Balkanology  ::  Explore Southeast Europe

Croatia - The Bradt Travel Guide  (3rd edition published May 2007) - Piers Letcher

In contrast to their other guides to the Western Balkans, Bradt are competing in a crowded field with this guide to Croatia, and it more than holds its own. Unlike most of Bradt's authors in this region, Piers Letcher has some experience at this kind of thing - in fact he was unlucky enough to write a guide to Yugoslavia in 1989, just before the country collapsed. It's normal for travel guidebooks to become dated quite quickly, but surely few have ever become irrelevant quite as fast as that one. As well as the usual details of historic towns and public transport, this guide is particularly strong on national parks and hiking.

The Rough Guide to Croatia  (4th edition published May 2007) - Jonathan Bousfield

Croatia - Lonely Planet Country Guide  (4th edition published March 2007) - Jeanne Oliver

Dubrovnik - Bradt Mini Guide  (2nd edition published May 2007) - Piers Letcher

If you are visiting Dubrovnik or the surrounding area for a short break, this might suit you better than the full-size Bradt Guide.

Zagreb - Bradt Mini Guide  (1st edition published May 2007) - Piers Letcher and Sarah Parkes

Zagreb In Your Pocket

This informative and regularly updated guide to Croatia's capital can be ordered online, bought from news outlets around Zagreb, or downloaded as a free PDF file. Guides to Dubrovnik, Rijeka, Zadar and Osijek are also available, and a guide to Split is promised soon.

Cicerone Guide to Walking in Croatia  (published April 2004) - Rudolf Abraham

If hiking is the main objective of your trip, this Cicerone guide might suit you. It includes one-day hikes and multi-day treks, including areas such as the Velebit Mountains and Gorski Kotar that are typically mentioned only briefly in other guidebooks.

Landscapes of Croatia (Sunflower Guide)  (published Jan 2006) - Sandra Bardwell

In addition to suggested driving tours, this guidebook includes an excellent selection of 37 walks and hikes. It is more suited to casual walkers than the Cicerone guide, but still finds room for some testing one-day hikes on the mainland as well as shorter strolls around Croatia's islands.

The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays - Dubravka Ugrešić

A few years ago my homeland was confiscated, and along with it my passport. In exchange I was given a new homeland, far smaller and less comfortable. They handed me a passport, a 'symbol' of my new identity. Thousands of people paid for those new 'identify symbols' with their lives, thousands were driven out of their homes... I possess very expensive identity documents.

Dervla Murphy wrote of The Culture of Lies that this "slim volume of essays taught me more about the disintegration of Yugoslavia than any other book". I was similarly impressed. Ugrešić describes with clarity and humour the pressure to conform to nationalist ideology, refusing to accept that her memories of Yugoslavia are meaningless or treacherous.

The Museum of Unconditional Surrender - Dubravka Ugrešić

Compiling an album and autobiography are activities guided by the hand of the invisible angel of nostalgia. With its heavy, mournful wing, the angel of nostalgia brushes aside the demons of irony. It is in these most sincere and most personal of all genres that the scissors of censorship are most assiduous.

It's easier to read this book than to describe it. In some places it reads like a novel, in others like a memoir. Underlying its loosely connected fragments are themes of memory and exile.