{"product_id":"2026200012380-secondhand-mala-strana-stories-a-week-in-a-quiet-house","title":"Malá Strana Stories: A Week In A Quiet House","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Condition as shown in image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNestled in the cobblestoned heart of nineteenth-century Prague, Malá Strana Stories is a masterwork of Czech literature that chronicles the vivid, tragicomic lives of the inhabitants of the Lesser Town district — a labyrinth of crumbling baroque facades, gossiping neighbours, and quietly desperate souls. Jan Neruda, the towering figure of Czech realism, presents a gallery of unforgettable characters — landlords, students, eccentrics, and dreamers — whose small dramas resonate with an aching universality. The included story, A Week in a Quiet House, illustrates with wry precision the suffocating rhythms of bourgeois life, where every creak of the floorboards carries the weight of unspoken longing.\n\nNeruda's prose is a masterclass in understated irony, suffused with a melancholic warmth that recalls Gogol and Chekhov while remaining unmistakably rooted in the Bohemian spirit. His sketches of Lesser Town life stand as both a loving portrait of a vanished Prague and a sharp social commentary on the hypocrisies of the era. First published in 1878, this collection remains a cornerstone of Central European literature — and a reader who steps into Neruda's Malá Strana may find it remarkably difficult to leave.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49130977755355,"sku":"2026200012380-SECONDHAND","price":10.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/8a038a95-e889-424d-bcb3-383b7c1e86e6.png?v=1786593392","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200012380-secondhand-mala-strana-stories-a-week-in-a-quiet-house","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}