“Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History” by Simon Winder
Germania is propelled by a wish to reclaim the brilliant, chaotic, endlessly varied German civilization that the Nazis buried and ruined, and that, since 1945, so many Germans have worked to rebuild.
A very funny book on serious topics—how we are misled by history, how we twist history, and how sometimes it is best to know no history at all.
It is a book full of curiosities: odd food, castles, mad princes, fairy tales, and horse-mating videos. It is about the limits of language, the meaning of culture, and the pleasure of townscape, and “a book you will return to time and again”
