Great reading that provides a sense of the city, from the Traveler online Ultimate Travel Library.
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Berlin Diary: Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941, by William Shirer (1941)
Riveting eyewitness account of the Nazis’ rise to the power written by one of the greatest 20th-century journalists who spent the 1930s as a CBS radio reporter in Berlin.
The Innocent, by Ian McEwan (1990)
Intelligent, under-the-skin spy thriller set in 1950s Berlin follows a young Brit who loses both his sexual and political innocence when assigned to work on a top-secret tunnel the Americans were building to infiltrate Soviet communications.
Berlin Noir, by Philip Kerr (1994)
Highly readable trio of novels about Berlin seen through the eyes and predations of a world-weary private eye before, during, and after World War II; descriptions, characters, and wickedly clever turns of phrase that out-Chandler even Chandler himself.
Russian Disco, by Wladimir Kaminer (2000)
Breakthrough work by best-selling Russian-Jewish immigrant strings together dozens of smart and humorous vignettes about quirks, foibles, and characters in post-reunification Berlin.
Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, by Anna Funder (2003)
The all-pervasive and destructive powers of the East German secret police—the Stasi—come vividly to life through interviews with both victims and perpetrators in this Australian journalist’s award-winning work.
