Berlin Tales of the City

Berlin is one of the most intriguing cities in Europe. Despite its tumultuous history, it has remained the heart of Germany, even when the heart was divided in four. In one pocket-sized volume, Berlin collects the best fiction and nonfiction about the city from an array of writers of international stature. From chanteuse Josephine Baker on her second adopted home to playwright Bertolt Brecht on the decline of the Weimar Republic, and including an excerpt from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, a resident's 1989 account of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a description of Berlin from the 1912 edition of a Baedeker guide (written by Karl Baedeker himself), Berlin is an engaging literary stroll through a remarkable city.