by Myla Goldberg (2004, Crown Journeys. ISBN 1400046041--144 pp., $16 hardcover).

Crown Journeys' books pick up where the guidebooks leave off: they look beyond the landmarks and depict living cities as they really are. So in Myla Goldberg's stroll through the Czech capital, she stops to observe street vendors, traffic police and fastfood restaurants. She strives for an all-inclusive portrait of the city, one that records much of what we tourists willfully overlook.

At times, Goldberg comes close to capturing the zeitgeist of post-communist Prague. Dozens of books already describe Old Town Square, but what other writer has remarked on Prague's dingy gambling parlors, where "catatonic men feed coins into slot machines"? But some of the scenes described are too fleeting to have any larger import. A description of a protest against the Iraq war, for instance, tells us next to nothing about the city.

Also afflicting this text is an allegiance to the Marcel Proust school of literary detail. (Three whole pages are devoted to a description of sweets sold at an amusement park.) And the accompanying droll observations are too Often belabored. Perhaps other Crown Journeys authors can make more of their assignment. As for Prague, the guidebook that Goldberg cites as a reference, "Cadogan Guide Prague," remains the best read on the city.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Martin Publications, Inc.
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