Why am I passionate about this?

My mother grew up in Germany during World War Two and her family (or what was left of it) settled in the Soviet Zone that eventually became East Germany. She managed to get out in 1953 by sneaking across the border with a weekend pass, but other members of the family remained. This history has been close to my heart as a result and is what inspired me to write my novel, The House of One Thousand Eyes. I had to do a lot of research to evoke an authentic setting for my novel. This reading list comes from my research of, and fascination with, that time in history.


I wrote

The House of One Thousand Eyes

By Michelle Barker,

Book cover of The House of One Thousand Eyes

What is my book about?

For Lena, life in East Germany in the early 1980s is particularly hard. After the death of her parents in…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

Michelle Barker Why did I love this book?

I first encountered this non-fiction book on East Germany while doing research for my novel. It is a riveting account of the author’s journey to Germany after the Wall came down to interview both people who resisted the authorities and people who worked for them. It provides incredible insight into the life and mindset of East Germans under the totalitarian regime. Many of the stories will leave you with your mouth hanging open in shock. I took it out of the library and then realized it was a book I needed to own, so I bought it and have read it several times. 

By Anna Funder,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Stasiland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Stasiland demonstrates that great, original reporting is still possible. . . . A heartbreaking, beautifully written book. A classic.” — Claire Tomalin, Guardian “Books of the Year”

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction: a powerfully moving account of people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for its secret police, the Stasi.

Anna Funder delivers a prize-winning and powerfully rendered account of the resistance against East Germany’s communist dictatorship in these harrowing, personal tales of life behind the Iron Curtain—and, especially, of life under the iron fist of the Stasi, East…


Book cover of The Innocent

Michelle Barker Why did I love this book?

This novel is set in Germany during the Cold War and is based partly on an actual event: a tunnel that was built by the British and Americans to gain access to the Soviets’ communications system. However, it focuses on a fictional character who is an innocent in several senses. I loved the setting, but I also loved the turn in the book where innocence becomes experience in a shocking way. This was a book I couldn’t put down.

By Ian McEwan,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Innocent as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The setting is Berlin. Into this divided city, wrenched between East and West, between past and present; comes twenty-five-year-old Leonard Marnham, assigned to a British-American surveillance team. Though only a pawn in an international plot that is never fully revealed to him, Leonard uses his secret work to escape the bonds of his ordinary life -- and to lose his unwanted innocence. The promise of his new life begins to be fulfilled as Leonard becomes a crucial part of the surveillance team, while simultaneously being initiated into a new world of love and sex by Maria, a beautiful young German…


Book cover of The Iron Curtain Kid

Michelle Barker Why did I love this book?

This is a memoir written by a young man who grew up in East Germany. I picked this one up for research but found myself completely enthralled by the story. His attention to detail is excellent. If you ever want to know what it was like to grow up in East Germany on a day-to-day basis, this is a great source of information. When the author finally goes to West Berlin for the first time in his life, it made me cry. 

By Oliver Fritz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Iron Curtain Kid as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Ever wondered what it must have been like growing up behind the Iron Curtain, on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall? Would your days have been haunted by the shadow of the omnipresent secret service, the Stasi, or was reality somewhat more mundane? In this humorous and touching memoir, Oliver Fritz takes us behind the myths, into a world of bottled fruit, corny commie jokes, socialist folk songs, sticky-taped plastic bags and Trabant cars. Where kids are counting the years to retirement, pensioners have no qualms breaking the law, holidays involve smuggling western newspapers from the Soviet Union or…


Book cover of Stasi Child

Michelle Barker Why did I love this book?

This is a police procedural set in the 1970s in East Berlin. The author successfully evokes an atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion, as the main character, a female detective, must try to solve the murder of a young girl who seems to have been killed fleeing from West to East Germany (not the usual direction). The feeling that everyone is watching, everyone is a potential informer, everything is potentially corrupt, corresponds to all the research I did on East Germany. Plus, it’s a great story that’s hard to put down.

By David Young,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stasi Child as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the shadow of the Berlin Wall, murder is never an open-and-shut case . . .

