Giveaway

21 Books in English about Slovakia

21 books about Slovakia in English at Almost Bananas

Almost Bananas presents…(drumroll)…21 books in English set in Slovakia, including 10 books to giveaway (giveaway over, look out for next year’s)!

I’m so excited to finally tell you about this project I’ve been working on.

It started with me wondering if there was a book in English that I could give friends and family so that they could understand Slovakia a little more. There isn’t much in English about Slovakia, but after some digging I found these 21 books. If anybody knows of more, let me know and I’ll include them in a future list.

I had a few criteria. I wanted stories, real or fiction, thus excluding travel books, textbook type history, and poetry. And I wanted them to be set in Slovakia or the Slovak side of Czechoslovakia (with one exception).

If you want to understand more about Slovakia, give a gift, or just like to read, then this list is for you. (psst…Christmas is quickly approaching) Make sure to scroll down to the bottom in order to enter the giveaway!

Even though I have already lived here for over a decade, I learned so so much, both about Slovakia’s history and people. I admit that I’m not a history buff – reading dry history text puts me to sleep (literally, this was my trick in college if I had insomnia. Worked every time). But in the context of a story or a person’s experience, a country’s character and history come alive even if the actual storyline is fictional.

The following books are divided into the following genres:

Youth – WWII (Slovak Jews) – Memoirs – Fiction – Slovak Literature  Click to continue reading

Giveaway, Slovak Miscellaneous, Slovak Reviews, Slovakia & Travel , , 22 Comments

Roasted Sweet Potato Puree with Orange & Coconut AND Giveaway: And Here We Are At The Table

And Here We Are At The Table

When I was growing up, meals were a sit-down-together deal. When any meal was ready, be it breakfast, lunch, or supper, Mom called and we all sat down. To be honest, I can’t really remember what we talked about, other than Dad making jokes. What I remember is the atmosphere. It seemed like such a normal thing, but now I appreciate it in this fast paced world of ours. As we children got older, supper became a long drawn out affair as we sat around afterwards, talking and joking and sharing our days. And picking at the leftovers – we got to saying that when you picked there weren’t any calories.

Snapshots of memories at the table:

In an attempt to foster polite eating habits in young children, Mom gets us to show her how we would eat if the Queen was coming for dinner.

One of my sisters waiting until everyone was done their (rare) dessert, and then slowly savouring each little bite of her own dessert while the rest of us look on with longing.

Shouting “That enough!!” when someone else is pouring maple syrup on their pancakes.

Sharing in the bubbling electric wok in the middle of the table, adding vegetables, noodles, or meat for shabu shabu, chopsticks clicking, sometimes slipping, dipping in the sauce.

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Food, Giveaway, Savoury Food 22 Comments

Giveaway, worldwide: win a cookbook of your choice

Cookbook Giveaway, open worldwide

Update: Congrats to Aaron, who requested The Edible Atlas: Around the World in Thirty Nine Cuisines. The book looks fascinating, it’s another I’ve added to the list.

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen an amazing blog giveaway, and then was bummed that it was only available in the US, or US & Canada if someone was being generous. So I was determined to have a giveaway that was available to you no matter where you live, to say thanks.

And the Book Depository makes that really easy. Even though a certain other company seems to have the majority share on the online book market, it isn’t based in the country where I live, and the shipping cost of a book can be horrendous.

The Book Depository, on the other hand, includes the price of shipping in the price of the book, to 90 countries in the world. You don’t have to try to reach the maximum of a shipping weight category or ship to a friend to mail it to you, or think you’ve found a cheap book but get blindsided by shipping costs. Nope, the price that is quoted is the price that will get it to your door, almost wherever you live.

I know that ebook are popular and don’t take up paper resources or have shipping costs, but there is something I love about holding a real hard copy book in my hands. Maybe I’m old fashioned and nostalgic, but reading an ebook just doesn’t have the same satisfaction as reading a book that has pages.

And there are so many amazing cookbooks out there, full of nourishing recipes and beautiful photography. Some of the cookbooks on my radar include:

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Food, Giveaway , 82 Comments