This weekend The Rest Is Noise festival is heading to Berlin – and the Reading Group is going to go along with them.
The festival is concentrating on the 1920s and 30s. John Gray will be looking at Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig. Frederick Taylor, author of Exorcising Hitler, will give a historical overview. A panel is going to be talking about Bertolt Brecht – and another one, of course, will focus on Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye To Berlin.
We might take inspiration from all that – and all the other riches and horrors produced in Weimar and Nazi Berlin, from Hans Fallada to Alfred Doblin to Thomas Mann.
Take a look at this list, too, if you're looking for ideas. It's a pretty good starting point, even if they do miss off Len Deighton's Deighton's superb – and currently too rarely read – Game, Set and Match trilogy, as well as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
Berlin is also a timely subject because David Bowie's new album is due out in just a few days – his famous stay in Berlin already commemorated in the single Where Are We Now? Apparently, while he was there, The Thin White Duke was chewing through Nietzsche and Crowley, which might add an interestingly esoteric slant to the proceedings. There are also a few pretty good books about the great man himself that we might look at. But as usual, the choice is yours – and the hat's. I'll be pulling out the nominations early next week.
