Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries

Berlin is a city of fragments and ghosts, a laboratory of ideas, the fount of both the brightest and darkest designs of history's most bloody century. The once arrogant capital of Europe was devastated by Allied bombs, divided by the Wall, then reunited and reborn as one of the creative centers of the world. Today it resonates with the echo of lives lived. No other city has repeatedly been so powerful and fallen so low; few other cities have been so shaped and defined by individual imaginations.

Berlin tells the volatile history of Europe's capital over five centuries through a series of intimate portraits of two dozen key residents: the medieval balladeer whose suffering explains the Nazis' rise to power; the genius Jewish chemist who invented poison gas for First World War battlefields and then the death camps; the iconic mythmakers like Christopher Isherwood, Leni Riefenstahl, and David Bowie, whose heated visions are now as real as the city's bricks and mortar. Alongside are portrayed some of the countless ordinary Berliners whose lives can only be imagined: the ambitious prostitute who refashioned herself as a baroness, the fearful Communist Party functionary who helped to build the Wall, and the American spy from the Midwest whose patriotism may have turned the course of the Cold War.

Berlin is a history book like no other, with an originality that reflects the nature of the city itself. In its architecture, through its literature, in its movies and songs, Berliners have conjured their hard capital into a place of fantastic human fantasy. No other city has so often surrendered itself to its own seductive myths. Berlin captures, portrays, and propagates the remarkable story of those myths and their makers

Germany: A New History

In one concise volume, Hagen Schulze brilliantly conveys the full sweep of German history, from the days of the Romans to the fall of the Berlin Wall. A story two thousand years in the making, it rings with battle, murmurs with intrigue, and hums with the music of everyday life. This richly various legacy, often overshadowed and distorted by the nation's recent past, offers a hopeful answer.

My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes)

“Luisa has a way of telling a story that’s nothing short of entrancing.” —Deb Perelman, author of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

Chocolate and Zucchini.  101 Cookbooks. The Julie/Julia Project. In the early days of food blogs, these were the pioneers whose warmth and recipes turned their creators’ kitchens into beloved web destinations. Luisa Weiss was working in New York when she decided to cook her way through her massive recipe collection. The Wednesday Chef, the cooking blog she launched to document her adventures, charmed readers around the world. But Luisa never stopped longing to return to her childhood home in Berlin. A food memoir with recipes, My Berlin Kitchen deliciously chronicles how she finally took the plunge and went across the ocean in search of happiness—only to find love waiting where she least expected it.

The History of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

By William Mahoney

The History of the Czech Republic and Slovakia charts historical developments in the two nations to the opening decade of the 21st century. The book begins with an overview of the geography, climate, people, economy, and government of both the Czech and Slovak republics. Subsequent chapters offer a chronologically organized survey of historical events, trends, ideas, and people.

Starting with the early Slavic settlements around the 5th century AD, the book explores Czech and Slovak history through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Early Modern eras, the Enlightenment, and the age of nationalism and revolution. Chapters on the 20th century include discussion of the World Wars, the interwar Czechoslovak state, the Communist decades, the Prague Spring, and the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The story is brought up to date with insights into developments in the independent Czech and Slovak republics since 1993.

Baroque and Rococo (World of Art)

Baroque and Rococo art and architecture have become popular once more, after a century and a half of neglect, misunderstanding and scorn. This radical shift in taste has led to a rapid growth of detailed knowledge about the artists who created these exhilarating styles. The famous masters have been reassessed and whole areas of achievement--Italian Baroque painting, German Rococo architecture--have been brought to a new, enthusiastic public. Germain Bazin's engaging survey of this rich subject ranges over all Europe and traces the origins and effects of these two periods of art--from the Counter-Reformation to Neoclassicism, Exoticism and even Art Nouveau. 218 illus., 43 in color.

"He writes with a Gallic verve and grace which are very successfully conveyed through Mr. Jonathan Griffin's translation...His observations upon painters and painting are particularly acute." --The Connoisseu

Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther

With sound historical scholarship and penetrating insight, Roland
Bainton examines Luther's widespread influence. He re-creates the
spiritual setting of the sixteenth century, showing Luther's place
within it and influence upon it. Richly illustrated with more than
100 woodcuts and engravings from Luther's own time, Here I Stand
dramatically brings to life Martin Luther, the great Reformer.

A specialist in Reformation history, Roland H. Bainton was for
forty-two years Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at
Yale, and he continued his writing well into his twenty years of
retirement. Bainton wore his scholarship lightly and had a lively,
readable style. His most popular book was Here I Stand: A Life of
Martin Luther (1950), which sold more than a million copies.

Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World

On All Hallow’s Eve in 1517, a young monk named Martin Luther posted a document he hoped would spark an academic debate, but that instead ignited a conflagration that would forever destroy the world he knew. Five hundred years after Luther’s now famous Ninety-five Theses appeared, Eric Metaxas, acclaimed biographer of the bestselling Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, paints a startling portrait of the wild figure whose adamantine faith cracked the edifice of Western Christendom and dragged medieval Europe into the future. Written in riveting prose and impeccably researched, Martin Luther tells the searing tale of a humble man who, by bringing ugly truths to the highest seats of power, caused the explosion whose sound is still ringing in our ears. Luther’s monumental faith and courage gave birth to the ideals of liberty, equality, and individualism that today lie at the heart of all modern life.

