Rio de Janeiro
Books & Travel Guides

Books About The History And Culture Of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
Travel Guides For Rio, Hotels, Carnaval, Dining & Entertainment

The Brazilian Sound

Frommer's Portable Rio De Janeiro
 

Insight Guide Rio De Janeiro

Fodor's Pocket Rio De Janeiro

How To Be A Carioca
by Priscilla Ann Goslin
Essential reading for gringos visiting
Rio de Janeiro (carioca = Rio native)
 

Lonely Planet Rio De Janeiro

Rio De Janeiro: Berlitz City Guide
Spanish language edition

Rio for Partiers
by Cristiano Nogueira
 

Rio de Janeiro (Writer and the City)
by Ruy Castro

The fifth book in Bloomsbury's the Writer and the City series is no dry travelogue, dutifully reciting the requisite tourist attractions and eating and drinking establishments. Castro (Bossa Nova), a notable Brazilian essayist, meanders through Rio de Janeiro the way a long-time resident might take a visitor through favorite neighborhoods, telling charming anecdotes as they occur to him: a French viscount's lunatic plan to knock down the Sugar Loaf mountain that rises in the midst of Guanabara Bay; the quixotic efforts to move Carnival to the cooler month of June; the playboy Porfirio Rubirosa's loss of his wife in the middle of a dance floor. Historical fables are woven in with an account of contemporary Brazil and a strong dose of the legendary carioca humor. Castro takes us from Amerigo Vespucci's arrival in Brazil in 1502 to the 17th- and 18th-century battles for control of Rio, recounting colonial-era maneuvering with an ear for irony. His musical chronicles follow the Belle Époque and the first hit samba in the 1960s Carnival, "The Girl from Ipanema." He also recounts the drug wars and the growth of the hillside favela slums. He conveys Rio's jeito, or indefinable spirit, in a way that no traditional travel book could ever do. --Publishers Weekly

More Brazil Travel Guides
 

Books On Brazilian Culture
 

Portuguese Language Instruction
 

Carnaval CDs & Samba-Enredos for Carnaval

Read about music in Rio:

Global Books from Culture Planet