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Portugal

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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Enrich your travels with reading! Here's a hand-picked list prepared for your journey in conjunction with the book experts at Longitude.

Essential Reading

Item EXPGL34. Buy these 4 items as a set for $81 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

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Eyewitness Guide Portugal

Eyewitness Guide Portugal

by Eyewitness Guides

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 496 PAGES

Featuring hundreds of photographs and drawings, an excellent overview of the culture and history, and good information about where to go and what to do. (PGL05, $25.00)

A Traveller's History of Portugal

A Traveller's History of Portugal

by Ian Robertson

  • HISTORY
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 352 PAGES

A lively, admirably concise survey from prehistory to the present, great for travelers to Portugal who would like an overview of the country's history and culture. (PGL32, $14.95)

The Wine and Food Lover's Guide to Portugal

The Wine and Food Lover's Guide to Portugal

by Charles Metcalfe

  • FOOD
  • 2008
  • HARD COVER
  • 446 PAGES

This oenophiles guide, organized geographically, focuses on Portuguese cuisine, vineyards and wine. (PGL79, $32.95)

Portugal Map 733

Portugal Map 733

by Michelin Travel Publications

  • MAP

At a scale of 1:400,000, this fully indexed map also includes insets of Madeira and city maps. (PGL08, $14.95)

 
Lonely Planet Portuguese Phrasebook

Lonely Planet Portuguese Phrasebook


by Clara De MacEdo Vitorino

  • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 320 PAGES

A handy pocket phrasebook for Portuguese basics, covering pronunciation, basic grammar and essential vocabulary for the traveler. (PGL34, $8.99)

A Concise History of Portugal

A Concise History of Portugal


by David Birmingham

  • HISTORY
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 240 PAGES

A straightforward and informative account of Portugal from prehistory to its zenith as a seafaring power and current day realities. (PGL01, $25.99)

Cork Boat, A True Story of the Unlikeliest Boat Ever Built

Cork Boat, A True Story of the Unlikeliest Boat Ever Built


by John Pollack

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2005
  • PAPER
  • 291 PAGES

This endearing tale of family, loss and friendship revolves around a deliciously absurd childhood quest to build a boat of cork and sail it 133 miles on Portugal's Douro River. (PGL42, $14.95)

Journey to Portugal, In Pursuit of Portugal's History and Culture

Journey to Portugal, In Pursuit of Portugal's History and Culture


by Jose Saramago

  • TRAVEL NARRATIVE
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 464 PAGES

Jose Saramago's richly detailed account of his journey across Portugal in 1979. He combines his vivid impressions of the Portuguese landscape and people with a dose of history, fiction and meditations. (PGL23, $17.00)

Prince Henry

Prince Henry "the Navigator," A Life


by Peter E. Russell

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2001
  • PAPER
  • 448 PAGES

A complicated, rewarding portrait, and the first biography of this empire-minded Portuguese prince in more than a hundred years. (PGL25, $25.00)

A Small Death in Lisbon

A Small Death in Lisbon


by Robert Wilson

  • MYSTERY
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 440 PAGES

Set in Lisbon in 1941 and 1999, this award-winning mystery intertwines a present day murder, some unsavory arms production, and smuggling in Nazi Germany. Be warned, there are some graphic passages dealing with the horrors of war and concentration camps. (PGL22, $7.99)

Alentejo Blue

Alentejo Blue


by Monica Ali

  • LITERATURE
  • 2007
  • PAPER

These short stories set in the Alentejo province of Portugal star a range of colorful expats and locals, including Teresa, a beautiful young girl from the village engaged to a suitable man, who yearns to see the world, and Vasco, a cafe owner losing business to the new Internet cafe down the road. (PGL58, $14.00)

Baltasar and Blimunda

Baltasar and Blimunda


by Jose Saramago

  • LITERATURE
  • 1998
  • PAPER
  • 343 PAGES

This tale of two unlikely lovers in Inquisition-era Portugal is arguably Saramago's masterwork: a philosophically charged, intellectually rigorous historical drama which is also a captivating read. (PGL26, $15.00)

Blindness


by Jose Saramago | Giovanni Pontiero

  • LITERATURE
  • 1999
  • PAPER
  • 327 PAGES

In this challenging and disturbing allegory, an epidemic of "white blindness" strikes an anonymous city. A Nobel Prize-winning novel from the acclaimed Portuguese novelist. (PGL19, $15.00)

Requiem: A Hallucination

Requiem: A Hallucination


by Antonio Tabucchi | Margaret Jull Costa

  • LITERATURE
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 110 PAGES

Tabucchi's fever-dream tour of a vanishing Lisbon. The narrator, an "adopted Portuguese," returns after many years and visits cemeteries, brothels and gentlemen's clubs, in an ambiguous search for the ghosts of his past. (PGL09, $12.95)

The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The History of the Siege of Lisbon


by Jose Saramago | Giovanni Pontiero

  • LITERATURE
  • 1998
  • PAPER
  • 314 PAGES

In this historical novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author, the past is rewritten when a Portuguese proofreader adds a false word to a history book, resulting in a whole new perception of the Siege of Lisbon. (PGL11, $14.00)

The Maias

The Maias


by Jose Eca de Queiros

  • LITERATURE
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 633 PAGES

This sprawling family epic is worthy of comparison to the greatest accomplishments of Proust and Tolstoy. It's the atmospheric story of the decline of an affluent 19th-century Lisbon family. (PGL07, $17.95)

More Recommendations

Here are some other groups of books that might be of interest

Longitude provides recommended reading for travelers in partnership with the leading tour operators and travel programs for hundreds of destinations worldwide. We've got the classic, new and hard-to-find books and maps to help you get the most out of your adventures.