One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History
by Thomas Harding
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2016
464 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A groundbreaking and revelatory new history of Germany, told over a tumultuous century through the story of a small wooden house.
In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding traveled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a small house by a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. It had been her "soul place," she said - a holiday home for her and her family, but also a refuge - until the 1930s, when the Nazis' rise to power forced them to leave.
The trip was his grandmother's chance to remember her childhood sanctuary as it was. But the house had changed, and when Harding returned once again nearly twenty years later, it was about to be demolished. It now belonged to the government, and as Harding began to inquire about whether the house could be saved, he unearthed secrets that had lain hidden for decades. Slowly he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived there: a wealthy landowner, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned composer, a widow and her children, a Stasi informant. All had made the house their home, and all but one had been forced out.
The house had weathered storms, fires and abandonment, witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, and had withstood the trauma of a world war and the dividing of a nation. Breathtaking in scope and intimate in its detail, The House by the Lake is a groundbreaking and revelatory new history of Germany, told over a tumultuous century through the story of a small wooden house.
A Finalist for the Costa Book Award
Longlisted for the Orwell Prize
Named a Best Book of the Year by:
The Times (UK) • New Statesman (UK) • Daily Express (UK) • Commonwealth magazine
"This personal saga centered on a family home will appeal to enthusiasts of German history, especially post-World War II division and reunification." - Library Journal
"A personal and imaginative yet overlong perspective on German history." - Kirkus
"A fascinating window on a tumultuous period." - Financial Times (UK)
"By tracing the lives of the different families who lived there, Harding sheds fresh light on the German 20th century, a tale of war, spies, murder and political, racial and social division. His account of the house is a superb work of social history, told with tremendous narrative verve." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"This is a history that is often poignant, sometimes heartening, and never other than intimate... This is a gentle but rewarding book, carefully tuned into the marginal voices recorded in the history of one small house by a lake." - The Spectator (UK)
"Diamond-brilliant... If a webcam had been left on at number 101 Gross Glienicke for 90 years, the record could not have been more vivid or revelatory. Harding's research, from eyewitness accounts to the files of ministries, is jaw-dropping. This is an extraordinary book. Five Stars." - Sunday Express (UK)
"History, which we learn about as a series of ideological abstractions, is lived concretely. This is why an ordinary house can serve so effectively as a symbol of the German experience." - The New Statesman (UK)
"It would be hard to write an original and moving account of the tortured 20th-century history of Germany. But, in The House by the Lake, Thomas Harding succeeds remarkably... A tragic and beautifully told history." - The Jewish Chronicle
"Impressive... A deft history of a cabin containing many secrets." - The Independent (UK)
"The house by the lake has survived economic booms, busts, extremist ideology, persecution, barbed wired fences, blame and retribution and this book is a potent reminder that behind all these, are human stories." - Country Life (UK)
"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 Technicolor 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, author of Snowdrops and The Faithful Couple
"A passionate memoir about Germany." - Neil MacGregor, author of A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany: Memories of a Nation
This information about The House by the Lake was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Thomas Harding is an author and journalist who has written for the Financial Times, The Sunday Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, among other publications. His #1 internationally bestselling book Hanns and Rudolf won the 2015 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize, was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Book Award Biography prize and is being translated into more than a dozen languages.
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