AFTER MIDNIGHT, by Irmgard Keun

After Midnight is a deceptively simple little tale that turns out to be a riveting insider's view of daily life in the early days of Nazi controlled Germany. The narrator is the very ordinary and somewhat naive 19 year old Sanna Moder, who is more concerned with her looks, friends and love life than in manouvering the complicated and dangerous politics of pre-war Germany. The book is full of satirical jabs at the Nazi ideology and power structure but at the same time takes a rather critical view of the way her compatriots coped with living in the frankly crazy Nazi system. It gives insight on the ways individuals respond to an absurd and nefarious political system, and some of the responses are not very pretty. Keun's life was amazingly courageous and her response to National Socialism as a writer is a beacon of integrity.

For a review of this book from NPR, click here: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/136682441/a-midnight-tale-of-the-rising-third-reich

WORLD'S FAIR, by E. L. Doctorow

Doctorow is well-known for evocative portraits of bygone eras in America in books such as Ragtime and Billy Bathgate - feeding off popular and sometimes nostalgic attitudes without sentimentality.  In World's Fair, he does a masterful job evoking the vanished New York of the 1930s as seen through the eyes of the child protagonist, Edgar. The childish world view in the narrative rings true, and the metaphor of the 1939 World's Fair hovers over the novel and provides its climax. It's a loving portrait of a city and an era by a masterful writer. Very enjoyable.

For a review of the novel from The Guardian, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/15/worlds-fair-el-doctorow