The Passenger: Berlin

The Passenger: Berlin
Author: The Passenger
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1609456696

The best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from and about Berlin—in the series that’s “like a literary vacation” (Publishers Weekly). In 1990s Berlin, the scars of a century of war were still visible everywhere: coal stoves, crumbling buildings, desolate minimarts, not a working buzzer or elevator. To visit the city then was a hallucinatory experience, a simultaneous journey into the past and into the future. The abandoned ruins, the hidden gems found at the flea market, the illegal basement raves are a thing of the past. The era of Berlin as a site of urban archeology is over. Almost all the damaged buildings have been repaired, squatters have been removed, the shops selling East German furniture have closed down. Without its wounds, the landscape of the city is perhaps less striking but more solid, stronger. Even the city’s inhabitants have lost some of their melancholia, their romantic and self-destructive streak: today you can even find people who come to Berlin to actually work, not just to “create” or idle their days away. Yet, Berlin remains a youthful city and retains its aura as “the capital of cool.” Its only sacrosanct principles are an uncompromising multiculturalism and the belief that its future is yet to be written. This volume of the series includes: The Greatest Show in Town: The Resurrection of Potsdamer Platz by Peter Schneider · Berlin Suite by Cees Nooteboom · Tempelhof: A Field of Dreams by Vincenzo Latronico · Plus: the controversial reconstruction of a Prussian castle, Berlin’s most transgressive sex club and its disappearing traditional pubs, a green urban oasis, suburban neo-Nazis, North Vietnamese in the East, South Vietnamese in the West, techno everywhere and much more . . . “These books are so rich and engrossing that it is rewarding to read them even when one is stuck at home.” —The Times Literary Supplement

The Passenger

The Passenger
Author: Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250317150

A BEST BOOK OF 2021 FOR THE GUARDIAN * FINANCIAL TIMES * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT * MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE * THE TIMES Hailed as a remarkable literary discovery, a lost novel of heart-stopping intensity and harrowing absurdity about flight and persecution in 1930s Germany Berlin, November 1938. Jewish shops have been ransacked and looted, synagogues destroyed. As storm troopers pound on his door, Otto Silbermann, a respected businessman who fought for Germany in the Great War, is forced to sneak out the back of his own home. Turned away from establishments he had long patronized, and fearful of being exposed as a Jew despite his Aryan looks, he boards a train. And then another. And another . . . until his flight becomes a frantic odyssey across Germany, as he searches first for information, then for help, and finally for escape. His travels bring him face-to-face with waiters and conductors, officials and fellow outcasts, seductive women and vicious thieves, a few of whom disapprove of the regime while the rest embrace it wholeheartedly. Clinging to his existence as it was just days before, Silbermann refuses to believe what is happening even as he is beset by opportunists, betrayed by associates, and bereft of family, friends, and fortune. As his world collapses around him, he is forced to concede that his nightmare is all too real. Twenty-three-year-old Ulrich Boschwitz wrote The Passenger at breakneck speed in 1938, fresh in the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, and his prose flies at the same pace. Taut, immediate, infused with acerbic Kafkaesque humor, The Passenger is an indelible portrait of a man and a society careening out of control.

Berlin

Berlin
Author: Pierre Frei
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 570
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1555848176

A serial killer stalks the streets of post-World War II Berlin in this international bestselling thriller. Set in a devastated Berlin one month after the close of the Second World War, Berlin has been highly acclaimed. Ben, a German boy retrieving cigarette butts to repackage and sell on the black market, discovers the body of a beautiful young woman in a subway station. Blonde and blue-eyed, she has been sexually assaulted and strangled with a chain. In the scramble to identify the body, the victim is mistaken for an American and a local investigation becomes a matter for the US Military Police. Cpt. John Ashburner and Inspector Klaus Dietrich realize quickly that to solve this apparently motiveless murder they will have to work together. When the bodies of other young women are discovered it becomes clear that this is no isolated act of violence. Pierre Frei has searched the wreckage of Berlin and emerged with an electrifying thriller in the tradition of Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst, in which the voices and stories of the victims themselves provide an intimate portrait of Germany before, during, and after the war. “The historical elements are compelling. . . . [O]nce involved in the story it is difficult to put it down.” —School Library Journal

The Passenger: Brazil

The Passenger: Brazil
Author: The Passenger
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1609456556

An in-depth look at Brazilian culture in the series that collects the best new writing, photography, art, and reportage from around the world. In the second half of the twentieth century Brazil made extraordinary contributions to music, sport, architecture. From bossa nova to acrobatic soccer to the daring architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, the country seemed to embody a new, original vision of modernity, at once fluid, agile, and complex. Seen from abroad, the victory of the far right in the 2018 elections was a rude awakening that suddenly turned the Brazilian dream into a nightmare. For locals, however, illusions had started fading long ago, amid paralyzing corruption, environmental degradation, racial discrimination, and escalating violence. Luckily Brazilians have not lost their desire to fight, minorities are still determined to assert their rights, and, now that the glorious past is dead and buried, a desire to rebuild for the future is emerging. Today the challenge of telling the story of this extraordinary country consists in finding its enduring vitality amid the apparent melancholy. “The Passenger readers will find none of the typical travel guide sections on where to eat or what sights to see. Consider the books, rather, more like a literary vacation.” —Publishers Weekly “Much more than a travel guide, The Passenger is indispensable for any reader who is curious about the world.” —Il Venerdì In this volume: Order and Progress? by Jon Lee Anderson Funk, Pride and Prejudice by Alberto Riva On the River, I Was King by Eliane Brum Also: the road that dissects the Amazon; the TV tycoon who shaped Brazilian history; the neo-Pentecostal community that is winning the hearts (and wallets) of Brazilians; politicized samba dancers, idealist gangsters, and much more . . .

