The Secret Library

[Chris Miller]

As mentioned in show #0002, we've just started a new book group on Goodreads. We've called it The Secret Library.


http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/2470.The_Secret_Library

Our first book to discuss will be the alternative history classic, Fatherland by Robert Harris.

It is twenty years after Nazi Germany's triumphant victory in World War II and the entire country is preparing for the grand celebration of the FÜhrer's seventy-fifth birthday, as well as the imminent peacemaking visit from President Kennedy.

Meanwhile, Berlin Detective Xavier March -- a disillusioned but talented investigation of a corpse washed up on the shore of a lake. When a dead man turns out to be a high-ranking Nazi commander, the Gestapo orders March off the case immediately. Suddenly other unrelated deaths are anything but routine.

Now obsessed by the case, March teams up with a beautiful, young American journalist and starts asking questions...dangerous questions. What they uncover is a terrifying and long-concealed conspiracy of such astonding and mind-numbing terror that is it certain to spell the end of the Third Reich -- if they can live long enough to tell the world about it.

Please, let us know if you'll be joining us for the book group. We'd love to be able to have not only some forum-based discussion here, but also get some of you on via Skype or in the studio.

[Natalie]

I'm in. :)

[LolaJ]

I finished the book last night. Ready to discuss. Need to discuss ... actually, need to vent.

[David Moore]

Ok, just got the book from the library today... and... it looks like the workload will actually be normal enough to let me read it! Should be starting it tonight, unless the Death Masks from the Harry Dresden series pulls me in.

[Gaston Gosselin]

Okay. Picked it up. Began to read... and I have to say, I'm probably not going to finish this one. The German/Nazi references just kept throwing me. Perhaps if I was more into Germany or Nazi Germany or Adolf Hitler history, my interest wouldn't have waned. But I'm not, and it did.

Also, the part that I found particularly funny/frustrating/weird, was the fact that the author tried so hard to toss in so much German, but would use English profanity. That just seemed extremely odd to me.

LolaJ, vent away. :)

[Kris Johnson]

Schweinhund!

[Kris Johnson]

Minions Assemble!

Chris and I will be recording our Fatherland discussion sometime on the weekend of February 16th. If you've read the book, let us know what you thought, either right here or over at The Secret Library group on GoodReads.

[David Moore]

I'm working my way through it now and am about halfway through. The German words mixed in do throw me out of the immersion of the book sometimes. The author usually puts in the German word followed by the English translation, if it were the German word alone, then I would be fine, but adding the English translation feels to me that the main character is a fish out of water and is reminding himself what these German words mean, which isn't the actual case.

The only other comment that I have currently, is that the book itself doesn't really feel that it needed to be set in this alternate history. Setting it during the Cold War and putting it in West Germany would have given it the same feel to me. Right now it's a cop story with overtones of a fascist government.

Though I did find it interesting that the train station the main character visits with his son early on has signs about watching for suspicious packages and to report anything unusual to authorities so that they can keep safe from terrorists. Interesting because the book was written in 1996, and I hear a lot of the same announcements on the train I ride today.