Where is your nonfiction section please.
Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction, by David Enrich (Amazon / Book Depository) This is the story of Deutsche Bank’s rise and fall. It is about the men who transformed a sleepy German lender into what was, for a time, the largest bank in the world, but who also... Continue Reading →
Book review: A Bookshop in Berlin, by Francoise Frenkel (Amazon / Book Depository) Francoise Frenkel, born Frymeta Frenkel, was a Polish Jew who opened Berlin's first French-language bookstore in 1921. She fled Berlin after the infamous Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, that targeted Jewish shops and institutions, abandoning the beloved shop she'd had to... Continue Reading →
The Zookeepers' War: An Incredible True Story from the Cold War, by J.W. Mohnhaupt, translated from German by Shelley Frisch (Amazon / Book Depository) published November 12, 2019 The English translation of J.W. Mohnhaupt's German bestseller The Zookeepers' War opens with scenes from (West) Berlin's Zoological Garden as the Second World War reached Berlin's doorstep. It follows... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Dead Ladies Project, by Jessa Crispin (Amazon / Book Depository) It was my circumstances that were killing me, I was sure of it. Jessa Crispin, editor of the now-defunct online literary magazine Bookslut, published a memoir, The Dead Ladies Project in 2015, but I was in no hurry to read it. I couldn't... Continue Reading →
One last installment of 2019's upcoming nonfiction new releases: We've got cult insiders, lesser known Cold War tales, undercover in asylums, retracing Napoleon's Russian retreat, jackasses, life and death in colonial Sydney, women profiling women, and a genre-bending look at domestic abuse, and some new nonfiction in translation, among others. The Berlin Mission: The American... Continue Reading →
August is Women in Translation month, an annual celebration of writing by women translated into English. I'm late to be sharing anything about this, but in case you can still catch something, bookstores often spotlight titles and hold sales, host special events and readings, and many publishers offer discounts on titles by women in translation.... Continue Reading →
Review: 1947: Where Now Begins, by Elisabeth Asbrink (Amazon / Book Depository) I try to assemble the year 1947 into a splintered whole. This is lunacy, but time does not leave me alone. Within the first few pages of 1947, I made myself slow down because I realized I was reading something special and I didn't want it... Continue Reading →
Book review: Maybe Esther, by Katja Petrowskaja (Amazon / Book Depository) The train station was recently built in the middle of this city, and despite the peace the station was inhospitable, as though it embodied all the losses that no train could outrun, one of the most inhospitable places in our Europe, united as it is... Continue Reading →
One post of anticipated reads for 2018 wasn't enough to include them all, especially with so many exciting -sounding ones already on the release calendar. Here, a dozen more of the year's upcoming reads I think are worth taking note of, mainly from the latter part of the year. Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True... Continue Reading →
The portal of the Berlin City Library (Berliner Stadtbibliothek) at Breite Straße 32-34 in Berlin-Mitte. It shows steel plates with 117 variations of the letter "A", created by Fritz Kühn in 1965. By Beek100 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons Book review: The Book Thieves, by Anders Rydell This is to... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Scholl Case by Anja Reich-Osang, translated by Imogen Taylor (Amazon / Book Depository) In the last days of 2011, Brigitte Scholl, the wife of a former mayor of the small town of Ludwigsfelde to the south of Berlin, is found murdered in the forest. Shortly after, suspicion falls on her husband Heinrich... Continue Reading →
Book review: Lindell's List by Peter Hore (Amazon / Book Depository) Early on in reading Lindell's List, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to keep track of all the people who were in some way involved in the stories and narrative, whether integrally or peripherally. There were so many introduced in rapid succession,... Continue Reading →
