The House by the Lake

Author(s): Thomas Harding

History

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2015LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2016A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK'A passionate memoir.?Neil MacGregor'A superb portrait of twentieth century Germany seen through the prism of a house which was lived in, and lost, by five different families. A remarkable book.? Tom Holland'Personal and panoramic, heart-wrenching yet uplifting, this is history at its most alive.? A.D. Miller In 2013, Thomas Harding returned to his grandmother?s house on the outskirts of Berlin which she had been forced to leave when the Nazis swept to power. What was once her 'soul place? now stood empty and derelict. A concrete footpath cut through the garden, marking where the Berlin Wall had stood for nearly three decades.In a bid to save the house from demolition, Thomas began to unearth the history of the five families who had lived there- a nobleman farmer, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned Nazi composer, a widow and her children and a Stasi informant. Discovering stories of domestic joy and contentment, of terrible grief and tragedy, and of a hatred handed down through the generations, a history of twentieth century Germany and the story of a nation emerged.

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A personal and panoramic new history of Germany in the twentieth century by the author of Hanns and Rudolf

Shortlisted for Costa Biography Award 2015.

"A passionate memoir about Germany." -- Neil MacGregor, author of A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany: Memories of a Nation "A superb portrait of twentieth century Germany seen through the prism of a house which was lived in, and lost, by five different families. A remarkable book." -- Tom Holland "In The House by the Lake, the simple villa loved and lost by Thomas Harding's family magically becomes the setting for the great clashes of the twentieth century, and for a technicolour cast - victims, villains and ordinary compromisers - struggling not to be crushed by them. Personal and panoramic, heart-wrenching yet uplifting, this is history at its most alive." -- A. D. Miller, bestselling author of Snowdrops and The Faithful Couple "I loved this book. I admire the elegance of it, the hope, the honesty and the generousness with which every resident is given his or her place. It has made me think about our individual parts in the bigger story, and the coming and going-ness of things. It is a book that will stay with me for a very long time." -- Rachel Joyce "A superb work of social history, told with tremendous narrative verve." -- Ian Critchley Sunday Times

Thomas Harding is a journalist who has written for the Sunday Times, Financial Times and the Guardian, among other publications. He co-founded a television station in Oxford, and for many years was an award-winning publisher of a newspaper in West Virginia. He lives in Hampshire, England.

General Fields

  • : 9780099592044
  • : Penguin Random House
  • : Penguin Books Ltd
  • : 0.44
  • : June 2016
  • : 198mm X 129mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : June 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Thomas Harding
  • : Paperback
  • : 616
  • : English
  • : 943.08
  • : very good
  • : 464
  • : HBJD