All Quiet on the Western Front

On the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I: a hardcover edition of the classic tale of a young German soldier's harrowing experiences in the trenches, widely acclaimed as the greatest war novel of all time.

When a twenty-year-old man named Paul and his classmates enlist in the German army during World War I, they are full of youthful enthusiam. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught to believe in shatters under the first brutal bombardment in the trenches. Through the ensuing years of horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another. Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel not only portrays in vivid detail the combatants' physical and mental trauma, but dramatizes as well the tragic detachment from civilian life felt by many upon returning home. Remarque's stated intention--to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war--remains as powerful and relevant as ever, a century after that conflict's end.

Berlin Alexanderplatz

The inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's epic film and that The Guardian named one of the "Top 100 Books of All Time," Berlin Alexanderplatz is considered one of the most important works of the Weimar Republic and twentieth century literature.

Franz Biberkopf, pimp and petty thief, has just finished serving a term in prison for murdering his girlfriend. He's on his own in Weimar Berlin with its lousy economy and frontier morality, but Franz is determined to turn over new leaf, get ahead, make an honest man of himself, and so on and so forth. He hawks papers, chases girls, needs and bleeds money, and gets mixed up in spite of himself in various criminal and political schemes. This is only the beginning of our modern everyman's multiplying misfortunes.

Berlin, Alexanderplatz is one of great twentieth-century novels. Taking off from the work of Dos Passos and Joyce, Doblin depicts modern life in all its shocking violence, corruption, splendor, and horror. Michael Hofmann, celebrated for his translations of Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka, has prepared a new version, the first in over 75 years, in which Doblin's sublime and scurrilous masterpiece comes alive in English as never before.

Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

A Major Literary Event: a brilliant new translation of Thomas Mann's first great novel, one of the two for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929.

Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1900, when Mann was only twenty-five, has become a classic of modem literature -- the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. With consummate skill, Mann draws a rounded picture of middle-class life: births and christenings; marriages, divorces, and deaths; successes and failures. These commonplace occurrences, intrinsically the same, vary slightly as they recur in each succeeding generation. Yet as the Buddenbrooks family eventually succumbs to the seductions of modernity -- seductions that are at variance with its own traditions -- its downfall becomes certain.

In immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modem family chronicles; it has, indeed, proved a model for most of them. Judged as the greatest of Mann's novels by some critics, it is ranked as among the greatest by all. Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929.

Faust: A Tragedy

A classic of world literature, Goethe’s Faust is a philosophical and poetic drama full of satire, irony, humor, and tragedy. Martin Greenberg renders not only the text’s varied meters and rhymes but also its diverse tones and styles—dramatic and lyrical, reflective and farcical, pathetic and coarse, colloquial and soaring. His translation of Faust has been widely praised as the most faithful, readable, and elegantly written translation of Goethe’s masterpiece available in English.

"Greenberg has accomplished a magnificent literary feat. He has taken a great German work, until now all but inaccessible to English readers, and made it into a sparkling English poem, full of verve and wit. Greenberg's translation lives; it is done in a modern idiom but with respect for the original text; I found it a joy to read.”—Irving Howe

"Martin Greenberg's translation, here presented in newly revised form, has rightly been celebrated for its colloquial idiom....The translation brings Goethe's seminal text to life for twenty-first century readers." - from the Introduction by W. Daniel Wilson

The Trial

Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka's death, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.

In his brilliant translation, Breon Mitchell masterfully reproduces the distinctive poetics of Kafka's prose, revealing a novel as full of energy and power as when it was first written.

Amadeus

Milos Forman

This is the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, told by his rival Antonio Salieri. Salieri, a devout man who believes his success and talent as a composer are God’s rewards for his piety, wishes he were as good a musician as Mozart and is perplexed as to why God favors him. Filmed in multiple locations including Prague.

Everything Is Illuminated

Liev Schreiber

This comedy-drama follows a young Jewish American man, Jonathan, as he travels from Odessa into the heart of Ukraine. With little more than a photograph and the name of a village, Jonathan hires a tour company to help him find the woman who saved his grandfather during World War II. Filmed in Odessa, Ukraine and Prague, Czech Republic.

Martin Luther

Irving Pichel

Nominated for two Academy Awards, this film examines the life and legacy of Wittenberg’s most notable son, Martin Luther. Filmed in Wiesbaden, Germany.

The Monuments Men

George Clooney

An eclectic group of Resistance fighters comes together to save fine art looted by the Nazis. Winner of the International Film Music Critics Award for Best Original Score. Filmed in Germany.

