by finn ballard | Dec 24, 2020 | Blog
This month, our book is the final work by Philip Kerr: ‘Metropolis,’ set in 1928 Berlin. Published posthumously, this is the last of Kerr’s series of ‘Bernie Gunther’ novels, on which he worked since the 1980s. Bernie, a World War One veteran, has recently joined the...
by finn ballard | Dec 10, 2020 | Blog
This month, our book is Peter Gay’s ‘Weimar Culture’. It is available online in PDF format, or should be easily attainable in print. German-born historian Peter Gay lived through the early years of the Weimar Republic, emigrating to America at the...
by finn ballard | Nov 26, 2020 | Blog
This month, I’d like to recommend Peter Schneider’s ‘The Wall Jumper,’ a short novella which will be our Book Club choice for July 19th. Published in 1982, the story revolves around Berliners who move back and forth over the Wall at will, to...
by finn ballard | Nov 12, 2020 | Blog
This month, I’d like to recommend ‘Alone in Berlin’. Don’t be intimidated about it being quite a tome – it is a fast read, though a harrowing one. Based upon the true story of Elise and Otto Hampel, a working-class Berlin couple who...
by finn ballard | Oct 29, 2020 | Blog
This month, you might be especially interested to read Deborah Feldman’s memoir ‘Unorthodox.’ Feldman left the ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to move to Berlin in 2014. Her story has been adapted into a Netflix...
