Walking in Berlin

'Like a private invitation back to the city's most beguiling era ... Irreverent and yet always enthusiastic, [Hessel's] 88-year-old love letter to this city is a true map of the traces of a bygone world.' -- Vanessa Thorpe The Observer Magazine 'Captures a portrait of a city on the brink of irrevocable change ... Hessel was both detailed chronicler of the present, and a man keenly aware of the city's history ... Apt then that Walking in Berlin now joins this historical hall of fame.' -- Lucy Scholes The Independent '[Walking in Berlin] is not only an important record of old Berlin; it is a testimony to its enduring spirit.' -- Harry Strawson TLS '...an absolutely epic book, a walking remembrance.' -- Walter Benjamin 'Hessel's conversational style and subtle insights evoke Weimar Berlin and reveal a great deal about the Germany of his days.' -- Eileen Battersby The Irish Times 'Walking in Berlin is a magical mystery tour of a city on the brink of upheaval. Hessel may have wandered haphazardly but he wrote with purpose, never once losing his way.' -- Malcolm Forbes Sunday Herald 'Hessel's warm enthusiasm for his home town informs every page, and provides the reader with a geographical guide that still holds value, despite the enormous changes in the city. More than that, though, it evokes a time that, although just about within living memory, seems almost as remote as the nineteenth-century Berlin of Schinkel.' Shiny New Books 'Hessel is a modest master of spontaneous observation.' -- Sabine Vogel Berliner Zeitung '...a newly rediscovered treasure.' Die Welt 'To this day, there is no better Berlin travel guide.' -- Peter von Becker Tagesspiegel 'Beautiful ... a classic observation of the German city in the late 1920s that illuminates many of the historic shadows and provides a wonderful map for modern-day wanderings.' Sydney Morning Herald 'When you think of Berlin in the 1920s, you cannot avoid thinking of the storyteller, critic and translator Franz Hessel.' -- Manfred Papst recommends Spazieren in Berlin in the Neue Zuricher Zeitung (NZZ) 'Walking in Berlin can be read lightly as a postcard from the past; it should be read seriously as an inexhaustible record of all that Berlin was and might have been, as an enthralling guide to a wealth of references, sidetracks, lost paths ... This is a first encounter with the myth and the reality of that intangible fantastic beast of a city.' -- Mika Provata-Carlone Bookanista 'Hessel is a feisty, clever, and witty guide to Berlin; his prose is animated and sumptuous and his perceptions glamorously lyrical. For anyone who knows the geography of Berlin, this book is an especial treat.' -- Gail Jones Saturday Age '[A] sprawling panorama of cultural memory and miscellany, a vibrant catalog of metropolitan life, and a seismograph of a city on the verge of disaster.' Los Angeles Review of Books 'A timely ode to a good meander and [Hessel's] home city [Berlin].' Wanderlust 'Hessel's wonderings in the Weimar-era German capital mix social commentary with artistic and architectural analysis ... his musings offer a fresh set of eyes.' GQ