, Mazower addresses issues of geography, nationalism and nation in this indispensable survey.
The Color of Smoke, An Epic Novel of the Roma
by Menyhert Lakatos
First published in Hungarian in 1975, this epic novel provides both a sweeping glance of World War II-era rural Hungary and an intimate glimpse into the interior life of an adolescent coming of age within the harsh but resolutely light-hearted Roma community.
Language and Travel Guide to Romania
by Rosemary Rennon
This personal, comprehensive guide includes the history and culture of Romania, language essentials and practical travel information.
Bury Me Standing
by Isabel Fonseca
This marvelous portrait of the Roma, also known as the Gypsies, offers insight into their music, foods, religions and folk traditions and also examines their influential but complex relationship with Eastern Europe.
Balkan Ghosts, A Journey through History
by Robert D. Kaplan
Kaplan interweaves history, art and culture with his travels through Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece in this regional portrait.
Just a Bite, A Transylvania Vampire Expert's Short History of the Undead
by Istvan Pivarcsi
Based on his experiences spent in the lands of vampire legend, Transylvania, Istvan Pivarcsi explores the fascinating development of the modern-day vampire from its sources in Transylvanian oral tradition.
The Romani Gypsies
by Yaron Matras
Matras delves into the history of the Romani, an ancient and misunderstood European culture that has survived through modern times.
The Mountains of Romania
by James Roberts
This practical guide, with 40 color maps and photographs, includes the Carpathians, Bucegi Massif and monasteries of Bucovina.
A Concise History of Romania
by Keith Hitchins
Beginning with the Roman conquest of Davia, this exhaustive overview of Romania helpfully divides the course of history into four distinctive periods: medieval, early modern, modern and the so-called return to Europe.
Dracula
by Bram Stoker
The vampire novel that started it all, based on the legend of "Vlad the Impaler." The gothic shocker is set within the dank castles and misty forests of Transylvania and the foggy streets and staid country houses of Victorian England.
The Historian, A Novel
by Elizabeth Kostova
In this wildly popular historical thriller, Kostova traces a 16-year-old woman's harrowing journey across Europe to find the notorious 15th-century prince of Wallachia, Vlad Dracul, completing her father's research in the medieval monasteries and dusty libraries from Istanbul and Budapest to Romania.
Bradt Guide Transylvania
by Lucinda Mallows
This comprehensive guide focuses on culture, nature and responsible travel. Mallows includes sights and activities throughout the region.
Between the Woods and the Water
by Patrick Leigh Fermor
In this sequel to A Time of Gifts (CEU30), Leigh Fermor's classic account of his adventure on foot to Constantinople in 1933, Paddy relates his youthful travels in Hungary and Romania, culminating with his arrival at the Iron Gates on the Danube.
Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the Balkans
by Dennis Hupchick
The changing borders and complex history of the Balkans are clearly and concisely shown through 50 double-page maps and accompanying essays, organized chronologically.
All Rivers Run to the Sea
by Elie Wiesel
Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel recounts his remarkable life, from his childhood in Romania to the horrors of Auschwitz, his days as a young writer in post-war France and New York and his many pilgrimages to Israel.
The Broken Road, From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos
by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Assembled from Leigh Fermor’s manuscripts by friend and biographer Artemis Cooper, with the travel writer Colin Thubron, this is perhaps the most personal of all Leigh Fermor’s books, catching up with young Paddy in the fall of 1934 and following him through Bulgaria and Romania to the coast of the Black Sea.
In Search of Dracula
by Raymond McNally
This history of Vlad Tepes (AKA Vlad the Impaler), the Romanian warrior prince and inspiration for Bram Stoker’s infamous blood-drinking count, draws on oral histories and archaeological evidence and also examines Dracula’s many incarnations in film and literature.
Painter of Silence
by Georgina Harding
An exquisite historical novel set in the somber desolation of postwar communist Romania, the story opens with the arrival of a deaf and mute man at the hospital in the provincial city of Lasi. A nurse at the hospital befriends the man and as their relationship unfolds a secret history is revealed that binds the two characters both to one another and to the suffering of their stricken homeland.
The Dance at Mociu
by Peter D. Riley
A collection of stories, prose poems and meditations on Old Europe, drawn from the author's many visits to Transylvania.
Romania, An Illustrated History
by Nicolae Klepper
An illustrated primer on Romania's eventful history, from the bronze age to the period of the Dacians before and during Roman rule, the principalities from the 14th century until 1821 and modern times.
