Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: Books Set in Europe

The Danes are famously the happiest people in the world, and hygge is a cornerstone of their way of life. Hygge (pronounce Hoo-ga) loosely translates as a sense of comfort, togetherness, and well-being. You know hygge when you feel it. It is when you are cuddled up on the sofa with a loved one, or sharing comfort food with your closest friends. It is those crisp blue mornings when the light through your window is just right. It is about gratitude and savoring the simple pleasures in life. In short, it is the pursuit of everyday happiness. (Description from catalog)

A sequel to "Notes from a Small Island" stands as the author's tribute to his adopted country of England and describes his riotous return visit two decades later to rediscover the country, its people, and its culture. (Description from NoveList)

An illustrated account chronicles in detail events ranging from Napoleon's escape from Elba through Waterloo's three major battlefield events. (Description from catalog)

Traces the story of the tragic romance and brutal assassination that led to World War I, exploring rumors of Serbian complicity, conspiracy, and official negligence that doomed the Archduke and his family. (Description from NoveList)

In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization--in effect a second Russian revolution--which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem. In Red Famine, Anne Applebaum argues that more than three million of those dead were Ukrainians who perished not because they were accidental victims of a bad policy but because the state deliberately set out to kill them. (Description from catalog)

A portrait of the only queen in the history of the Ottoman Empire traces how Roxelana, a Christian slave, was abducted and placed in the harem of Sultan Suleyman, who married her against all conventions before her talents as a diplomat and philanthropist rendered her an invaluable advisor to her husband. (Description from NoveList)

In a village in northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, a stranger with piercing blue eyes presents a new father with a gift intended for his young daughter. Uncertain of its meaning, Pytor hides the gift away and Vasya grows up a wild, willful girl, to the chagrin of her family. But when mysterious forces threaten the happiness of their village, Vasya discovers that she may be the only one who can keep the darkness at bay.
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In Northern Ireland during the Troubles of the 1970s, an unnamed narrator finds herself targeted by a high-ranking dissident known as Milkman. (Description from catalog)

A New York documentary filmmaker, visiting his wife's small mountain community in the majestic Italian Dolomites, is challenged to unravel the truth about a decades-old triple murder in the wake of a devastating accident. (Description from catalog.)

When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, a budding novelist who incorporates Julie’s murder into her unfinished novel. But is Esther the culprit -or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance? (Description from catalog.)

Twenty years after witnessing the violent disappearances of two companions from their small Dublin suburb, detective Rob Ryan investigates a chillingly similar murder that takes place in the same wooded area, a case that forces him to piece together his traumatic memories. (Description from NoveList.)

A struggling perfumer who has forged an unlikely friendship with Grace Kelly against a backdrop of the latter's high-profile wedding considers what she is prepared to sacrifice when she falls in love with a British press photographer. (Description from NoveList.)

"One day in the City of Lights. One night in search of lost time. Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city's most famous citizens, four regular people are each searching for something they've lost... Told over the course of a single day in 1927, The Paris Hours takes four ordinary people whose stories, told together, are as extraordinary as the glorious city they inhabit"-- Provided by publisher.

While climbing Mount Ararat in Turkey, an avalanche forces a couple to seek shelter inside a massive cave uncovered by the snow fall. The cave is actually an ancient, buried ship that they speculate is really Noah's Ark. But when a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark for the first time, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses; the cadaver within is an ugly, misshapen thing with horns. Now a massive blizzard has them trapped in the cave thousands of meters up the side of a remote mountain... but the team is not alone. (Description from catalog)

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. That, combined with her unusual appearance means that Eleanor has become a creature of habit and a bit of a loner. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office.
(Description from catalog)

After a global nuclear war begins, Jon Keller and a small group of survivors at a hotel in Switzerland try to maintain some semblance of civilization, only to discover the murdered body of a young girl in the hotel's water tanks. (Description from NoveList.)

When the murder of a surprisingly hated local reporter disrupts preparations for the annual Inversgail Literature Festival in Scotland, the four owners of a new bookshop comb through the victim's hate mail for clues about the killer. (Description from NoveList)

Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. (Description from NoveList)

Dr. Margo Dunlop is at a crossroads. Her adoptive mom just passed away, and Margo misses her so much she can't begin to empty the house-or, it seems, get her brother on the phone. Not to mention she's newly single, secretly pregnant, and worried about her best friend's dangerous relationship. In an effort to cheer herself up she goes in search of her birth mother. Instead she finds Nikki, her mother's sister. Aunt Nikki isn't what Margo expects, and she brings upsetting news: Margo's mother is dead.
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This spellbinding story of love, loss and self-discovery follows a young girl named Zorka as she comes of age in Prague, Wisconsin and then Boston amidst a backdrop of clothing logos, MTV, computer coders and other outcast youth. (Description from NoveList.)

When her happy life in 1991 Croatia is shattered by civil war, ten-year-old Ana Juric is embroiled in a world of guerilla warfare and child soldiers before making a daring escape to America, where years later she struggles to hide her past. (Description from catalog)

The shattering disappearance of two young girls from Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula compounds the isolation and fears of a tight-woven community, connecting the lives of neighbors, witnesses, family members and a detective throughout an ensuing year of tension. (Description from NoveList)

A mother who goes into hiding when Nazis begin arresting Jewish citizens in Poland considers an impossible choice while struggling to keep her 5-year-old daughter, a musical prodigy, from being overheard. (Description from NoveList.)

In the moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating but her brain is still active--for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life--and the lives of others, outcasts like her. In Tequila Leila’s death, the secrets and wonders of modern Istanbul come to life, painted vividly by the captivating tales of how Leila came to know and be loved by her friends. As her epic journey to the afterlife comes to an end, it is her chosen family who brings her story to a buoyant and breathtaking conclusion. - description from Novelist

When her neighbor turns up dead, and then other bodies turn up under strange circumstances, Janine, a recluse in a remote Polish village who prefers the company of animals over humans, inserts herself into the investigation, certain she knows whodunit. - description from Novelist

In an isolated village in the Icelandic Westfjords, three friends set to work renovating a rundown house. But soon, they realize they are not as alone as they thought. Something wants them to leave, and it's making its presence felt. Meanwhile, in a town across the fjord, a young doctor investigating the suicide of an elderly woman discovers that she was obsessed with his vanished son. When the two stories collide, the terrifying truth is uncovered. (Description from catalog)