Budapest - A Critical Guide

Tenth fully revised edition

This book is an insider’s guide that would enchant its readers with facts, opinion and personal memories. It was first published in 1989, when liberty and the free market suddenly and unexpectedly returned to Budapest, bringing new opportunities and new dilemmas. It soon became a cult book. The author originally did not want to include photos because photos always lie… However, he did insist on maps, which have become the hallmark of his love project. He has always been interested in old and new things alike. In the later editions, old photos and his own snapshots gradually found their place. In the present editions readers will find some QR codes that lead them to film clips. The one on the last page leads to the section with the monthly updates on the author’s website. This guidebook could easily be the first guidebook that will never be outdated. Long live printed books combined with online updates! You can’t beat a printed book written by a local insider. Especially one that has the ambition to make you a native Budapester overnight. Give it a whirl, then pass it on to your friends at home. They too might love reading it, even far away from Budapest…

„An affectionate and idiosyncratic guide.” Daisann McLane, The New York Times, 1998

„Perhaps nothing so idiosyncratic has appeared on the market since the writer Antal Szerb wrote his delightful… A Martian’s Guide to Budapest, 1935… – the booklet was a whimsical and gently ironic love letter to Budapest, qualities it shares with Török’s work half a century later.”

Nicholas T. Parsons, The Hungarian Quarterly, 2005

„It is wonderful how he can present Budapest – all his words are truthful, yet his descriptions evoke a city ten times more exciting and attractive than is generally perceived. Probably it is his version that is the genuine one – we should imitate his way of glancing at it.”

Dávid Zubrecki, Hype and Hyper, 2023

„His guidebook Budapest. A Critical Guide, updated regularly since it was first published in 1989, is as playful as it is insightful and helped me reacquaint myself with the city.”

Stephen Hiltner, The New York Times, 2023

András Török (1954) was born, raised, and trained in Budapest. He likes to call himself a cultural adventurer, others simply call him Mr. Budapest since he has long been an ardent observer of the urban scene here, becoming a volunteer promoter for his home town. He has worked as a teacher, a typographic designer, an editor, and as deputy minister for culture. He was the founding director of the Hungarian House of Photography, is the manager of Fortepan – the free online photo archive – and is the host of a fortnightly Budapest-related programme on Tilos Rádió, as well as the author of nine non-fiction books (three of which are available in English). He has always lived in Pest, but his book covers the Pest and the Buda sides impartially. As he once put it: “I consider all Budapest my home turf, just like as a Hungarian I feel all Europe my homeland.”