Book description
Humane, thought provoking, and moving, this hybrid literary portrait of a place makes the case for radical close readings: of ourselves, our cities, and our histories.
The Undercurrents is a dazzling work of biography, memoir, and cultural criticism told from a precise vantage point: a stately nineteenth-century house on Berlin’s…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Undercurrents as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
It's a gripping memoir and a history of the building in Berlin to which Kirsty Bell had fled after a divorce. It's an emotional ride of the undercurrents of all our lives that in the way of unercurrents keep shifting shape. It's fascinating both as an intensely personal and deep historical story.
Prepare yourself for a thrilling and idiosyncratic ride where a pool of water on Bell’s kitchen floor leads her to investigate Berlin’s “swampy” past while also trying to make a home for herself and her sons after a divorce.
Bell, an Anglo-American art critic and author, shows us how to find undercurrents hidden below the surface in both history and our own lives and how to put the pieces together in meaningful if fragmented, new patterns.
I agree with the New York Times review that we are “mysteriously changed - enriched - by the journey she has invited us to…
If you love The Undercurrents...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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