The posts in this blog may include affiliate links. This means that when you decide to purchase anything through these links I get a small commission at NO extra cost to you.

Visit Hungary for its stunning architecture, vibrant culture, and rich history. Explore Budapest’s thermal baths, majestic castles, and the picturesque Danube River. Enjoy delicious cuisine, world-class wines, and vibrant festivals. Experience the blend of tradition and modernity in this charming Central European gem.

I can’t explain why Hungary has stolen my heart, but from my first visit to Budapest back in 2016 it became a county I could visit time and time again, and so here is a selection of books that might just encourage you to do the same.

Books to Read Before You Visit Hungary

The Door by Magda Szabó

Emerence is a domestic servant – strong, fierce, eccentric, and with a reputation for being a first-rate housekeeper. When Magda, a young Hungarian writer, takes her on she never imagines how important this woman will become to her. It takes twenty years for a complex trust between them to be slowly, carefully built. But Emerence has secrets and vulnerabilities beneath her indomitable exterior which will test Magda’s friendship and change the complexion of both their lives irreversibly.

The Bridge at Andau by James Michener

The Bridge at Andau is James A. Michener at his most gripping, the classic nonfiction account of a doomed uprising as searing and unforgettable as any of his bestselling novels. For five brief, glorious days in the autumn of 1956, the Hungarian revolution gave its people a glimpse at a different kind of future–until, at four o’clock in the morning on a Sunday in November, the citizens of Budapest woke to the shattering sound of Russian tanks ravaging their streets. The revolution was over. But freedom beckoned in the form of a small footbridge at Andau, on the Austrian border. By an accident of history it became, for a few harrowing weeks, one of the most important crossings in the world as the soul of a nation fled across its unsteady planks.

Embers by Sándor Márai

As darkness settles on a forgotten castle at the foot of the Carpathian mountains, two men sit down to a final meal together. They have not seen one another in forty-one years. At their last meeting, in the company of a beautiful woman, an unspoken act of betrayal left all three lives shattered – and each of them alone. Tonight, as wine stirs the blood, it is time to talk of old passions and that last, fateful meeting.

The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat by Paul Lendvai

This is a comprehensive history of a legendarily proud and passionate but lonely people. Much of Europe once knew them as ‘child-devouring cannibals’ and ‘bloodthirsty Huns’, but it was not long before the Hungarians became steadfast defenders of Christendom and fought heroic freedom struggles against the Tartars, the Turks and, among others, the Russians.
Through anecdotes of heroes and traitors, victors and victims, geniuses and impostors, Lendvai conveys the multifaceted interplay of progressivism and economic modernisation, versus intolerance and narrow-minded nationalism, on the grand stage of Hungarian history. This work is a blend of narrative, irony and humour; of occasional anger without taboos or prejudices. It also offers an authoritative key to understanding how and why this corner of Europe has produced such a galaxy of great scientists, artists and entrepreneurs.

Reading these books before your visit to Hungary can enhance your understanding of the country’s history, culture, and society, and enrich your travel experience.