"In the Garden of the Beasts" by Erik Larson.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

If you haven't read it yet, do so as soon as you can.

It's about this country's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany, one William E. Dodd, an obscure professor who got the job because no one else wanted it. As early as 1933 it was clear that the Nazis were on to something terrible, and most people who'd otherwise have jumped at such an ambassadorship passed.

You get to see the blossoming anti-semitism and brutality, while ordinary Germans as well as Dodd and his family try to live a normal life. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Larson is an amazing writer. Everything and anything of his is worth reading, but this specific book is completely apropos to what is going on in our country right now.

[mucifer]

1. I don't read many books. But, I actually read that one. It was very good.

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

I'll be visiting the library soon, thanks... I'll look for it.

[trixie2]

3. I have been recommending this book for the past 6 months

I loved this book. It reads like fiction and really gives you historical facts. Loved how the daughter of Dodd was so....what's the word......easy. She relished in her "dating" off Nazis, SS and communists equally. How many of her dates were later punished?

Dodd rented a house from Jews who were in hiding upstairs.

Such a good book. Have a historical atlas and computer handy to look up images and places. Ok I am a dork and that's how I read.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. I'm so sorry I've missed your recommendations here!

Don't you love turning people on to a book you love?

[trixie2]

10. Well I am a librarian

so of course I love it!

[dhill926]

4. Indeed, fantastic book...

[burrowowl]

5. K&R!!!!!!

[nycbos]

6. It is indeed a good book.

Another book that I would recommend given the times is The Plot Against American by Phillip Roth. It is a alternative history novel where Charles Lindbergh defeats FDR in 1940.


In this novel Lindbergh signs "understandings" with Hitler and Tojo to keep the United States out of WWII and things turn badly for the the countries jewish communities.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. I read that book.

I read lots of alternate history, and the Roth book was a huge disappointment. I won't say why, because that would be a plot spoiler, but it comes down to Roth's not being someone who truly understands alternate history, which is generally a branch of science fiction. Usually -- and it's the case here -- when a mainstream writer suddenly discovers some part of s-f, such as alternate history, he or she is feted as if he (or she) has completely invented this sub-genre. Which makes me, as a very long time reader of s-f in all its many forms, completely crazy.

The Plot Against America ends in a cheat. It's not quite "It was all a dream", but pretty close.

A better alternate history of WWII is Fatherland by Robert Harris.

What if the South had won the Civil War is a perennial in alternate history, and while Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore is one of the earliest and one of the best, my personal favorite is Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. The first is about a man who grew up in the world in which the south did win the Civil War, but because of a time travel project goes back to the Battle of Gettysburg and inadvertently changes it, so that the North wins. In the Turtledove book, time travelers from the 21st century arm the Confederacy with AK 47s, changing things dramatically. What is so very good about the Turtledove book is that you have real 19th century people with real 19th century behavior and attitudes. The 21st century intruders are actually a minor part of the book.

Which brings me to one of my huge complaints about alternate history or (worse yet) historical novels: all too often you have 20th/21st century people dressed up in funny clothes but with attitudes and behaviors of the later century. I want to interact with people from the era the book is about, not people from my time suddenly thrust into the past. Turtledove gets it right. Or at least he used to. More recently he's gotten it wrong, in my opinion, as in Joe Steel. Which is an entirely different discussion.

[NYFlip]

9. Excellent book

I read it several years ago and found I couldn"t put it down

[redStateBlueHeart]

11. Just started reading it yesterday!

Less than 50 pages in but a good read so far. I heard about it on Reddit and have had it on my kindle for a while.