Reviews

Listened on Hoopla. Read it since it was mentioned in David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries. I liked this one better than his. It's always interesting to hear of people's lives in a world that you have no experience in. And it's really important that Funder put this book together since memories of the GDR are going to be slowly dying off.

philippamaeve's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Incredible

hhimes47's review against another edition

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informative reflective sad medium-paced

2.5

Full of beautiful prose and must-read stories to understand the GDR. Has a tendency to take a one-dimensional, positive view of the capitalism of Western Germany, as if simply because the GDR was extremely flawed, its capitalist counterpart must have been free of error. Multiple former residents of the GDR of all walks of life are quoted in the book either outright condemning capitalism or simply pointing out certain aspects of their old lives in the GDR that functioned better than they do in reunified Germany. In most of these cases, the author works to discount this point of view or paint it as overly nostalgic and far from the truth. Despite this, the book is still overall worth a read for the various first-hand accounts.

davey_p's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative fast-paced

5.0

sophiedons's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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