The Passenger: Japan

The Passenger: Japan
Author: Aa Vv
Publisher: Passenger
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9781787702196

"Some Japanese stories end violently. Others never end at all, but only cut away, at the moment of extreme crisis, to a butterfly, or the wind, or the moon."--Brian Phillips Visitors from the West look with amazement, and sometimes concern, at Japan's social structures and unique, complex culture industry; the gigantic scale of its tech corporations and the resilience of its traditions; the extraordinary diversity of the subcultures that flourish in its "post-human" megacities. The country nonetheless remains an intricate and complicated jigsaw puzzle, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for stories, reflections, and reportage. The subjects in this volume range from the Japanese veneration of the dead to the Tokyo music scene, from urban alienation to cinema, from sumo to toxic masculinity. Caught between an ageing population and extreme post-modernity, Japan is an ideal observation point from which to understand our age and the one to come.

The Night Train to Berlin

The Night Train to Berlin
Author: Melanie Hudson
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2021-04-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0008420920

‘A mesmerising story of love and hope...the best book that I have read this year’ Penny, Reader Review The most heartbreaking historical fiction novel you will read this year from the USA Today bestseller!

The German Girl

The German Girl
Author: Armando Lucas Correa
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2016-10-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1501121243

AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Featured in Entertainment Weekly, People, The Millions, and USA TODAY “An unforgettable and resplendent novel which will take its place among the great historical fiction written about World War II.” —Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of The Shoemaker's Wife A young girl flees Nazi-occupied Germany with her family and best friend, only to discover that the overseas refuge they had been promised is an illusion in this “engrossing and heartbreaking” (Library Journal, starred review) debut novel, perfect for fans of The Nightingale, Lilac Girls, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Berlin, 1939. Before everything changed, Hannah Rosenthal lived a charmed life. But now the streets of Berlin are draped in ominous flags; her family’s fine possessions are hauled away; and they are no longer welcome in the places they once considered home. A glimmer of hope appears in the shape of the St. Louis, a transatlantic ocean liner promising Jews safe passage to Cuba. At first, the liner feels like a luxury, but as they travel, the circumstances of war change, and the ship that was to be their salvation seems likely to become their doom. New York, 2014. On her twelfth birthday, Anna Rosen receives a mysterious package from an unknown relative in Cuba, her great-aunt Hannah. Its contents inspire Anna and her mother to travel to Havana to learn the truth about their family’s mysterious and tragic past. Weaving dual time frames, and based on a true story, The German Girl is a beautifully written and deeply poignant story about generations of exiles seeking a place to call home.

Passenger 23

Passenger 23
Author: Sebastian Fitzek
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2021-02-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1838934529

Every year, on average 23 people disappear without a trace from cruise ships. No one has ever come back. Until now. Five years ago police psychologist Martin Schwartz lost his wife and son. They were holidaying on a cruise ship when they simply vanished, the case written off as a straightforward murder-suicide. They are not the only parent-and-child pair to have disappeared from the ship in recent years – and yet, the authorities seem unconcerned. But when a missing girl reappears – carrying Martin's son's beloved teddy bear – the police won't be able to avoid the truth that something sinister is lurking on board... 'Without question one of the crime world's most evocative storytellers' KARIN SLAUGHTER 'Fitzek's thrillers are breathtaking, full of wild twists' HARLAN COBEN

Midnight in Berlin

Midnight in Berlin
Author: James MacManus
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1466892137

“As pacey as any modern thriller” this novel set on the eve of WWII “is a vivid portrait of an entire city in turmoil, seething with intrigue and danger” (The Times, UK). Berlin in the spring of 1939. Hitler is preparing for war. Colonel Noel Macrae, a British diplomat, plans the ultimate sacrifice to stop him. The West’s appeasement policies have failed. There is only one alternative: assassination. The Gestapo, aware of Macrae’s hostility, seeks to compromise him in their infamous brothel. There Macrae meets and falls in love with Sara, a Jewish woman blackmailed into becoming a Nazi courtesan. Macrae finds himself trapped between the blind policies of his government and the dark world of betrayal and deception in Berlin. As he seeks to save the woman he loves from the brutality of the Gestapo, he defies his government and plans direct action to avert what he knows will be a global war. Inspired by true events and characters, James MacManus’s Midnight in Berlin is a passionate story that will leave you in awe of the human capacity for courage, sacrifice, and love set against a world on the brink of war. “Detailed yet quick-moving, [a] tense, morally charged narrative.” —Kirkus Reviews “A fascinating novel . . . An intriguing and highly recommended book.” —Country Life (UK) “MacManus[‘s] storytelling gifts are as strong as his historical insights.” —Connecticut Post “Well-informed, smoothly crafted, fast-paced. . . . If you like good historical fiction, and have a penchant for international politics and an interest in the rise of Hitler and life in the diplomatic world of Germany on the brink of war, this is a recommended read—emotions and all.” —Portland Book Review

The Berlin Exchange

The Berlin Exchange
Author: Joseph Kanon
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2022-02-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982158670

From “the most accomplished spy novelist working today” (The Sunday Times, London), a “heart-poundingly suspenseful” (The Washington Post) espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is returned to East Berlin, needing to know who arranged for his release and what they now want from him. Berlin, 1963. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, nor at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical possession: his American passport. Keller’s most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son. The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: Who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He knows that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot. Intriguing and atmospheric, with action rising to a dangerous climax, The Berlin Exchange “expertly describes what happens when a disillusioned former agent tries to come in from the cold” (The New York Times Book Review), confirming Kanon as “the greatest writer ever of historical espionage fiction” (Spybrary).