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#Berlin
review
TheEllieMo
Goodbye to Berlin | Christopher Isherwood
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Pickpick

I hovvered between a so-so and a pick for most of this book. It‘s a collection of 6 short, overlapping memoirs covering 3 years of Isherwood‘s life in Berlin. It starts strong with the first Berlin Diary and our introduction to Sally Bowles, finishes stronger with Isherwood‘s account of his friendship with the Jewish Landauer family, and the rise to power of the Nazi party. The middle two chapters felt weak, and I nearly bailed. I‘m glad I didn‘t

BarbaraBB Great photo 3mo
25 likes1 comment
review
Kazzie
Pickpick

So beautiful! Very true observations. At times very funny. But sad and honest as well. Recommend!

blurb
shawnmooney
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https://youtu.be/f1fw4hzeHOU?si=7sogLIFoQRxtQoRq

Jo Heinrich‘s website: https://www.joheinrichtranslation.co.uk

A generous contribution

Mystery guest

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Siphonophore by Jaimie Batchan

blurb
Yuki_Onna
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BookwormAHN Cool 🐈‍⬛️ 5mo
BookwormAHN I'm not sure where you live, but here in the States, the travel Channel has a show called Mysteries of the Abandoned, which I think you would like. 5mo
Yuki_Onna @BookwormAHN Thank you for the suggestion! 👏
I live in Germany - in the south, though, and had not been to Berlin for the last ten years or so...
Well, most US TV shows make their way over the pond to Germany sooner or later, so there's a fair chance I'll come across it sometime.
5mo
Eggs This reminds me of History channel series many years ago 100 years after humans or something like that. Speculative but amazing! I‘m definitely going to check out The Abandoned @Yuki_Onna @BookwormAHN 5mo
19 likes5 comments
blurb
Yuki_Onna
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Graffiti in the Lost Place area in Berlin, the Teufelsberg (German for Devil's Mountain). It used to be a US listening station in West Berlin during the Cold War.
Visited last week.

#AutumnPlease #photochallenge #lost & #bones
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs
#Scarathlon #bones #orange & #legend
@BookwormAHN @5feet.of.fury @BeckyWithTheGoodBooks @hes7 @LibrarianRyan @Read-y_Picker @TEArificbooks @TheBookDream @TheQuietQuill #blackcatcrew

BookwormAHN Cool 🐈‍⬛ 5mo
Eggs Awesome 🎃🎃. My brother may have “listened” there for USAF around 1965…He was a Voice Intercept Processor 5mo
Yuki_Onna @Eggs What?! How fascinating is that?👏 5mo
Eggs @Yuki_Onna 🙌🏻 5mo
18 likes4 comments
blurb
Yuki_Onna
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#AutumnPlease #photochallenge #lost & #eyesoncover
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

Entrance sign to a huge Lost Place area in Berlin, the Teufelsberg (German for Devil's Mountain). It used to be a US listening station in West Berlin during the Cold War.
Visited last week.

Eggs Fascinating 5mo
15 likes1 comment
blurb
shawnmooney
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https://youtu.be/QlSsLvEyLOY?si=EBFLeRjy6DAn8Crn

Intro

A debut and a book launch: Gibbons or One Bloody Thing After Another by James Morrison

Boobs and bookmarks - with a special guest

Important reminder

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6mo
22 likes1 comment
review
Bookwomble
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Pickpick

The unnamed narrator shares so much of his biography with the author that it's impossible not to read this as memoir, although it's published as fiction. Either way, it's a frank confessional about the internal life of the son of British immigrants, who leaves his UK family & relocates to Berlin, where he does find the change of life he was looking for, but not the connection with others or himself.
⬇️

Bookwomble Exploring friendship, dating, loneliness, racism, sexuality, and how these intersect with the MC's low self-esteem and depression, and the beginning of positive change through therapy and reconnection with his dead father's family in Uganda.
The language is wonderful, and if sad and revealing, because of these qualities it's also human and humane, and that's where connection happens.My only complaint is that at 122 pages, this was too short.
6mo
batsy This sounds great. I like his thoughts on football on twitter and he seems thoughtful; very different from the usual aggressively masculine, sexist stuff that passes off as analysis. 6mo
Bookwomble @batsy It is great ,I really enjoyed reading it 😊 If interest in a subject can be measured in negative percentages, then I'd rate my interest in football as -99%, so sadly his earlier books are not for me, but it's no surprise to hear you say that Musa's commentary is a cut above the typical punditry. He talks about the team he plays with in the book, and the support they give each other is what he emphasises. He has a football podcast, too. 6mo
batsy @Bookwomble Oh, that's so cool that he plays in a team and that he refers to it in the book. It definitely helps me understand the compassion with which he can talk about players, as more than commodities in the manner that most fans do. 6mo
36 likes1 stack add4 comments
quote
Bookwomble
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So this is the loneliness & Berlin is the best place to face it, as well as evade it. Because Berlin is essentially the end of the world at least as far as loneliness goes. This is the final stop on the train of solitude, the one where the conductor asks you all to change please, bitte aussteigen. There's nowhere you can go after this, nowhere more gentle, more brutal, no greater chaos, nowhere to be more gratefully anonymous. Thank God for Berlin

BarbaraBB Great quote. I guess the wall still stood there when this book was written 6mo
Bookwomble @BarbaraBB Berlin is a character in this book, for sure, though it was written in 2021 and is about the modern post-unification city. I think it reasonable to say that the author/MC brought their loneliness with them. 6mo
BarbaraBB Oow wow that makes it even more intriguing. And sad 6mo
The_Book_Ninja I worked in Berlin in 1998. Can‘t remember exactly where. but it was an old bus terminal, (classic, brutal concrete construction if that‘s not too clichéd) and it was used as a market in the day and a rave venue at night. I wish I kept a diary (edited) 6mo
Bookwomble @The_Book_Ninja I can't decide if that sounds exciting or bleak - or perhaps a bit of both 🤔 6mo
41 likes5 comments
quote
Bookwomble
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"What happened to the winds that sent the slave ships?
Some of those gusts are proud that they filled those ancient sails.
You could hear them above Berlin on election night,
Hailing the arrival of the moonlight and far-right;
You could hear them whistling through the corridors
Of the Holocaust memorial, slapping its stone walls and floors,
Gasping applause."

The book opens with this powerful poem, "Righteous Migrants".