The Girl from Berlin
The Girl from Berlin

Author: Ronald H. Balson

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2018-10-09

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1250195268

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In the newest novel from internationally-bestselling author Ronald. H. Balson, Liam and Catherine come to the aid of an old friend and are drawn into a property dispute in Tuscany that unearths long-buried secrets An old friend calls Catherine Lockhart and Liam Taggart to his famous Italian restaurant to enlist their help. His aunt is being evicted from her home in the Tuscan hills by a powerful corporation claiming they own the deeds, even though she can produce her own set of deeds to her land. Catherine and Liam’s only clue is a bound handwritten manuscript, entirely in German, and hidden in its pages is a story long-forgotten... Ada Baumgarten was born in Berlin in 1918, at the end of the war. The daughter of an accomplished first-chair violinist in the prestigious Berlin Philharmonic, and herself a violin prodigy, Ada’s life was full of the rich culture of Berlin’s interwar society. She formed a deep attachment to her childhood friend Kurt, but they were torn apart by the growing unrest as her Jewish family came under suspicion. As the tides of history turned, it was her extraordinary talent that would carry her through an unraveling society turned to war, and make her a target even as it saved her, allowing her to move to Bologna—though Italy was not the haven her family had hoped, and further heartache awaited. What became of Ada? How is she connected to the conflicting land deeds of a small Italian villa? As they dig through the layers of lies, corruption, and human evil, Catherine and Liam uncover an unfinished story of heart, redemption, and hope—the ending of which is yet to be written. Don't miss Liam and Catherine's lastest adventures in The Girl from Berlin!

Walking in Berlin
Walking in Berlin

Author: Franz Hessel

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-12-08

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0262539667

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The first English translation of a lost classic that reinvents the flaneur in Berlin. Franz Hessel (1880–1941), a German-born writer, grew up in Berlin, studied in Munich, and then lived in Paris, where he moved in artistic and literary circles. His relationship with the fashion journalist Helen Grund was the inspiration for Henri-Pierre Roche's novel Jules et Jim (made into a celebrated 1962 film by Francois Truffaut). In collaboration with Walter Benjamin, Hessel reinvented the Parisian figure of the flaneur. This 1929 book—here in its first English translation—offers Hessel's version of a flaneur in Berlin. In Walking in Berlin, Hessel captures the rhythm of Weimar-era Berlin, recording the seismic shifts in German culture. Nearly all of the essays take the form of a walk or outing, focusing on either a theme or part of the city, and many end at a theater, cinema, or club. Hessel deftly weaves the past with the present, walking through the city's history as well as its neighborhoods. Even today, his walks in the city, from the Alexanderplatz to Kreuzberg, can guide would-be flaneurs. Walking in Berlin is a lost classic, known mainly because of Hessel's connection to Benjamin but now introduced to readers of English. Walking in Berlin was a central model for Benjamin's Arcades Project and remains a classic of “walking literature” that ranges from Surrealist perambulation to Situationist “psychogeography.” This MIT Press edition includes the complete text in translation as well as Benjamin's essay on Walking in Berlin, originally written as a review of the book's original edition. “An absolutely epic book, a walking remembrance.” —Walter Benjamin

Taking Lives
Taking Lives

Author: Michael Pye

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0307428044

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Martin Arkenhout found his true calling on a lonely Florida highway -- with a sharp rock to the skull of an injured friend. He didn't just take the boy's life; he went on to live it. When that life became too risky, he found another, and another, changing his name, papers and style at will, until he chose the wrong life -- a scholarly thief on the run from the determined and troubled John Costa. The two men will meet, and there will be murder. But there is something much worse: the sweet seduction of taking another's life to be your own. Chillingly suspenseful, brilliantly executed and truly disturbing, Taking Lives is an entertainment to make you think and shiver.

Berlin Childhood Around 1900
Berlin Childhood Around 1900

Author: Walter Benjamin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780674022225

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Not an autobiography in the customary sense, Benjamin's recollection of his childhood in an upper-middle-class Jewish home in Berlin's West End at the turn of the century is translated into English for the first time in book form.

What I Saw
What I Saw

Author: Joseph Roth

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780393051674

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"[Joseph Roth] is now recognized as one of the twentieth century's great writers." --Anthony Heilbut, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Berlin Stories
Berlin Stories

Author: Robert Walser

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2012-01-24

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1590174739

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A New York Review Books Original In 1905 the young Swiss writer Robert Walser arrived in Berlin to join his older brother Karl, already an important stage-set designer, and immediately threw himself into the vibrant social and cultural life of the city. Berlin Stories collects his alternately celebratory, droll, and satirical observations on every aspect of the bustling German capital, from its theaters, cabarets, painters’ galleries, and literary salons, to the metropolitan street, markets, the Tiergarten, rapid-service restaurants, and the electric tram. Originally appearing in literary magazines as well as the feuilleton sections of newspapers, the early stories are characterized by a joyous urgency and the generosity of an unconventional guide. Later pieces take the form of more personal reflections on the writing process, memories, and character studies. All are full of counter-intuitive images and vignettes of startling clarity, showcasing a unique talent for whom no detail was trivial, at grips with a city diving headlong into modernity.

