Here are 100 books that Hitler's Monsters fans have personally recommended if you like
Hitler's Monsters.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I am a historian of twentieth century Germany and the Holocaust, but I am also a voracious consumer of popular culture. How do I justify spending so much time watching and analyzing horror and science fiction film and television? Well, write a book about it, of course. The first thing I realized is that many other brilliant scholars have thought about why this imagery permeates contemporary culture, even if I asked different questions about why. I hope you are as inspired and enlightened by this book list as I was.
Before you can understand contemporary manifestations of zombies and vampires in shows like The Walking Dead or The Strain, it helps to know the long and varied cultural history of these monsters. Gregory Waller explores how each generation imagined and interpreted zombies and vampires, both in print and on-screen. How do they speak to our fears and prejudices, or even desires? I found it very helpful in writing Planet Auschwitz.
With a legacy stretching back into legend and folklore, the vampire in all its guises haunts the film and fiction of the twentieth century and remains the most enduring of all the monstrous threats that roam the landscapes of horror. In The Living and the Undead, Gregory A. Waller shows why this creature continues to fascinate us and why every generation reshapes the story of the violent confrontation between the living and the undead to fit new times. Examining a broad range of novels, stories, plays, films, and made-for-television movies, Waller focuses upon a series of interrelated texts: Bram Stoker's…
I’m a historian, with a special interest in the 20th century. I’ve written about Freud’s Vienna, the aftermath of the First World War, strikes in the 1920s and 1930s in America’s cotton South, the plot to assassinate Hitler, and the notorious 1940s gangsters nicknamed “Murder, Inc.”. What intrigues me about the 20th century are the era’s underlying values and the shocking and violent collisions among them. In Casablanca’s Conscience, I use the great film as a lens with which to take another look at the tumultuous times just a generation ago.
Kracauer was a German film critic in the Weimar years. This classic text, first published in 1947, relates the crisis of German culture in the 1920s and 1930s–which climaxed in Hitler and Nazism–to famous Weimar films, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and M. Kracauer’s effort to track Germany’s cultural zeitgeist in the movies. This relation is not without controversy.
His book remains a fine example of the struggle to see mass psychology in the movies and the movies in the context of mass psychology.
An essential work of the cinematic history of the Weimar Republic by a leading figure of film criticism
First published in 1947, From Caligari to Hitler remains an undisputed landmark study of the rich cinematic history of the Weimar Republic. Prominent film critic Siegfried Kracauer examines German society from 1921 to 1933, in light of such movies as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M, Metropolis, and The Blue Angel. He explores the connections among film aesthetics, the prevailing psychological state of Germans in the Weimar era, and the evolving social and political reality of the time. Kracauer makes a startling…
I am a historian of twentieth century Germany and the Holocaust, but I am also a voracious consumer of popular culture. How do I justify spending so much time watching and analyzing horror and science fiction film and television? Well, write a book about it, of course. The first thing I realized is that many other brilliant scholars have thought about why this imagery permeates contemporary culture, even if I asked different questions about why. I hope you are as inspired and enlightened by this book list as I was.
How do nations process a trauma like Auschwitz, the Vietnam War, 9/11, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Linnie Blake argues in The Wounds of Nationsthat the horror genre provides a medium through which nations can process recent historical traumas “from a distance.” Examining horror films produced in Germany, the US, Japan, and others countries with a vested interest in burying violent history can tell us a great deal about national identity formation in the wake of war, terrorism, and seismic political changes.
The wounds of nations: Horror cinema, historical trauma and national identity explores the ways in which the unashamedly disturbing conventions of international horror cinema allow audiences to engage with the traumatic legacy of the recent past in a manner that has serious implications for the ways in which we conceive of ourselves both as gendered individuals and as members of a particular nation-state.
Exploring a wide range of stylistically distinctive and generically diverse film texts, its analysis ranges from the body horror of the American 1970s to the avant-garde proclivities of German Reunification horror, from the vengeful supernaturalism of recent…
I am a historian of twentieth century Germany and the Holocaust, but I am also a voracious consumer of popular culture. How do I justify spending so much time watching and analyzing horror and science fiction film and television? Well, write a book about it, of course. The first thing I realized is that many other brilliant scholars have thought about why this imagery permeates contemporary culture, even if I asked different questions about why. I hope you are as inspired and enlightened by this book list as I was.
