Grand Adventures and Household Chores
Reflections on our family’s adventures as we live, work, and play around the world
On the weekends, we’ve been enjoying the amazing parks and playgrounds in Berlin.
Some parks, like Jungfernheide, are huge and forest-y, with lakes where people can swim and splash. (Some people wear bathing suits, some don’t. Nudity seems much less taboo in Germany than anywhere else we’ve visited. At the DDR museum, there was a part of the exhibit dedicated to nude beaches in the DDR/GDR, complete with photos and videos. )
Book of Clouds is a somewhat surreal novel set in modern-day Berlin, from the perspective of a Mexican woman who has been living there for several years. It dips into Nazi and Stasi history, and explores how the past reflects into the present. I definitely recommend this book.
Goodbye to Berlin is a classic collection of interwoven short stories set in Berlin during the 1930s, as the Nazis were just beginning to come to power. This book was the inspiration for Cabaret, the musical turned movie.
Stasiland is a narrative documenting stories of former East Germany citizens and Stasi officials during the GDR. It’s written by an Australian author, and intermixed with the stories are her own reactions and experiences during her research. It’s well-written and a fascinating.
Leaving Berlin is a spy thriller set in Berlin in the first years of its time as a divided city, during the Berlin Airlift.
I am an Amazon.com affiliate. This means that if you buy something from Amazon after clicking a link above, I will receive a very small amount of money.
(Also, Theo.)
