The 1930’s have always fascinated me. It was such a historically difficult time for the entire world. The Great Depression, the rise of Nazi Germany, WWII, and the rise of two of the world’s most notable leaders, FDR and Winston Churchill. I have spent years of study on this period and written three novels that take place during the thirties. Does it make me an expert? No! Only one deeply familiar with an exciting decade.
First of all, I loved this book because the historical background Larson writes about benefited my understanding of the early rule of Hitler as Germany’s Chancellor.
This is the period my novel opens in. As Larson’s story unfolds, he does an excellent job of making the historical truth read like a novel. I loved this. However, what disturbed me was Ambassador Dodd’s inability to convince the State Department of the horrors unfolding under Hitler’s rule. While this truth disturbed me, it also gave me insight as to how this information would enhance the reliability of my novel’s historical background.
Please understand what I’m trying to convey here. This was not a work simply to help me write a novel. No. This book is profound in revealing to a reader how Washington didn’t act quickly enough in recognizing Hitler as a world threat. And Larson presents this truth in a page-turning work of non-fiction.
It's Berlin, 1933. William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered academic from Chicago, has to his own and everyone else's surprise, become America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany, in a year that proves to be a turning point in history. Dodd and his family, notably his vivacious daughter, Martha, observe at first-hand the many changes - some subtle, some disturbing, and some horrifically violent - that signal Hitler's consolidation of power. Dodd has little choice but to associate with key figures in the Nazi party, his increasingly concerned cables make little impact on an indifferent U.S. State Department, while Martha is drawn…
I loved this novel because the writer himself had fled Germany because of Hitler’s oppressive edicts.
There is a genuine authenticity I immediately sensed in each of the characters, and why not, since Feuchtwanger himself experienced first-hand the oppressive darkness spreading across Germany in 1933. Aren’t writers told to write about what they know? Feuchtwanger did just that, and it places a unique value on the novel, making it more a historical document than simply a fictional story.
My hope is many will read this novel and understand the dangers of fascism, so we don’t repeat what history has already taught us.
"Extraordinary . . . No single historical or fictional work has more tellingly or insightfully depicted . . . the insidious manner in which Nazism began to permeate the fabric of German society than Lion Feuchtwanger's great novel." -- New York Times
First published in 1934 but fully imagining the future of Germany over the ensuing years, The Oppermanns tells the compelling story of a remarkable German Jewish family confronted by Hitler's rise to power. Compared to works by Voltaire and Zola on its original publication, this prescient novel strives to awaken an often unsuspecting, sometimes politically naive, or else…
A hundred years in the future, the world has been ravaged by climate change, dwindling resources, and pandemics – one of which has wiped out most of the men. A women’s republic has arisen, sustained by cloning, and privileged teenager Clara Perdue is desperate to become…
I loved Kutscher’s artistic ability to create an oppressive political curtain rapidly closing around Berlin, affecting not only the Jews but also those Germans opposed to fascist ideology.
This dark atmosphere hangs over the entire story, and, as a lover of noir, I appreciate the author’s ability to sustain this throughout the book. For myself, Kutscher checks every box I look for in this genre.
MEET DETECTIVE GEREON RATH IN THE BOOKS THAT INSPIRED THE HIT TV SERIES BABYLON BERLIN
Longlisted for the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger 2021
Berlin, 1933: A homeless former solider is found stabbed under the railway arches.
Gereon Rath is on the case, but struggles to find clues. No one seems interested in solving the murder of a penniless veteran.
Meanwhile, Rath's fiancee Charly has been assigned the case of fifteen-year-old Hannah Singer. Hannah killed her father and six others by starting a house fire but has now been declared mentally unfit to stand trial.
I loved Kerr’s decision to view Berlin through the eyes of his PI Bernie Gunther because I’m seeing fascism through the eyes of a protagonist who cares little about an ideology he recognizes as flawed.
It creates an interesting tension for the character—a strategic loyalty, a quiet resistance to something he knows he can’t topple, so he remains himself—true to his own personality. I love the arc Kerr creates that had me locked into his noir world.
When newlyweds Celia and Ed Cooney discover Celia is pregnant, they pledge to give their baby a good life—but what’s a couple living in a cramped room on $30 a week to do?
They start robbing Brooklyn businesses, much to the amusement of the city’s newspapers: A woman bandit is…
I love this book for the ideological shadows Ishiguro paints of the 1920s and '30s flashback period in the life of the protagonist, English Butler Stevens.
It doesn’t quite fit my title, but I didn’t want to leave it out because the period I mentioned gave me a glance at the respectable forms of fascist sympathy the wealthy European genteel held. This may not be the classic noir I truly love, but just this period of time with the flashback was enough to make me want to add this classic novel to my list.
*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available to preorder*
The Remains of the Day won the 1989 Booker Prize and cemented Kazuo Ishiguro's place as one of the world's greatest writers. David Lodge, chairman of the judges in 1989, said, it's "a cunningly structured and beautifully paced performance". This is a haunting evocation of lost causes and lost love, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change. Ishiguro's work has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold millions of copies worldwide.
Stevens, the long-serving butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on…
Born in Brody, Poland, Eva Siegling and Freda Behm were once inseparable—until jealousy splintered their bond. Eva, haunted by visions, marries Gustav, a Jewish professor dismissed from Freiburg University as Hitler rises to power. With nowhere else to turn, Eva and Gustav flee to Brooklyn, seeking shelter with Freda, now a disillusioned theater singer. Their reunion is brittle, shadowed by old wounds and unspoken grief.
The only thread still binding them is a golden menorah—cast during the Spanish Inquisition by a rabbi who may have embedded within it a prophecy meant to sustain the persecuted. When the menorah is stolen, its absence ignites a search led by private investigator Lee Marshall, plunging him into a web of murder, Nazi occult obsession, and the violent underworld of Murder Inc.
Lois Lowry looks back at history through a personal lens as she draws from her own memories as a child in Hawaii and Japan, as well as from historical research, in this stunning work in verse for young readers.
On the Horizon tells the story of people whose lives were…
The plan was insane. The trap seemed to snap shut on Bruce and Maggie Tate, an isolation forced on them by the pandemic and America's growing political factionalism. Something had to change.
Maggie's surprising answer: buy a boat, learn to pilot it, and embark on the Great Loop. With no…