The great film scholar Stephen Prince brings together over a dozen experts on the horror genre, contributing chapters on everything from the silent film era to postmodernism, the military horror film, and the Holocaust. The book is a must for anyone who wants to look beyond the screams and gore and understand why the genre speaks to us on more than just a visceral level.
Here, Stephen Prince has collected essays reviewing the history of the horror film and the psychological reasons for its persistent appeal, as well as discussions of the developmental responses of children and young adult viewers to the genre. The book focuses on recent post-modern examples such as ""The Blair Witch Project"". Controversially, the book also includes a discussion of Holocaust films in relation to horror. Part One features essays on the silent and classical Hollywood eras. Part Two focuses on the post World War II era and examines the historical, aesthetic and psychological characteristics of contemporary horror films. In contrast…
I've been studying people at work for over 40 years, starting as an undergraduate at Cornell’s School of Labor Relations. As a student, I got involved with the trade union movement in the US, and worked as an assembly-line worker and fruit picker on kibbutzim in Israel. These hands-on experiences made me want to understand and have an impact on the way people spend most of their working hours. I’ve collected survey data from literally thousands of workers in dozens of studies conducted around the world. I’ve published more articles in scholarly journals than I ever imagined possible. And while I’m still passionate about the study of work, I’ve yet to really understand it.
Malcom Gladwell is undoubtedly the best translator of social science research writing these days.
What the Dog Saw is a compendium of New Yorker essays penned by Gladwell, several of which have a direct link to managing people. Two of my favorites are “Late Bloomers” – an essay on the fallacy of inherent talent, and “Most Likely to Succeed”.
These essays say a lot about employee selection and development, challenging the assumptions held by too many managers that good staff are born, not made, and that selecting top talent is the key to competitive advantage. Gladwell goes with the evidence, but does so in a super-engaging manner.
Malcolm Gladwell is the master of playful yet profound insight. His ability to see underneath the surface of the seemingly mundane taps into a fundamental human impulse: curiosity. From criminology to ketchup, job interviews to dog training, Malcolm Gladwell takes everyday subjects and shows us surprising new ways of looking at them, and the world around us. Are smart people overrated? What can pit bulls teach us about crime? Why are problems like homelessness easier to solve than to manage? How do we hire when we can't tell who's right for the job? Gladwell explores the minor geniuses, the underdogs…
I fell in love with Paris when I first went there and walked the streets for hours. It wasn’t the Haussman boulevards or the Eiffel Tower that captured my imagination, beautiful as they are. Rather, it was the older quarters and hidden corners that fascinated me. I wanted to know who lived there and what their lives were like. When I got the chance to do a PhD, that’s what I chose. After years in the different Paris archives, I still never get tired of uncovering their secrets. I’ve written four books about Paris and have plans for more!
A wonderful evocation of many aspects of everyday life in Europe’s 2nd biggest city. Who were “the people” and where were they in the social hierarchy? This book looks at the beginnings of a consumer culture: what did ordinary families earn and what did this enable them to buy. Where and how did they live? How did working Parisians dress, what did they read, how did they spend their holidays? It’s all there!
In his collective portrait of the common people, Roche offers a rich and fascinating description of their lives--their housing, food, dress, financial dealings, literature, domestic life, and leisure time. Roche's highly readable style and use of contemporary quotations enliven the reader's view of eighteenth-century Paris and Parisians.
Gabriella Lepore is a YA author from Wales in the UK. When she isn’t reading or writing, she can usually be found exploring the coastline or perusing a bookstore. She enjoys autumn days and cups of tea and is always searching for the next mystery!
I’m starting this list with one of my favorite YA mysteries, This book is written in the form of police transcripts, the narrative is certainly unique, and I was hooked! I couldn’t put this book down and had no idea what happened to popular Maylee.
With sharp twists and complex backstories, these characters jumped off the page with their mysterious connections to the missing Maylee. Is Maylee dead? And who is responsible for her disappearance? I raced through this book to find out the answers!
