Showing Budapest: A Critical Guide by András Török

This book introduces Budapest in a thousand ways, additionally, in a more interesting and entertaining manner than the conventional guidebooks. It guides the reader through the cultural, gastronomical and architectural attractions of the capital by the help of several illustrations and practical walking maps in a casual and honest style. This adventurous journey that leads from the historic monuments through the small shops of hidden streets to special restaurants could end in only one way: getting acquainted and falling in love with Budapest for a lifetime.
"It's essentially a loving and learned essay on the city slyly disguised as a guidebook. What he really does is to capture the soul of the city and its denizens, past and present. His evocative observations and opinions, laced with wit and candor could only have come from one clever guy who's truly lived the life in Budapest. You'll read every page of this book as though it were a novel." From a reader on amazon.com
András Török, aka Simplicissimus (b. 1954) is an author, lecturer, and long-time chronicler of the Budapest urban scene. This is the seventh edition of his third book. He studied English, History and Modern Greek in his native Budapest during the 1970s, then he sharpened his wit in the dissident intellectual salons. Later he worked as translator, teacher, graphic designer and, after the Fall of the Wall, deputy minister for culture and President of the National Cultural Fund. Meanwhile, instead of writing new books, he re-wrote this same book, over and over again. He is a founder and regular columnist of the monthly Budapest, re-launched for the third time. A critic has called this book "The Bildungsroman of the author, who is a cross between a local historian, a journalist and a fiction writer."