Five books to make the architecture and the empires speak. Each tied to a specific city or day; read what you can before you go, and keep one on the plane.
For Day 7, Mostar
Ivo AndriΔ, The Bridge on the Drina
Novel, 1945. Nobel Prize in Literature, 1961.
AndriΔ's masterwork follows the Ottoman bridge over the Drina at ViΕ‘egrad across four centuries, told through the lives that cross it. The book is the touchstone for thinking about what an old bridge means: Mostar's Stari Most is AndriΔ's bridge's architectural cousin, and the morning you spend on Stari Most before the day-trippers arrive will read very differently if you have spent a week with AndriΔ first.
Best read before the trip, or on the flight over.
For Sarajevo, Mostar, Dubrovnik (skip-around)
Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
Travelogue and history, 1941.
A 1,100-page literary tour of pre-WWII Yugoslavia: the most committed, opinionated, beautifully written book about the region in English. Not a beach read. Pick the Sarajevo, Mostar, and Dubrovnik chapters; West's portraits of these places remain accurate enough that you will see her descriptions in front of you as you walk.
Read by region as you go.
For Day 10, Dubrovnik
Marin DrΕΎiΔ, Dundo Maroje
Comedy, 1551. Founding work of Croatian literature.
A Renaissance comedy in Old Ragusan dialect about a son sent to Rome with 5,000 ducats and no business sense, and the desperate father who chases him there. Visit the Marin DrΕΎiΔ House on Day 10 (free, walk-in, just off Stradun), where the museum tells the story through artifacts and panels and the Foundation publishes occasional English-language guides.
Visit the house museum, Day 10 afternoon.
Heads up, Dundo Maroje in English
The Amazon problem
Note on the copy you ordered
English-language editions of Dundo Maroje are scarce; most Amazon listings (including the one I sent you) ship in Croatian. The play exists in English only through academic editions and university anthologies (interlibrary loan is your friend), or via excerpts in An Anthology of Croatian Literature. The most practical substitute for Cody is to read a plot synopsis online, then pick up the English-language handout at the Marin DrΕΎiΔ House on Day 10. Apologies for the bad Amazon link.
Plan B: synopsis online, museum handouts on-site.
For Day 10, Dubrovnik (walls, BuΕΎa sunset)
Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV
Narrative poem, 1818. Public domain.
"The pearl of the Adriatic," which has decorated every Dubrovnik tourism brochure for two centuries, was Byron. Canto IV is the Italian and Adriatic stanzas of the long Romantic pilgrimage. Read it on the BuΕΎa terrace at sunset and you will catch why it stuck.
Read on-site, Day 10 sunset.
For Robert, Day 7, Diocletian's Palace, Split
Robert Adam, Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro
Architectural survey, 1764.
Adam's monumental survey of the palace at Spalatro, made when the structure was still embedded inside the medieval town's daily life. The 60+ engraved plates that launched "the Adam style" and shaped a generation of Neoclassical architecture across Britain and beyond. Bring on a tablet for the Day 7 morning walk through the palace.
Free at archive.org, for Day 7 morning.