The award-winning, critically acclaimed Cold War crime thriller set in East Berlin - perfect for fans of Tom Rob Smith, Phillip Kerr and Joseph Kanon.
____________________________________

East Berlin, 1975 - When Oberleutnant Karin Muller is called to investigate a teenage girl's body at the foot of the Wall, she imagines she's seen it all before. But when she arrives she realises this is a death like no other. It seems the girl was trying to escape - but from the West.

Muller is a…


Book cover of Born in the GDR: Life in the Shadow of the Wall

Michelle Barker Why did I love this book?

The author of this non-fiction book interviews eight people who were born and raised in East Germany’s totalitarian regime and have had to adjust to a new life after the Wall comes down. I liked this book because it gave me a different perspective on East Germany and how people felt about the regime. Turns out it was a little more complicated than simply thinking everything was bad. And once the Wall came down, many things became difficult for easterners, particularly the higher cost of living and the scorn they experienced from westerners. 

By Hester Vaizey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Born in the GDR as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The changes that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 were particularly dramatic for East Germans. With the German Democratic Republic effectively taken over by West Germany in the reunification process, nothing in their lives was immune from change and upheaval: from the way they voted, the newspapers they read, to the brand of butter they bought.

But what was it really like to go from living under communism one minute, to capitalism the next? What did the East Germans make of capitalism? And how do they remember the GDR today? Are their memories dominated by fear…


Explore my book 😀

The House of One Thousand Eyes

By Michelle Barker,

Book cover of The House of One Thousand Eyes

What is my book about?

For Lena, life in East Germany in the early 1980s is particularly hard. After the death of her parents in a factory explosion and time spent in a psychiatric hospital, she is sent to live with her stern aunt, a devoted member of the ruling Communist Party. Visits with her beloved Uncle Erich, a best-selling author, are her only respite.  

But one night, her uncle disappears. Gone also are all his belongings, his books, and even his birth records. Lena is desperate to know what happened to him, but it’s as if he never existed. She cannot discuss her uncle or her attempts to find him with anyone. There are government spies everywhere. But Lena refuses to give up her search, regardless of the consequences.  

Book cover of Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
Book cover of The Innocent
Book cover of The Iron Curtain Kid

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The Atrahasis Epic

By Ken Goudsward,

Book cover of The Atrahasis Epic

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Ken Goudsward Author Of Fermi's Paradox Is Bullshit: the Evidence for Extraterrestrial Life

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I was fascinated with astronomy but discouraged from investigating the UFO phenomenon due to religious reasons. Not until I was in my forties, did I begin to see the strange Biblical hints of what ended up in my writing my book UFOs In The Bible. Along the way, my research led me to diverse related topics including Sumerian mythology and astrobiology which have resulted in a few more books (and more to come). I see logic as a fundamental tool for this line of investigation, and so, I embrace books that engage with the evidence logically. I firmly believe we must all make room for experiencers to tell their stories without recrimination.

Ken's book list on rational UFO stories

What is my book about?

Contrary to popular belief, the Atrahasis Epic is not merely a flood myth. In some ways it can be called a creation myth. However, it does not concern itself with the creation of the universe or even of the earth. Rather, the created work in question is one of culture and civilization. The work ostensibly includes, but may not be limited to, modern humans.

The goals of this new paraphrase are to examine the ancient story in a new light free of religious and gender biases and to integrate geological and archaeological evidence that ties the story to a specific…

The Atrahasis Epic

By Ken Goudsward,

What is this book about?

Contrary to popular belief, the Atrahasis Epic is not merely a flood myth. In some ways it can be called a creation myth. However, it does not concern itself with the creation of the universe or even of the earth. Rather, the created work in question is one of culture and civilization. The work ostensibly includes, but may not be limited to, modern humans.

The goals of this new paraphrase are to examine the ancient story in a new light free of religious and gender biases and to integrate geological and archaeological evidence that ties the story to a specific…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in East Germany, Germany, and romantic love?

East Germany 30 books
Germany 492 books
Romantic Love 943 books