Coming to Barcelona and want to prepare with a good book? Here are great books about Barcelona including tourist books, historical books and much more.
Barcelona is one of the most special cities on earth and one of the most visited cities in Europe. It is therefore no wonder that there are lots of books about the city. If you search the web the most popular books about Barcelona are the traditional travel guides, but there are many other books dealing with the history of Barcelona, the architecture of Barcelona and of course the life and the works of Antoni Gaudi.
Because of this we decided to write this article presenting great books about Barcelona which might be of interest to you. We will feature books from all the different categories mentioned earlier in the post, and hopefully you will find one or more of these books interesting. We add a text link to Amazon.com after every book description, making it easy for you to order the book, and maybe have it delivered on your door already tomorrow or in some days or weeks.
Do not forget that in most situations it is cheaper to order the book beforehand (instead of buying at the airport) and when coming to Barcelona you will have a great advantage if you have quite some information about the city and also an overview concerning what’s where before you start walking the streets and La Rambla. If you have read any of the books, why not write a comment at the bottom of the page to tell our visitors what you think of the book?
Books about Barcelona
Top 10 Barcelona
This is one of our absolute favorites if you are looking for a travel guide to Barcelona. It is not packed with hard information, but it is a small book, it easily fits into your pocket and it describes Barcelona in an easy way. Here you will first meet the 10 most important sights in Barcelona, and later the books described the 10 most important attractions in different parts of town, top 10 night life and other super advises. This book will be perfect for most people!
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DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Barcelona & Catalonia
For those who want a book heavier and with more information than the Top 10 Barcelona book, the travel guide book from Eyewitness might be it. This book is full of maps, 3D pictures making it easier to understand and get to know the most important buildings and information about Barcelona in this book consisting of more than 200 pages. If you can’t afford to visit Barcelona, this might be the book that will bring you closest to the city without actually being there.
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Barcelona: A history
In this book written by Robert Hughes he will give you information on the history of Barcelona. You will get to know the rulers, kings, poets and revolutionaries, at the same time as you will be introduced to the cultural life of the city and get to know more about Gaudi and people who have had great influence on the city. The book has almost 600 pages.
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If you like the Barcelona book from Robert Hughes, then you should consider his “follow-up” book named Barcelona The Great Enchantress.
The Barcelona Cookbook: A Celebration of Food, Wine, and Life
The name of the book speak for itself. The book itself has 110 recipes waiting for you with wine recommendations next to the recipes, so that you know what to serve as your guests will arrive. The book also has more than 150 beautiful pictures, making it enjoyable and easy to read and inspiring.
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Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudi, Miro, Dali
During the years after the September Revolution in 1868 Barcelona experienced tremendous growth and rose as the most politically and culturally progressive city in all of Spain. In this book the writer examines this remarkable seventy-one-year period when Barcelona also reigned as a center of modernist art and architecture in Europe. The book focuses on the Catalan Renaixença, Modernisme, Noucentisme, avant-garde movements of the early 20th century as the book offer new insights into the work of such Catalan artists as Antoni Gaudí, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí and many others.
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Barcelona Then and Now
If you have fallen in love with Barcelona you will enjoy this book. Here you will find pictures of the city from back then, and of course pictures from the present day Barcelona. The book in fact contain 70 such pairs, so prepare for this book with a bootle of cava and a good chair!
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Barcelona Noir
In this book you will find 12 short stories from Barcelona written by different authors. They take place in different districts and some of them are directly connected to historical events from the city. If you want to get to know Barcelona in a different (noir) way, this book might be what you are looking for.
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Gaudí of Barcelona
If you are in love with Barcelona and the works of Antoni Gaudi, this is the book. Here you can see beautiful pictures of his works, and get to know the architect and artist much better. The book contain almost 150 color reproductions. For those already familiar with the architect’s work, Melba Levick’s superb and detail photographs will prove a revelation; for those just discovering Gaudí, this book is the next best thing to experiencing the buildings themselves.
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We hope these recommendations are good for you. Please share you thoughts if you have read any of the books, or if you have other recommendations to share with the rest of the readers of our Barcelona Guide. If you are travelling to Amsterdam as well, why not check out the recommendations of books about Amsterdam?
Barcelona Time Traveller. A new book on Barcelona by Wes Gibbons, http://barcelonatimetraveller.com
“A wonderful guide to Barcelona because this one travels through time and not just space, leaving you with a real sense of where the city came from, right back through human history and into deep-time prehistory”.
Thanks for this input to books about Barcelona!