I love music books and annoy my wife with how many I consume per month. (She wants me to read fiction. Pish-posh.) The ones that play with format and provide multiple viewpoints are my favorites. I became a music journalist after spending my teenage years in a ska band; that alone taught me that music is complex, ever-evolving, and the technical is intrinsically tied to the personal. I approached my book with the same acknowledgment of diverse opinions and fierce emotional connection. I have devoted my life to loving and playing ska, and it seemed to be the only genre lacking a defender. The defender turned out to be me.
I grew up at the best moment to fall in love with Britpop—Pulp is the best of them, by the way. But I digress. As an American, I knew little about the culture that birthed Britpop; I just consumed it without context. Daniel Rachel’s oral history on Cool Brittania explains this entire culture where a bunch of ’90s British rock bands were influenced by ’60s British rock bands.
This cultural blip was also tied to soccer, Trainspotting, the work of Nick Hornby, and “lad culture.” Oh, and I even learned what lad culture was! It was a straightforward read but packed with a ton of info that helped me appreciate British pop culture even more than I already (superficially) did.
The nineties was the decade when British culture reclaimed its position at the artistic centre of the world. Not since the 'Swinging Sixties' had art, comedy, fashion, film, football, literature and music interwoven into a blooming of national self-confidence. It was the decade of Lad Culture and Girl Power; of Blur vs Oasis. When fashion runways shone with British talent, Young British Artists became household names, football was 'coming home' and British film went worldwide. From Old Labour's defeat in 1992 through to New Labour's historic landslide in 1997, Don't Look Back In Anger chronicles the Cool Britannia age when…
That’s a terrible question that gives
me spiritual anxiety. But to get right down to it, I’m just someone who loves
culture. I’m fascinated by why people do the things they do, from ethics to
aesthetics. As a music journalist, I have interviewed everyone from local bands
to Grammy award-winning artists for publications like Alternative Press,
Kerrang!, Revolver, and Loudwire. My work as a freelance
entertainment writer carried me to other types of lifestyle writing, including
food and travel. I am a regular contributor for Reader’s Digest.
Culture critic Chuck Klosterman is
essentially the next-gen Hunter S. Thompson. This book is a stream of
consciousness foray into contemporary pop culture, ranging from essays on
sports to music to reality TV. It’s an odd, brilliant, self-indulgent take on
the American zeitgeist. Feel smart and have a laugh at the same time.
With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, breakfast cereal, serial killers, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). Sex, Drugs and Coca Puffs is ostensibly about movies, sport, television, music, books, video games and kittens, but really it's about us. All of us.
Twelve Percent Dread is about the curious state of anxiety that underpins living in the 21st Century, when we’re aware of so many current and looming disasters. However, it’s a bit of a misleading title, my book is actually very funny! Most of my work is built around stuffing as many jokes in as possible, and I want the reader to really chuckle and feel joy when they read it. In this book, the jokes come from the state of anxiety that the characters work themselves into. Assuming you, the reader, also experiences a certain level of dread throughout the day, here’s a list of books that will hopefully help relieve it.
I wanted to recommend a couple of funny graphic novels to help stave off dread, and this book by Lisa Hanawalt is simply the funniest graphic novel I have ever read. The author is perhaps best known as one of the co-creators of Bojack Horseman (with her signature animal characters) as well as Tuca & Bertie. It’s a collection of musings and essays, told through Lisa’s incredible artwork. She has such an unexpected left-field sense of humour that is sharp but somehow always warm, underpinned by her beautiful illustrations. This book is like riding on a strange multicoloured rollercoaster though a candy dreamland, but you’re very securely fastened into your seat and feel very snugly held throughout.
Sharply observant, laugh-out-loud funny comics from The Believer cartoonist and New York Times illustrator
My Dirty Dumb Eyes is the highly anticipated debut collection from award-winning cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt. In a few short years, Hanawalt has made a name for herself: her intricately detailed, absurdly funny comics have appeared in venues as wide and varied as The Hairpin, VanityFair.com, Lucky Peach, Saveur, The New York Times, and The Believer.
My Dirty Dumb Eyes intermingles drawings, paintings, single-panel gag jokes, funny lists, and anthropomorphized animals, all in the service of satirical, startlingly observant commentary on pop culture, contemporary society, and human…
