 | Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition by Czeslaw Milosz
Buy new: $11.25 / Used from: $6.66 Wonderfully written, lots of information, conveys atmosphere of prewar Poland.
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 | This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (Penguin Classics) by Tadeusz Borowski
Buy new: $9.89 / Used from: $4.99 Very important camp literature.
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 | A Minor Apocalypse: A Novel by Tadeusz Konwicki
Buy new: $11.07 / Used from: $4.15 |
 | Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language by Eva Hoffman
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.98 Good read about a Polish emigre's transition to life in North America.
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 | The Bronski House by Philip Marsden
Buy used from: $1.15 Good read, albeit a bit sentimental and idealizing. About Poland's former "Kresy" (eastern territories).
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 | The History of Polish Literature, Updated edition by Czeslaw Milosz
Buy new: $28.95 / Used from: $9.50 Useful survey.
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 | Letters from Prison and Other Essays (Society and Culture in East-Central Europe) by Adam Michnik
Buy new: $26.95 / Used from: $2.37 Wonderful writer.
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 | The Church and the Left by Adam Michnik
Buy new: $11.86 / Used from: $8.89 |
 | Letters from Freedom: Post-Cold War Realities and Perspectives (Society and Culture in East-Central Europe) by Adam Michnik
Buy new: $26.95 / Used from: $1.50 |
 | The Struggles for Poland by Neal Ascherson
Buy used from: $1.85 The one you were reading in 1991, my old yellowed paperback you asked about recently.
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 | The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (Third Edition) by Mr. Timothy Garton Ash
Buy new: $21.37 / Used from: $12.17 Standard reading about Solidarity.
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 | God's Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 1 (Vol 1) by Norman Davies
Buy used from: $34.99 Also Volume 2, but didn't see it on the list. Very long but very well written and nice to read.
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 | Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw by Norman Davies
Buy used from: $18.76 Ask Archie about it: he read the WHOLE thing!
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 | Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland's Present by Norman Davies
Buy new: $17.15 / Used from: $6.90 One volume version of the Whole Thing included in volumes 1 and 2 above.
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 | The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture by Adam Zamoyski
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $4.99 Non-taxing overview.
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 | The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
Buy new: $9.50 / Used from: $1.88 Controversial in terms of historical accuracy.
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 | Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan T. Gross
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $4.95 Sparked largest public debate in post-1989 Poland. Very controversial.
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 | Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz by Jan Gross
Buy new: $18.94 / Used from: $1.23 Haven't read it myself yet. Just came out in the US; should be out in Poland in autumn. Bound to be controversial as well.
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 | Madame by Antoni Libera
Buy new: $11.70 / Used from: $0.01 Very enjoyable, though perhaps a bit long: conveys atmosphere of 1960's Poland well. Wrote an extensive review of it once.
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| Dziennik 1954 (Polish Edition) by Leopold Tyrmand
Buy used from: $108.95 First entire book I read in Polish. Conveys atmosphere even better than "Madame"; available only in Polish. I thought of translating it once, but all the 1950's slang makes it difficult to do.
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 | Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown by Leszek Kolakowski
Buy new: $37.96 / Used from: $29.08 Great writer, leading philosopher, emigrated to England after 1968, taught at Oxford.
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| A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising by Miron Bialoszewski
Buy used from: $13.37 A poet's own account of the Uprising.
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 | First Year Polish by Oscar E. Swan
Buy used from: $6.70 The books used at UW when I was there. Also "Intermediate Polish" by the same author.
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 | The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 by Wladyslaw Szpilman
Buy used from: $0.01 Book better than the film in my opinion. In Poland it came with a CD of Szpilman playing.
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 | My Century (New York Review Books Classics) by Aleksander Wat
Buy new: $16.95 / Used from: $4.48 A "river-interview" so popular in Poland with leading poet and survivor of the GULAG.
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 | Barbarian In The Garden by Zbigniew Herbert
Buy used from: $17.50 I think this was the first entire book I read in Polish -- it's good for this purpose, because it is comprised of a collection of essays on various topics. This means that you won't get too tired reading an entire book in Polish, the way you might if you were reading about just one subject.
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