Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
The File: A Personal History by Timothy Garton Ash
Why I have it: via What’s Nonfiction?
Summary: When Ash graduated from Oxford in 1978, he went to live in Berlin, ostensibly to research and write about Nazism. But once there, he gradually immersed himself in a study of the repressive political culture of East Germany. As if to return the favor, that culture – in the form of the dreaded Stasi – secretly began studying him. After the fall of the Wall, Ash accessed his Stasi files.
I’m thinking: Yes.
Tunnel 29: Love, Espionage and Betrayal by Helena Merriman
Why I have it: also via What’s Nonfiction?
Summary: In 1962, Joachim Rudolph, a student, dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin – dozens of men, women and children; all willing to risk everything to escape.
I’m thinking: Yes.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
Why I have it: Not sure.
Summary: Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash.
I’m thinking: Yes.
Sounds like three winners!
Wow! Definitely adding the first two to my tbr and maybe all 3.
Definitely the first two but I’d find the Anne Fadiman too harrowing.
The First one sounds especially interesting. I visited Berlin just a couple if years after the wall came down, the contrast between the two sides was incredible.
Lucky you! I really wish I’d been able to visit Berlin before the Wall came down, and again soon after it did. All my time in Germany had been spent in the south until 2014 when I finally got to Berlin.
I’m so glad I could convince you to give those two a try! I think they were both excellent but Tunnel 29 is just above and beyond. It’s so good. And I also loved The Spirit Catches You, so good choice there too 🙂
The Fadiman is excellent. One of the earliest books that got me into medical themes.
Anne Fadiman is brilliant. I love her husband’s books too – George Howe Colt.