Can you recommend a book or two about modern Germany?
I am planning a trip to Germany later this year to visit friends and I should like to read three or four books by way of preparation.  I have spent less than s…
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Many thanks to everyone who responded to my request. I also consulted a few friends who are not in HoL. I have made a list of the books and films that were suggested directly or indirectly and this is given below. I read the newest book at once (the one by Philip Oltermann) and was so impressed by it that I consulted him too. He was kind enough to suggest five more books and one more film. He also enthused about the TV series Heimat.

The list includes 28 books and 13 named films which is rather more than I had in mind so I have had to choose. For the time being, I intend to concentrate on the first four or five books below and on the first part of Heimat (that’s eleven episodes).

Books:

Keeping Up with the Germans by Philip Oltermann

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Stasiland by Anna Funder

Baader Meinhof Complex by Stefan Aust

The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany by David Blackbourn

The Emigrants, Vertigo and Rings of Saturn by W G Sebald

The Tin Drum, Peeling the Onion and The Box by Günter Grass

The Safety Net by Heinrich Boll.

The File by Timothy Garton Ash

What We Knew by Eric A. Johnson and Karl - Heinz Reuband

Five Germanys I Have Known by Fritz Stern

Germany: Unravelling an Enigma by Greg Nees

The Germans by Gordon A. Craig

Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane

The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf

Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome

The Piano Teacher by Elfride Jelinek

Love in the time of the Mahlstädt child: stories by Clemens Setz

In Europe by Geert Mak

Measuring the World by Daniel Kelinek

Atemschaukel (Everything I Possess I Carry With Me) and Der Fuchs war damals schon der

Jäger (Even Back Then, the Fox Was the Hunter) by Herta Müller

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

Flights of Love by Bernhard Schlink

Berlin Blues by Sven Regener

Films:

The Wave by Denis Gansel

The Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Run Lola Run by Tom Tykwer

Goodbye Lenin by Wolfgang Becker

Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders

Baader-Meinhof Komplex by Uli Edel

Downfall and The Final Days by Oliver Hirschbiegel

Women in Berlin by Max Färberböck

The Hunters are the Hunted by Peter Fleischer

Amen by Rolf Hochhuth

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser by Werner Herzog

Anything by Schöndorff, Herzog, Fassbinder, Costa-Gavras

Head On by Fatih Akin

TV:

Heimat

Available via the internet are two multi national TV stations.. 3SAT & ARTE available everywhere in Germany..

3SAT Is a joint German, Austrian & Swiss station. Be aware that the Swiss are considered to be, at least within the German speaking world, as conservative and a bit boring.. a clichee maybe, but all clichees have some basis.

http://www.3sat.de/index.html

and then there's ARTE, a joint French-German station with all programming available in French & German - Maybe this might be a way into German Culture for those can speak French better than German..

http://www.arte.tv/fr French

http://www.arte.tv/de German

http://videos.arte.tv/fr/videos/html/index-4268756.html en direct/live

I've often thought a joint German-English station might be worthwhile.. as the understanding and knowledge of Germany in Britain is somewhat lacking.. But, I expect that the Brits, being TV chauvanists, who prefer to buy in MACprogramming from the USA, wouldn't be much interested .. Better stay with the old chlichees you know and love, than be really in touch.

Not at all what Dick was looking for, nor yet "the old cliches you know and love" as StephenBln puts it, I found Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" (2010) an eye-opener. Not so much Heimat as Lebensraum meets Das To(e)ten Raum where Uncle Adolf meets Uncle Joe in the spaces in between. But then I find you can often learn more about lebensraum seekers in the countries they've visited than on their home soil. Like Dick Harris, I return to Vienna at Easter, 43 years after my one and only visit. I think I'll revert to Snyder on the Hapsburgs for my prep.