1984 - George Orwell (Novel)
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'Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past'
Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in, which demands absolute obedience and controls him through the all-seeing telescreens and the watchful eye of Big Brother, symbolic head of the Party. In his longing for truth and liberty, Smith begins a secret love affair with a fellow-worker Julia, but soon discovers the true price of freedom is betrayal. George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, Nineteen Eighty-Four is perhaps the most pervasively influential book of the twentieth century. |
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All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque (Novel)
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Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
About the Author - Erich Maria Remarque is one of the best known and most widely read authors of German literature in the twentieth century. Remarque's biography is essentially marked and his writing fundamentally influenced by German history of the twentieth century: Childhood and youth in imperial Osnabrück, World War I, the Weimar Republic, and most of all his exile in Switzerland and the United States. With the novel All Quiet On the Western Front, first published in 1929, Remarque attained world-wide recognition continuing today. Examples of his other novels also internationally published are: The Road Back (1931), Three Comrades (1936, 38), Arch of Triumph (1945), The Black Obelisk (1956), and Night in Lisbon (1962). |
Berlin: City of Stones Part 1 - Jason Lutes (Graphic Novel)
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"Berlin: City of Stones "presents the first part of Jason Lutes' captivating trilogy, set in the twilight years of Germany's Weimar Republic. Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures in a broad cast of characters intertwined with the historical events unfolding around them. "City of Stones "covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929, meticulously documenting the hopes and struggles of its inhabitants as their future is darkened by a glowing shadow.
Review - This book starts the series Lutes has devoted years to creating, the story of Germany between the wars. The story follows the lives of several people, a journalist riling against the rise of fascism, a young art student conflicted with her feelings of love for other women, a married woman who is thrown out of her family by her husband for her leanings toward communism, as well as others. The story shows rallies for various political parties as well as peoples' feelings for Hindenburg and of course the first showings of the fledgling Nazi party. The drawings are beautiful with Lutes adopting Herge's line and crafting detailed panoramic views of the city as well as amazing crowd scenes and convincing period detail. There isn't a plot to the book, just a meandering toward the inevitable start of WW2. |
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Hitler - Ian Kershaw (Biography)
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Now available in a single, abridged paperback, Ian Kershaw's "Hitler" is the definitive biography of the Nazi leader. Ian Kershaw's two volume biography, "Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris" and "Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis", was greeted with universal acclaim as the essential work on one of the most malign figures in history, from his earliest origins to the final days of the Second World War. Now this landmark historical work is available in one single, abridged edition, tracing the story of how a bitter, failed art student from an obscure corner of Austria rose to unparalleled power, destroying the lives of millions and bringing the world to the brink of Armageddon.
About the Author - Ian Kershaw (b. 1943) was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield from 1989-2008, and is one of the world's leading authorities on Hitler. His books include "The 'Hitler Myth'", his two volume biography "Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris" and "Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis", and "Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941". He was knighted in 2002. |
Night - Elie Wiesel (Memoir)
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Elie Wiesel's harrowing first-hand account of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, Night is translated by Marion Wiesel with a preface by Elie Wiesel in Penguin Modern Classics.
Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, as a child, Elie Wiesel was sent to the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity: the ever-increasing horrors he endured, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of humanity, dignity and faith. Describing in simple terms the tragic murder of a people from a survivor's perspective, Night is among the most personal, intimate and poignant of all accounts of the Holocaust. A compelling consideration of the darkest side of human nature and the enduring power of hope, it remains one of the most important works of the twentieth century. Elie Wiesel (b. 1928) was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. After the war, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. During an interview with the distinguished French writer, Francois Mauriac, he was persuaded to write about his experiences in the death camps. The result was his internationally acclaimed memoir, La Nuit or Night, which has since been translated into more than thirty languages. |
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Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier - Siegfried Knappe (Memoir)
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A German soldier during World War II offers an inside look at the Nazi war machine, using his wartime diaries to describe how a ruthless psychopath motivated an entire generation of ordinary Germans to carry out his monstrous schemes.
