A "longtime Berliner's ... exploration of the heterogeneous allure of this vibrant city. Delving beneath the obvious answers--Berlin's club scene, bolstered by the lack of a mandatory closing time; the artistic communities that thrive due to the relatively low (for now) cost of living--Schneider takes us on an insider's tour of this rapidly metamorphosing metropolis, where high-class soirees are held at construction sites and enterprising individuals often accomplish more without public funding--assembling a makeshift club on the banks of the Spree River--than Berlin's officials do"--Provided by publisher.

A smartly guided romp, entertaining and enlightening, through Europe's most charismatic and enigmatic city It isn't Europe's most beautiful city, or its oldest. Its architecture is not more impressive than that of Rome or Paris; its museums do not hold more treasures than those in Barcelona or London. And yet, when citizens of "New York, Tel Aviv, or Rome ask me where I'm from and I mention the name Berlin," writes Peter Schneider, "their eyes instantly light up." Berlin Now is a longtime Berliner's bright, bold, and digressive exploration of the heterogeneous allure of this vibrant city. Delving beneath the obvious answers—Berlin's club scene, bolstered by the lack of a mandatory closing time; the artistic communities that thrive due to the relatively low (for now) cost of living—Schneider takes us on an insider's tour of Germany's rapidly metamorphosing metropolis, where high-class soirees are held at construction sites and enterprising individuals often accomplish more without public funding—assembling a makeshift club on the banks of the Spree River—than Berlin's officials do. Schneider's perceptive, witty investigations on everything from the insidious legacy of suspicion instilled by the East German secret police to the clashing attitudes toward work, food, and love held by former East and West Berliners have been sharply translated by Sophie Schlondorff. The result is a book so lively that readers will want to jump on a plane—just as soon as they've finished their adventures on the page.

On the 25th Anniversary of the fall of the Wall, a legendary Berliner tells the inside story of the city. Over the last five decades, no other city has changed more than Berlin: divided in 1961, reunited in 1989, it has become Europe's most vibrant melting-pot of artists, immigrants and entrepreneurs. Blending memoir, history, anecdote and reportage, Peter Schneider takes us behind the scenes there - looking at everything from life under the Stasi and the difference between East and West Berliners' sex-lives to the city's night-life, politics and hidden quirks - and reveals what makes Berlin the uniquely fascinating place it is.

Chronicling the history of Berlin, this book charts the Communist-Nazi struggle of the Weimar Republic; the Thousand Year Reich with its penchant for show and architectural grandeur which transformed the city; and its consequent battering by the Allies and the Soviets by air and land respectively. The city's position as the central point of the Cold War is examined, focusing on the partition, and eventual reunion, of East and West.

The New York Times–bestselling author of So Long contemplates the human condition in this short story collection for fans of Grace Paley & Alice Munro. The elusive nature of happiness is a compelling theme in Where I Live Now. The survivors in these stories—many of them society's marginal or excluded people, fighting alcohol or drug addiction, bearing emotional scars—recognize it all too well. They mourn the lost dreams of youth, the roads not taken. They suffer the damage life inflicts: the ache of loneliness, the pain of separation, the fear of death. Set mainly in Los Angeles, Lucia Berlin’s gritty working-class stories bridge the gap between the Americas—rich and poor, North and South, Anglo and Hispanic. While her style has been compared to Raymond Carver’s, and her dream- and drink-addicted characters to Richard Yates’s, her fictional territory and fatalistic humor are hers alone. Praise for Where I Live Now “Berlin’s literary model is Chekhov, but there are extra-literary models too, including the extended jazz solo, with its surges, convolutions, and asides. This is writing of a very high order.” —August Kleinzahler, London Review of Books “This remarkable collection occasionally put me in mind of Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, with its sweep of American origins and places. Berlin is our Scheherazade, continually surprising her readers with a startling variety of voices, vividly drawn characters, and settings alive with sight and sound.” —Barbara Barnard, American Book Review “Berlin is marvelously successful, placing her memorable characters in gripping situations, plumbing their messed-up lives for pathos and allowing us to see deeply into their souls.” —Publishers Weekly

