This is a list of books about the city and romances where Lisbon takes the centre stage:
In 1754 Henry Fielding, suffering from a serious illness was winched aboard a ship bound for Portugal. This is Fielding's diary of that journey, but was also his opportunity to scrutinize his body's decay and the corruption of English society. It was completed some weeks before his death.
When jazz pianist Santiago Biralbo meets the wife of an American art dealer, he begins not only an obsessional love affair, but also an odyssey that will strip him of his identity in his quest to understand love and music.
Set in Lisbon in 1506, a debut novel in the tradition of The Name of the Rose. When his uncle, a renowned kabbalist, is found dead, Berekiah's investigations lead him into the secret ways in which the Jews sought to hide from their persecutors.
When Raimundo Silva, humble proof-reader for a Lisbon publishing house, takes it upon himself to insert a negative into the sentence of a history book, he rewrites history. The effect of this act of insubordination is to make his editor, the voluptuous Dra. Maria Sara, fall in love with him.
A Portuguese bank is founded on the back of Nazi wartime deals. Over half a century later a young girl is murdered in Lisbon. 1941. Klaus Felsen, SS, arrives in Lisbon and the strangest party in history where Nazis and Allies, refugees and entrepreneurs dance to the strains of opportunism and despair. Felsen's war takes him to the bleak mountains of the north where a brutal battle is being fought for an element vital to Hitler's blitzkrieg. Late 1990s, Lisbon. Inspector Zé Coelho is investigating the murder of a young girl with a disturbing sexual past. As Zé digs deeper he overturns the dark soil of history and unearths old bones. The 1974 revolution has left injustices of the old fascist regime unresolved. But there's an older, greater injustice for which this small death in Lisbon is horrific compensation, and in his final push for the truth, Zé must face the most chilling opposition.
The stifling summer streets of Lisbon are teeming with spies and informers when Andrea Aspinall, an English mathematician turned spy, disappears under a new identity. Military attaché Karl Voss, experienced in the illusions of intrigue, arrives in Lisbon under the German Legation, though he is secretly working against the Nazis so that atomic and rocket technology do not find their way into Hitler's hands.
Edward Steele is at last on his way home and determined to be in Collingbourne before Christmas — but that was before he met Denley and Osborne. Sailing from Africa to England, Edward meets these two very different men aboard ship. Osborne chooses to ignore everyone while Denley and Edward find themselves much together. But as their journey continues, Denley begins to feel unwell. By the time the ship stops in Lisbon, Portugal, he is very sick indeed. Not able to ignore his traveling companion’s plight, Edward abandons his goal of going home and disembarks with Denley and Osborne. He never dreams that his association with them will lead to the mysterious Nicola Bettencourt, a woman who captivates and confounds him in equal measures.
Night Train to Lisbon is a sensuous tale of the pursuit of love and passion against all odds, set in the 1930s when the world was on the brink of war and suspicion of loyalty, motivation, and intent — to both country and lover — was at flood tide.Carson Weatherell is a privileged young American woman traveling in Europe in 1936, courtesy of her aunt and uncle who live abroad and have kindly offered to show her the sights. A bout of illness and self-pity almost send her back to her sheltered Connecticut life, but on an overnight train to Lisbon, she suddenly can't imagine returning home. On that train she meets Alec Breve, a young British scientist traveling with a group of colleagues — and in his company, Carson finds that she's enjoying herself, certainly for the first time since she left New York Harbor, and quite possibly for the first time in her life. In Lisbon, Carson and Alec begin an intense love affair, but their bliss is threatened when Carson's uncle reveals that Alec might be a spy for Germany. He insists that it is essential that Alec be trapped and brought to justice, and the only person who can deliver an unsuspecting Alec to the proper authorities is Carson. Desperate to believe in her new love — and terrified of discovering she has fallen for a traitor — Carson must choose whether to prove her lover innocent or leave him to face the consequences on his own. A riveting page-turner, Night Train to Lisbon travels back to the days when war loomed, the Mitford sisters dazzled, and night trains brimmed with romance and intrigue, delivering a mesmerizing novel of a love that must truly conquer all in order to survive.
The often abstruse critic Benjamin gave a series of radio broadcasts for children in the early 1930s. This one, from 1931, discusses the Lisbon earthquake and summarizes some of its impact on European thought.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5. It uses material from the Wikitravel article "Lisbon".