Welcome to Litsy!

#BookReport

Finally finished Kristen Lavransdatter! It was slow going as my attention span this year has mostly been that of a gnat but I enjoyed it. Also enjoyed Josephine Baker‘s memoir. What an incredibly fascinating woman!

The format of What We Knew was interesting. The individual sections held my interest more than the rest but that is me not the book.

Caught up on buddy reads except the Picasso which I will read today.

This fell a bit flat for me. The story is of the Berlin Wall - it goes up, dividing the city, and splitting Lisette, in the East, from her baby in hospital in the West. I wanted to read about 1960s Germany and I did get that in parts. Yet at least half the book goes back to Lisette‘s youth in WWII, which I didn‘t want. The writing struck me as very Kristin Hannah; if you enjoy her books, you‘ll likely enjoy this.

A couple of weekends ago here in Australia, we had a ‘top 100 books of the 21st century‘ countdown, as voted by our national broadcaster, Radio National, listeners. Almost 300,000 Aussies voted. I‘d read 83 and decided to prioritise reading the (potentially 17) remaining books I had waiting patiently on my #tbr shelves. This is one of them. A fascinating account of the Stasi that I have had recommended to me more times than I can count.

“But I really don‘t trust them [Germans]….

#Magic!onday

I won‘t win the farthest travel distance so am jumping on the time travel train.

Here is the book proof for our travel back to Hitler and fascism. I‘m only part way into it but the parallels are there for all to see and understand if you‘d only care enough to open your eyes a bit to the relentless propaganda.

This fascinating account describes the movement to understand and accept "intermediaries," a term of art meant to encompass gay, trans and intersex individuals in the Weimar Republic. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld oversaw an institute that also offered community and a sense of belonging, which he hoped to someday see reflected in society. An eye-opening look at a little known history, although the justifications for intolerance sound all too familiar.

"In his [Cardinal Bertram] own hand he gave all the parish priests of the archdiocese instructions 'to hold a solemn requiem in memory of the Fuhrer and all those members of the Wehrmacht who have fallen...' Despite all the insults to the church, the threats and the persecutions, he continued to see and respect Hitler as the Catholic state head of the Reich. He did not have to live to realize how wrong he was in this. He died on 6 July 1945.

This book is a sort of romp through German history, geography, art and conspicuous personalities. The author is neither German nor a historian, but he is well traveled across Central Europe and demonstrates what seems to be a good grasp of the terrain and culture. This book is good and humorous, playful even, but it is very dense, each chapter or essay taking some time to digest before moving onto the next. Incidentally, Winder does not cover WW2.

I can‘t say I wasn‘t warned. The above sentence appears in the introduction. While the methodology of the surveys is important for academics and the differences in interpretation of the data by the 2 authors points to some issues, this book is not readable. And it doesn‘t offer me any ideas on how to safely resist. How anyone can make such horror so dry is beyond me. The information is good, but if you put people to sleep they won‘t absorb it.