A Woman in Berlin
A Woman in Berlin

Author:

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2005-08-04

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780805075403

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With shocking and vivid detail, the journal of a woman living through the Russian occupation of Berlin in 1945 tells of the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject and describes the common experience of millions.

Berlin Now
Berlin Now

Author: Peter Schneider

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2014-08-05

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0374254842

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A "longtime Berliner's ... exploration of the heterogeneous allure of this vibrant city. Delving beneath the obvious answers--Berlin's club scene, bolstered by the lack of a mandatory closing time; the artistic communities that thrive due to the relatively low (for now) cost of living--Schneider takes us on an insider's tour of this rapidly metamorphosing metropolis, where high-class soirees are held at construction sites and enterprising individuals often accomplish more without public funding--assembling a makeshift club on the banks of the Spree River--than Berlin's officials do"--Provided by publisher.

Leaving Berlin
Leaving Berlin

Author: Joseph Kanon

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2015-03-03

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 147670466X

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New York Times Notable Book * Named one of NPR and Wall Street Journal's Best Books of the Year * The acclaimed author of The Good German “deftly captures the ambience” (The New York Times Book Review) of postwar East Berlin in his “thought-provoking, pulse-pounding” (Wall Street Journal) New York Times bestseller—a sweeping spy thriller about a city caught between political idealism and the harsh realities of Soviet occupation. Berlin, 1948. Almost four years after the war’s end, the city is still in ruins, a physical wasteland and a political symbol about to rupture. In the West, a defiant, blockaded city is barely surviving on airlifted supplies; in the East, the heady early days of political reconstruction are being undermined by the murky compromises of the Cold War. Espionage, like the black market, is a fact of life. Even culture has become a battleground, with German intellectuals being lured back from exile to add credibility to the competing sectors. Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Faced with deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the fledgling CIA: he will earn his way back to America by acting as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start things go fatally wrong. A kidnapping misfires, an East German agent is killed, and Alex finds himself a wanted man. Worse, he discovers his real assignment—to spy on the woman he left behind, the only woman he has ever loved. Changing sides in Berlin is as easy as crossing a sector border. But where do we draw the lines of our moral boundaries? At betrayal? Survival? Murder? Joseph Kanon’s compelling thriller is a love story that brilliantly brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.

Karolina's Twins
Karolina's Twins

Author: Ronald H. Balson

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: 2016-09-06

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1250089050

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In the tradition of The Nightingale, Sarah's Key, and Lilac Girls, comes a saga inspired by true events of a Holocaust survivor’s quest to return to Poland and fulfill a promise, from Ronald H. Balson, author of the international bestseller Once We Were Brothers. ~~ “Readers who crave more books like Balson’s Once We Were Brothers and Kristin Hannah’s bestselling The Nightingale will be enthralled by Karolina’s Twins.” —Booklist (starred review) "A heart-wrenching but ultimately triumphant story." —Chicago Tribune ~~ She made a promise in desperation Now it's time to keep it Lena Woodward, elegant and poised, has lived a comfortable life among Chicago Society since she immigrated to the US and began a new life at the end of World War II. But now something has resurfaced that Lena cannot ignore: an unfulfilled promise she made long ago that can no longer stay buried. Driven to renew the quest that still keeps her awake at night, Lena enlists the help of lawyer Catherine Lockhart and private investigator Liam Taggart. Behind Lena’s stoic facade are memories that will no longer be contained. She begins to recount a tale, harkening back to her harrowing past in Nazi-occupied Poland, of the bond she shared with her childhood friend Karolina. Karolina was vivacious and beautiful, athletic and charismatic, and Lena has cherished the memory of their friendship her whole life. But there is something about the story that is unfinished, questions that must be answered about what is true and what is not, and what Lena is willing to risk to uncover the past. Has the real story been hidden these many years? And if so, why? Two girls, coming of age in a dangerous time, bearers of secrets that only they could share. Just when you think there could not be anything new to ferret out from World War II comes Karolina's Twins, a spellbinding new novel by the bestselling author of Once We Were Brothers and Saving Sophie. In this richly woven tale of love, survival and resilience during some of the darkest hours, the unbreakable bond between girlhood friends will have consequences into the future and beyond.