Run, Lola, Run

Tom Tykwer

After her boyfriend, Manni, loses 100,000 DM that belongs to a very bad guy, Lola has 20 minutes to raise the same amount and meet Manni; otherwise, Manni will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives are presented, depending on some minor events that occur during Lola’s run. Originally titled Lola rennt. Filmed in Berlin.

Return to Grace: Luther’s Life and Legacy

David Batty

The story of Martin Luther, a monk who dared to challenge the Catholic Church and created a theological revolution. Filmed in Wittenberg, Germany.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson

The adventures of a concierge and a lobby boy at a famous hotel. Winner of four Academy Awards. Filmed in Dresden, Germany.

The Illusionist

Neil Burger

In late 19th-century Vienna, Duchess Sophie von Teschen is reunited with renowned illusionist Eisenheim after 15 years. The duchess and Eisenheim realize that they still love each other, but she is soon to be wed to the Crown Prince Leopold in what for him would be a marriage solely in pursuit of power. Filmed in multiple locations including Prague.

Yentl

Barbra Streisand

Yentl Mendel is the boyishly klutzy daughter and only child of long-widowed Rebbe Mendel. Rebbe teaches the Talmud to local boys and to Yentl, but secretly because girls are not allowed to learn the law. When her father dies, Yentl disguises herself as a boy in order to get admitted to a yeshiva, to study the texts, traditions, Talmud and more. Filmed in multiple locations including Prague.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

Philip Kaufman

Just as three intimately close friends are becoming deeply involved with the events of the Prague Spring of 1968, Soviet tanks crush the nonviolent rebels and their lives are changed forever. Filmed in multiple locations including Prague.

Victoria

Sebastian Schipper

After a young Spanish woman moves to Berlin, she meets a local man. During a night out with him and his friends, a troubling secret is revealed and the night turns dangerous. Filmed in Berlin.

The Tin Drum

Volker Schlöndorff

The highly acclaimed adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass’s surreal novel about a mute dwarf named Oskar, who lives through Nazi Germany. This film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1979. Originally titled Die Blechtrommel. Filmed in multiple locations including Berlin.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Martin Ritt

In this spy movie based on the John Le Carré novel, Richard Burton plays a British agent sent into East Germany to plant damning information about an intelligence officer. Filmed in multiple locations including Berlin.

The Zookeeper’s Wife

Niki Caro

When Germany invades Poland, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, owners and keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, hide 300 persecuted Polish Jews in plain sight from the Germans. Winner of Political Film Society, USA and Seattle Jewish Film Festival awards. Filmed in Prague, Czech Republic.

Wings of Desire

Wim Wenders

Berlin itself may be the real star of this much-loved fantasy. Shot in stark black & white in the still-divided capital city, Wenders (Paris, Texas, Buena Vista Social Club) earned plaudits at Cannes for his story of two angels who have spent eternity observing humankind. Bruno Ganz (The American Friend, Downfall) is the angel Damiel who longs to be human; Peter Falk (Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence) is an actor and star of a long-running American detective series who has wisdom to impart to the conflicted angel.

Good Bye Lenin!

Wolfgang Becker

This must-see film set in 1990 tells the story of a young man who works to protect his fragile, ailing mother from the fatal shock of learning that East Germany, the country she knows and loves, no longer exists. Filmed in Berlin.

A Coffee in Berlin

Jan Ole Gerster

When a floundering young man drops out of law school, he ends up roaming the streets of Berlin to try to find his place in life. Originally titled Oh Boy. Filmed in Berlin.

The Reader

Stephen Daldry

Set in post-WWII Germany, this drama follows a young man whose affair with an older woman will haunt him for the rest of his life. Kate Winslet won an Oscar for her performance. Filmed in multiple locations including Berlin.

The Lives of Others

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

It is 1984 in East Berlin, and the population is strictly controlled by the Secret Police. A man who has devoted his life to ferreting out “dangerous” characters is thrown into a quandary when he must investigate a harmless man who has been deemed a threat. Filmed in Berlin.

Flame & Citron

Ole Christian Madsen

In this action-drama, we follow two Danish resistance fighters, Flame and Citron, who kill Danish Nazis and collaborators without hesitation until they are no longer certain whom their targets represent. Filmed in multiple locations including Copenhagen, Denmark; Berlin, Germany; and Prague, Czech Republic.

Cabaret

Bob Fosse

This classic film starring Liza Minnelli and Michael York dramatizes the life of a Berlin nightclub singer who is romancing two men as the Nazis rise to power in Germany. Fosse won an Oscar for Best Director; Minnelli and Joel Grey won Oscars and Golden Globes for their performances; and the movie won five Oscars including Best Cinematography and Music, as well as a Golden Globe for Best Picture. Filmed in multiple locations including Bavaria and Berlin.

Immortal Beloved

Bernard Rose

This film looks at the life and death of Ludwig van Beethoven, including a famous love letter Beethoven wrote to a nameless beloved. Ludwig van Beethoven dies and his assistant/friend Schindler proceeds to deal with his last will and testament. Filmed in multiple locations including Prague