This engaging, introspective memoir, coauthored with Bruslaw ( The Business Writer's Handbook ) offers insight into the thinking and attitudes of a Wehrmacht officer. Knappe served in the artillery during the invasions of Czechoslovakia, France and the Soviet Union and as a staff officer during the Italian campaign and the defense of Berlin. Though he had moral reservations about the Czech campaign and was troubled by his government's betrayal of its non-aggression pact with Russia, Knappe believed that his participation in combat was honorable and that the overriding purpose of the war was to correct the injustice perpetrated against Germany by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Only after he was captured by Soviet troops in 1945 did he begin to understand that he had been an "unthinking cog," accepting without question Hitler's might-makes-right philosophy. The memoir closes with an account of his release from a Soviet prison camp in 1949 and his reunion with his family in Leipzig. Knappe came to America in 1955 and is now a retired corporate executive in Ohio. |
Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger (Memoir)
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'As though walking through a deep dream, I saw steel helmets approaching through the craters. They seemed to sprout from the fire-harrowed soil like some iron harvest'. "Storm of Steel" is one of the greatest works to emerge from the catastrophe of the First World War. A memoir of astonishing power, savagery and ashen lyricism, it illuminates like no other book the horrors but also the fascination of total war, presenting the conflict through the eyes of an ordinary German soldier. As an account of the terrors of the Western Front and of the sickening allure that made men keep fighting on for four long years, "Storm of Steel" has no equal.
About the Author - Ernst Junger, the son of a wealthy chemist, ran away from home to join the Foreign Legion. His father dragged him back, but he returned to military service when he joined the German army on the outbreak of the First World War. Storm of Steel was Junger's first book, published in 1920. Junger died in 1998. |
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The Boy in Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne (Historical Fiction)
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Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us ...Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.
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The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (Historical Fiction)
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The extraordinary #1"New York Times" bestseller that is now a major motion picture, Markus Zusak's unforgettable story is about the ability of books to feed the soul.
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meagre existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can t resist books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbours during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of "I Am the Messenger, " has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time." |
The Complete Maus - Art Spiegelman (Graphic Novel)
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"The Complete Maus" by Art Spiegelman - the Pulitzer prize-winning Holocaust survivor story. "Maus" is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek's harrowing story of survival is woven into the author's account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century's grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. "Maus" studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us. This combined, definitive edition includes "Maus I: A Survivor's Tale" and "Maus II".
Art Spiegelman is a contributing editor and artist for the "New Yorker". His drawings and prints have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. He won the Pulitzer Prize for "Maus", and a Guggenheim fellowship. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Award. His other books include: "Breakdowns: From Maus to Now, an Anthology of Strips"; "The Wild Party"; "Open Me, I'm A Dog"; "Jack Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits"; "In the Shadow of No Towers"; "Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young!"; "Be a Nose"; "Jack and the Box" and "MetaMaus". He lives in New York. |
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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William L. Shirer (Narrative)
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Hailed as one of the most important works of history of our time ("The New York Times"), this definitive chronicle of Hitler s rise to power is back in hardcover with a new introductory essay by Ron Rosenbaum ("Explaining Hitler "and "How the End Begins") commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of its National Book Award win. The fiftieth anniversary edition of the National Book Award winning bestseller that is the definitive study of Adolf Hitler, the rise of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and World War II. This special edition now features a new introduction by Ron Rosenbaum, author of "Explaining Hitler" and "How the End Begins.""
William Shirer is one of the very few historians to have gained full access to the secret German archives which the Allies captured intact. He was also present at the Nuremberg trials. This is his authoritative historical account of the years 1933-45, when the Nazis, under the rule of their desporic leader Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany. They commandeered the Holocaust, one of the most shocking acts of evil in modern history, plunged the world into a second war, and changed the face of modern history and modern Europe forever. |
The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass (Historical Fiction)
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On his third birthday Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures is post-war Germany.
"At the ages of fourteen and fifteen, I had read Great Expectations twice - Dickens made me want to be a writer - but it was reading The Tin Drum at nineteen and twenty that showed me how. It was Günter Grass who demonstrated that it was possible to be a living writer who wrote with Dickens' full range of emotion and relentless outpouring of language. Grass wrote with fury, love, derision, slapstick, pathos - all with an unforgiving conscience." (John Irving New York Times Book Review) |