In a book that is both biography and the most exciting form of history, here are eighteen years in the life of a man, Albert Einstein, and a city, Berlin, that were in many ways the defining years of the twentieth century. Einstein in Berlin In the spring of 1913 two of the giants of modern science traveled to Zurich. Their mission: to offer the most prestigious position in the very center of European scientific life to a man who had just six years before been a mere patent clerk. Albert Einstein accepted, arriving in Berlin in March 1914 to take up his new post. In December 1932 he left Berlin forever. “Take a good look,” he said to his wife as they walked away from their house. “You will never see it again.” In between, Einstein’s Berlin years capture in microcosm the odyssey of the twentieth century. It is a century that opens with extravagant hopes--and climaxes in unparalleled calamity. These are tumultuous times, seen through the life of one man who is at once witness to and architect of his day--and ours. He is present at the events that will shape the journey from the commencement of the Great War to the rumblings of the next one. We begin with the eminent scientist, already widely recognized for his special theory of relativity. His personal life is in turmoil, with his marriage collapsing, an affair under way. Within two years of his arrival in Berlin he makes one of the landmark discoveries of all time: a new theory of gravity--and before long is transformed into the first international pop star of science. He flourishes during a war he hates, and serves as an instrument of reconciliation in the early months of the peace; he becomes first a symbol of the hope of reason, then a focus for the rage and madness of the right. And throughout these years Berlin is an equal character, with its astonishing eruption of revolutionary pathways in art and architecture, in music, theater, and literature. Its wild street life and sexual excesses are notorious. But with the debacle of the depression and Hitler’s growing power, Berlin will be transformed, until by the end of 1932 it is no longer a safe home for Einstein. Once a hero, now vilified not only as the perpetrator of “Jewish physics” but as the preeminent symbol of all that the Nazis loathe, he knows it is time to leave.

An exhilarating journey through the subcultures, occupied squats, and late-night scenes in the anarchic first few years of Berlin after the fall of the wall Berlin Calling is a gripping account of the 1989 "peaceful revolution" in East Germany that upended communism and the tumultuous years of artistic ferment, political improvisation, and pirate utopias that followed. It’s the story of a newly undivided Berlin when protest and punk rock, bohemia and direct democracy, techno and free theater were the order of the day. In a story stocked with fascinating characters from Berlin’s highly politicized undergrounds—including playwright Heiner Müller, cult figure Blixa Bargeld of the industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, the internationally known French Wall artist Thierry Noir, the American multimedia artist Danielle de Picciotto (founder of Love Parade), and David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust incarnation—Hockenos argues that the DIY energy and raw urban vibe of the early 1990s shaped the new Berlin and still pulses through the city today. Just as Mike Davis captured Los Angeles in his City of Quartz, Berlin Calling is a unique account of how Berlin became hip, and of why it continues to attract creative types from the world over.

One of the most symbolic moments in modern history, the fall of the Berlin Wall resulted in the unification of East and West Germany and the designation of Berlin as the country's official capital. Berlin Then and Now offers a rare glimpse into a culturally and historically diverse city that is now one of the most exciting, vibrant and rapidly changing destinations in Europe. Filled with colour and black-and-white photographs, the book takes us from Stone Age to the city's "modern" history beginning in the 13th century when Berlin was founded as a trading post, and follows with the Industrial Revolution, World War I, Hitler's ascendancy and pre- and post-World War II.

Rudolf Zwirner, “the man who invented the art market,” as coined in Der Spiegel, reflects on more than sixty years in the art business in his authoritative autobiography. “Americans now see Germany as a natural breeding ground for mighty gallerists and collectors, but Rudolf Zwirner’s fascinating new memoir walks us through the decades it took to rebuild an art world shattered by World War II. In this dealer’s charming telling, however, the work involved sounds more like play than labor.” —Blake Gopnik, author of Warhol An art dealer of the ages, Rudolf Zwirner, father of the esteemed gallerist David Zwirner, reached many milestones in his career. From cofounding Art Cologne, the first fair for contemporary art, in 1967, to showing works by Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, and Andy Warhol, Zwirner transformed the contemporary art scene in Cologne. Born in 1933, he presented more than three hundred exhibitions from the early 1960s to 1992. In his autobiography, Zwirner reveals stories of artists, his gallery, and his most important collector, Peter Ludwig, whose collection forms the cornerstone of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne. First published in 2019 in German, and translated and adapted here for the first time in English, the book explores the most significant moments of Zwirner’s career and the fast-changing postwar art world. Also included in this edition is a new foreword by Lucas Zwirner, Rudolf’s grandson, who reflects on his grandfather’s role in bringing us to the global art landscape we find ourselves in now.

Berlin Then and Now captures the stark contrast between what came before and after the great conflicts of the twentieth century, using archival photographs of the city’s grand buildings, monuments, and boulevards alongside modern views of the same scenes today. Few cities in Europe have undergone as many transformations as Berlin in the past hundred years, or have risen from the rubble to stand as proud and vibrant as the city does today.Nick Gay's book shows the effects of Hitler's building plans of the 1930s, Allied bombing in World War II and the post-war division of the city into East and West and the subsequent reunification after 1989.Sites include: Brandenburg Gate, Pariser Platz, Hotel Adlon, the Reich Chancellery, Ministry of Aviation, Unter den Linden, Royal Opera House, Neue Wache, Berlin University, Palace Bridge, Lustgarten, Berliner Dom, Rotes Rathaus, Nikolaiviertel, Alexanderplatz, Muhlendamm, Gendarmenmarkt, Checkpoint Charlie, Wertheim Department Store, Potsdamer Platz, Death Strip, SS Headquarters, Anhalter Station, Siegessaule, Soviet War Memorial,Tempelhof Airport, Charlottenburg Palace, Olympic Stadium, Spandau Prison and Wannsee Conference Villa.