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3rd #10BeforetheEnd book read

I really liked this, but it took a while to get going. Generational trauma/mothers and daughters, sad but with a fair bit of light comedy interwoven as well. Hansen particularly pokes fun at city folk with idealistic ideas about rural life. Vera came to Northern Germany as a child refugee from the east just after WWI. She becomes a local eccentric and refuge herself for her niece and grandnephew some 30 years later.

#WhereAreYouMonday

This Monday I‘m in Northern Germany, outside of Hamburg with a newly separated mother of a toddler and her eccentric Aunt Vera, who came to the village as an ethnic German refugee from what is now Poland after WWII. A bit romantic comedy, a bit family history, a bit satire on society, especially city life vs rural.

The story of a girl who experiences the 1962 North Sea flood and grapples with her parents‘ actions during World War Two. There is some didactic merit here, but stylistically this feels like a bit of a mess. The constant repetition of the protagonist‘s thoughts gets tiring very quickly. Not sure yet if I will use this for teaching.

A story of loss, regret and redemption, told in loosely connected chapters that each focus on different characters. I smiled, I chuckled, I pondered my own life‘s decisions. Despite making some questionable stylistic choices, Hansen excels at creating deep and ambiguous characters, the kind that could easily exist somewhere out there. I‘m excited to read her other two novels.

Thoughts on these for the next #lmpbc round?
📚 Red Joan is based on a true story.
📚 A Most Wanted Man — read it and would love 💗 to read it again!

I forgot to tag you! @Pogue @TheBookHippie

One of my patients recommended this book. It is historical fiction about the time immediately at the end of WWII in Germany. The structure of the story reminds me of Fannie Flag‘s fried green tomatoes with an older person sharing memories from a retirement home. I delayed reading the end because I knew the twists would be delightful and charming. What a special little book! 🌭 🇩🇪 🥘

This was another one from the bottom of my TBR list, and it was a good read. It takes place in Germany just after WWII, and is understandably grim. It was very interesting though to examine each person‘s reactions to the terrible conditions and to imagine how I would have fared. A good book to read on a cold, dark January day.

We had an amazing bookclub session earlier today. Average rating of 2.95⭐️ but we spent 1.5 hours discussing war guilt, how Germany dealt with it vs Japan; women‘s role in the 80s; etc.

I recommend reading the tagged book as a follow up to Kempowski‘s “All For Nothing.”

3⭐️ The year is 1988 and three West Germans go touring to East Prussia. The novel is a historical memory, with the protagonist looking back at the paths and the damages of the WWII. “… the suffering of all creatures, the flesh lashed to the stake, the calf he had seen bound and gagged, the torture chamber in the Marienburg, the shuffling procession of mankind beneath the condemning sky. It‘s all for nothing…. And: Who‘s to blame?” 👇🏻