Search

Search only in certain items:

Friedrichstrasse 19
Friedrichstrasse 19
Emma Harding | 2022 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
8
7.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Friedrichstrasse 19 is 6 stories set in the same building over its lifetime. We see Berlin through the eyes of those that lived in the building between 1906 and 2019, and there are some serious historical moments as well as cultural highlights: a woman in the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) in 1986; a photographers apprentice in 1906; an unhappily married Jewish woman who meets an actress pre-WW2; the Berlin Airlift post WW2 era, when the actress is trying to find her Jewish lover (she knows there’s little chance); 1969 and a photographer finds a young GDR escapee and decides to help her; 2019, a divorcee originally from the East, who met her ex-husband on the night that the Wall fell.

All intriguing characters and stories that give a glimpse into urban life in Berlin, as well as its history. It probably helped that I was familiar with the history of Germany generally (thanks to a German degree many years ago!), and I make a point of reading fiction set in Germany when/ if I come across it. And this is a pleasure when I come across books like Friedrichstrasse 19!
  
40x40

Morgan Sheppard (1036 KP) created a post

Aug 27, 2026 - 4:23 PM  
Two Story Hearth standalones that stand apart from the Welsh mythology at the heart of the catalogue, and reveal something in the standing-apart.

To Catch a Dream — a contemporary romance with no magic, no folklore, no mythology. Caitlin is twenty-six, strong, and genuinely content with her life. Will makes that contentment feel like it might be missing something she hadn't noticed was absent. The question is entirely ordinary and entirely real. Is what you feel worth the risk of acting on it?

Cabbages & Kings — historical fiction set in 1198, told through Alana Dale's honest and clear-eyed account of the Robin Hood legend from inside the village rather than the greenwood. No magic. Just the cost of seeing clearly when the story everyone tells would prefer you didn't look too closely.

Both of them ask what the mythology asks, without the mythology to carry it. Both of them know that love costs something real.

To Catch a Dream — Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/nfjo6 / Universal: https://books2read.com/To-Catch-a-Dream
Cabbages & Kings — Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/xJR0T / Universal: https://books2read.com/Cabbages-Kings

#Contemporary #Romance #HistoricalFiction #BookLove #ReadingCommunity #Folklore