Twenty Years in Roumania

While definitely a product of its time and the background of the writer, this memoir presents a fascinating snapshot of a Romania, and Bucharest in particular, that is at once both distant but familiar. It reflects a time before the deprivations of communism; when Bucharest was probably closest to the vision of “Little Paris”. The author obviously thought highly of the country and her time there.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in “old” Romania. Hard copies of the book are probably difficult to find (although a Romanian translation has just been recently released), however, since the book is out of copyright, it can be easily found online as a free ebook (the version I read was not a perfect scan, but good enough).