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When the Summer Was Ours

When the Summer Was Ours
  • Author(s): Roxanne Veletzos
  • Location(s): Budapest, Dachau, New York City (NYC), Paris, Sopron
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1943, 1956-57, early 1990s

A sweeping tale about lovers separated by circumstance, the lives they each lead, and the various points at which their journeys intersect. Set mostly in Hungary (Sopron and Budapest) with chapters in both Germany (Dachau) and the USA (New...

When the World Was Ours

When the World Was Ours
  • Author(s): Liz Kessler
  • Location(s): Vienna, England, Germany, Poland, Prague
  • Genre(s): Young Adult
  • Era(s): World War Two

Three friends. Two sides. One memory. Vienna. 1936. Three young friends – Leo, Elsa and Max – spend a perfect day together, unaware that around them Europe is descending into a growing darkness, and that events soon mean that...

While We Were Dreaming

While We Were Dreaming
  • Author(s): Clemens Meyer, Katy Derbyshire (Translator)
  • Location(s): Leipzig
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Later 20th Century

Rico, Mark, Paul and Daniel were 13 when the Berlin Wall fell in autumn 1989. Growing up in Leipzig at the time of reunification, they dream of a better life somewhere beyond the brewery quarter. Every night they roam the streets, partying, rioting,...

Why We Took the Car

Why We Took the Car
  • Author(s): Wolfgang Herrndorf
  • Location(s): Brandenburg
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Modern

Mike doesn’t get why people think he’s boring. Sure, he doesn’t have many friends. (OK, zero friends.) And everyone laughs at him when he reads his essays out loud in class. And he’s never invited to parties. But one...

Worlds Apart

Worlds Apart
  • Author(s): Julia Franck, Imogen Taylor (translator)
  • Location(s): Berlin
  • Genre(s): Autofiction
  • Era(s): 20th Century

Born in East Berlin, Julia is eight when her actress mother uproots her family of four girls, by different fathers, in search of a better life. Their eventual landing in the remote countryside of Schleswig-Holstein solves no problems for...

Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Gone

Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Gone
  • Author(s): Stefan Kiesbye
  • Location(s): Germany
  • Genre(s): Horror

The book begins with the funeral of Anke, the final occupant of the von Kamphoff Manor in the ficitonal village of Hemmersmoor. We observe events through different characters and the reader is taken on a dark and twisted journey,...

Zen and the Art of Murder

Zen and the Art of Murder
  • Author(s): Oliver Bottini
  • Location(s): Black Forest
  • Genre(s): Crime, Mystery
  • Era(s): Modern

Louise Boni, maverick chief inspector with the Black Forest crime squad, is struggling with her demons. Divorced at forty-two, she is haunted by the shadows of the past. Dreading yet another a dreary winter weekend alone, she receives a...

Zoo Station

Zoo Station
  • Author(s): David Downing
  • Location(s): Berlin
  • Genre(s): Historical, Thriller
  • Era(s): 1939

Englishman John Russell is a member of the foreign press corps in Berlin and a first-hand witness to the brutal machinations of Hitler and the Nazi party in the build-up to war during the early months of 1939. When...

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