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Can you recommend a book or two about modern Germany?

I am planning a trip to Germany later this year to visit friends and I should like to read three or four books by way of preparation.  I have spent less than seven nights there in the last 40 years and I feel that a bit of post war German writing (in English translation) would greatly improve my appreciation and probably make me a better guest. Can you recommend a book? A film?

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Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on February 23, 2012 at 12:52
Permalink Reply by Johnny on February 24, 2012 at 20:18

Goodbye Lenin is a film to watch, bit sentimental though.  Or maybe see if you can track down anything shown at recent German film festivals, usually at the Curzon.  

WG Sebald is a great contemporary German writer who lived in England most of his life but wrote in German.  He oversaw all translations of his work into English, so they are excellent.

Permalink Reply by Pat Devereaux on March 6, 2012 at 15:10
Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on March 9, 2012 at 2:41

Many thanks to everyone who responded to my request.  I also consulted a few friends who are not in HoL.  I have made a list of the books and films that were suggested directly or indirectly and this is given below.  I read the newest book at once (the one by Philip Oltermann) and was so impressed by it that I consulted him too.  He was kind enough to suggest five more books and one more film.  He also enthused about the TV series Heimat.

The list includes 28 books and 13 named films which is rather more than I had in mind so I have had to choose.  For the time being, I intend to concentrate on the first four or five books below and on the first part of Heimat (that’s eleven episodes).

Books:

Keeping Up with the Germans by Philip Oltermann

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Stasiland by Anna Funder

Baader Meinhof Complex by Stefan Aust

The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany by David Blackbourn

The Emigrants, Vertigo and Rings of Saturn by W G Sebald

The Tin Drum, Peeling the Onion and The Box by Günter Grass

The Safety Net by Heinrich Boll. 

The File by Timothy Garton Ash

What We Knew by Eric A. Johnson and Karl - Heinz Reuband

Five Germanys I Have Known by Fritz Stern

Germany: Unravelling an Enigma by Greg Nees

The Germans by Gordon A. Craig

Effi Briest  by Theodor Fontane

The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf

Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome

The Piano Teacher by Elfride Jelinek 

Love in the time of the Mahlstädt child: stories by Clemens Setz

In Europe by Geert Mak

Measuring the World by Daniel Kelinek

Atemschaukel (Everything I Possess I Carry With Me) and Der Fuchs war damals schon der

Jäger (Even Back Then, the Fox Was the Hunter) by Herta Müller

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

Flights of Love by Bernhard Schlink

Berlin Blues by Sven Regener

Films:

The Wave by Denis Gansel

The Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Run Lola Run by Tom Tykwer

Goodbye Lenin by Wolfgang Becker

Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders

Baader-Meinhof Komplex by Uli Edel

Downfall and The Final Days by Oliver Hirschbiegel

Women in Berlin by Max Färberböck

The Hunters are the Hunted by Peter Fleischer

Amen by Rolf Hochhuth

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser by Werner Herzog

Anything by Schöndorff, Herzog, Fassbinder, Costa-Gavras

Head On by Fatih Akin

TV:

Heimat

Permalink Reply by Linda Zubairi on March 9, 2012 at 10:43

Hi Dick, thank you for sharing that list of books, I can't wait to have a look at some of these. May I offer a suggestion for a good read on German food and much information around it? I find that is one interesting part of culture, and it always makes for a good conversation starter. I liked this one a lot because it's less of a cook book and more about regions, food culture, traditions and anecdotes, so I've reviewed it on my blog. It also has great photographs. Enjoy your trip!

http://www.morethansausages.com/culinaria/

Permalink Reply by StephenBln on March 9, 2012 at 11:04

Thanks for the link Linda... German food, like it's wine can be underrated. No other country produces so many different sorts of (wonderful tasty) bread.. http://www.hofpfisterei.de/hpf_sortiment_natursauerteigbrote.php?vi...

@Dick I especially liked the  Baader-Meinhof Komplex Film by Uli Edel as well as Downfall and The Final Days ..  and Traudl Junge's book about her time as secretary to H+tler is also interesting - about coming to terms with living through that period..

Pina Bausch! _ The tribute film to her is also IMO very good:

or here: http://www.pina-film.de/en/pina-bausch.html

Permalink Reply by StephenBln on March 9, 2012 at 11:36

Available via the internet are two multi national TV stations.. 3SAT & ARTE available everywhere in Germany..

3SAT Is a joint German, Austrian & Swiss station. Be aware that the Swiss are considered to be, at least within the German speaking world, as conservative and a bit boring.. a clichee maybe, but all clichees have some basis.

http://www.3sat.de/index.html

and then there's ARTE, a joint French-German station with all programming available in French & German - Maybe this might be a way into German Culture for those can speak French better than German..

http://www.arte.tv/fr French

http://www.arte.tv/de German

http://videos.arte.tv/fr/videos/html/index-4268756.html en direct/live

I've often thought a joint German-English station might be worthwhile.. as the understanding and knowledge of Germany in Britain is somewhat lacking.. But, I expect that the Brits, being TV chauvanists, who prefer to buy in MACprogramming  from the USA, wouldn't be much interested .. Better stay with the old chlichees you know and love, than be really in touch.

Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on March 9, 2012 at 13:58

Not at all what Dick was looking for, nor yet "the old cliches you know and love" as StephenBln puts it, I found Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" (2010) an eye-opener. Not so much Heimat as Lebensraum meets Das To(e)ten Raum where Uncle Adolf meets Uncle Joe in the spaces in between. But then I find you can often learn more about lebensraum seekers in the countries they've visited than on their home soil. Like Dick Harris, I return to Vienna at Easter, 43 years after my one and only visit. I think I'll revert to Snyder on the Hapsburgs for my prep.

Permalink Reply by StephenBln on March 9, 2012 at 15:07

OAE, I'm sure you'll notice that Wien has become a very Modern European Metropole ..

the post '89 opening up of the Hinterland of the old Republic surely has contributed much to that.. But, for me, this City, the melting pot of Austria-Hungary, is the real birth place of N+zism and where a hundred years ago, Uncle A was so influenced by Lueger and others.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger

I hope you are not referring to the myth of Austria being a N+zi victim... ?

Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on March 9, 2012 at 16:36

I hope you are not referring to the myth of Austria being a N+zi victim... ?


No, Steve. I was actually thinking of the island west of us here, specifically its six N-E counties. Uncle A was not the inventor of lebensraum. Tudors and Stuarts, Whigs and Tories had their own local versions - which have certainly come closer to being a thousand-year Reich than Uncle A's puny five or six-year effort.

But, from Snyder's volume, I suppose I meant by "the countries they've visited" those in-between places like Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and the Baltic states.


Permalink Reply by StephenBln on March 9, 2012 at 15:29

Going slightly OT ..

Have you read Brigitte Hamann's books?  Her book on H+tler's years in Vienna and on the First World War are enlightening.. and are seen IMO from a rare and honest Austrian point of view..

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/hamann-hitler.html

WW1:  Truth and lies  http://www.amazon.de/erste-Weltkrieg-Wahrheit-Bildern-Texten/dp/349...

Permalink Reply by StephenBln on March 10, 2012 at 10:06

Gavin Esler is doing something on Newsnight next week about today's Germany..

http://www.fluxfm.de/feature/london-calling-bbc-zu-besuch-bei-fluxfm/

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