In the Garden of Beasts

Hell of a good book. The sleeping around and divorce aspects were surprising because I had always been taught that up until the boomer generation it was deeply shameful to be divorced or to sleep around, and that there were serious social consequences for it. This book is another indication, among many, that this is simply not the case. Interesting, entertaining. Highly recommend.

Fantastico romanzo storico dal punto di vista dei protagonisti che hanno vissuto l'ascesa al poter del nazionalsocialismo e dei suoi devastanti impatti sul genere umano. 9

https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2020/12/23/My-Favorite-Books-of-2020/

The author picked a great set of people to write about. The father isn't all that impressed with Germans and the daughter is in bed with a variety of ranking Nazi's, Russian pre-KGB... Between the two you get a great mix of perspectives. And the time period written about was educational.

I knew the war ended around 1945 but didn't know Hitler was put in office in 1933, and was put there by people believing they could control him. That Goebels was incredibly over weight.

I'm late reading this book, but it rings several bells in the aftermath of Donald Trump's rise to power in the United States. Are we seeing the advent of another Hitler? It's hard to ignore the obvious parallels, and I hope that the American people will be brave enough to stop him if he moves any further toward dictatorship. People in the 1930s ignored Ambassador Dodd's warnings. I hope we don't repeat that mistake.

I feel like I know a decent bit about Germany of this era - not that I have any real level of expertise, but I have studied it as just about much as any historic era and place, and there is a wealth of information and scholarship out there on the subject. This book approached Hitler's Germany from an angle I hadn't considered, and brought numerous events that in my mind had just come to be one after another into a broader context. It showed the gradual rise of the Nazi regime, the events that led to some of those “inevitable” points of interest which are most often listed. There were many more people shaping events than are usually mentioned, and a shocking amount of it comes down to casual interpersonal interactions rather than rigid formal government actions.

It's hard to compare to Devil in the White City, at least in my mind, but when thinking of Larson's work in general, this has not quite as compelling a narrative as that one does. It's thoroughly researched and the history is presented in an easily approached manner, I just never quite got as invested in the “story line” of the main characters.

Such an amazing book. Historical nonfiction that reads like narrative, with a wonderfully compelling story. From the foreign service politics, to the constant tension in Berlin during the early Third Reich, to getting caught up in Martha's romantic affairs, I couldn't get enough. Larson captures the time, place, and feeling of 1933-34 Berlin and America's place in it so well I was transported. I will absolutely be reading more of his work in the future! If you're at all interested in Nazi Germany, World War II, historical fiction or nonfiction, or just a good story well written, this book will please you.

Excellent.
Interesting and engaging and fun to read as well as full of useful information. A little too much is written about the personal life of Dodd's daughter, which in my opinions spills beyond relevant anecdotes into shallow gossip.
But other than this minor flaw, thoroughly enjoyable.

A particularly disturbing but fascinating book. The sense of unreality pervaded the story, as I could hardly imagine it to be true. A powerful work of nonfiction which brings new perspective on any previous “understanding” of how events leading up to the Second World War passed.

This book should be called “The Assholes Abroad”.

I know Erik Larson's work. I've read Isaac's Storm and Devil in the White City and I loved both of those nonfiction books.



And so I had expectations for this book. They were met. And exceeded.



Garden of the Beasts, like the other Larson books I've read, is a powerful story that was unfamiliar to me prior to reading the books. A naive American family in the middle of Nazi Germany as the country moves closer and closer to insanity...it's a story that begs to be told.



Larson was the perfect person to tell this story. His writing style is a wonderful mix of intelligence and readability. I flew through the pages of this book, but the book was no Oreo cookie, gobbled up in one delicious bite, but forgotten a few hours later. Instead, the book left me thinking about the characters for many days after I finished the book.

Great book that is well written. At times it seems a little random, as if there weren't enough details known. But still a great (and scary) read.

I kept listening, thinking I would be drawn in to this story as I have with Larson's other books, but I just didn't particularly care. It seemed to lack likable protagonists as well as an enticing narrative thread.

As the saying goes, “hindsight is 20/20”. Never has this been more true. Gets you to thinking about all of the other possibilities had someone stood up to Hitler in the early days, and all of the missed opportunities. Also introduced me to many new historical figures and events that I didn't know about. A great read.

As with all of Larson's books, I found the subject matter so fascinating, I couldn't believe I didn't know this story already. Even the footnotes are worth reading.