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My Favorite Things

My All-TIme Favorite Books

  • As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
  • A Story Like the Wind, Laurens van der Post
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
  • Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
  • The Lover, Marguerite Duras
  • To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara

More Favorite Books

  • EVERYTHING that Toni Morrison has written
  • To the Lighthouse/ Virginia Woolf
  • The Old Man and the Sea/ Ernest Hemingway
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao/ Junot Diaz
  • Another Bullshit Night in Suck City/ Nick Flynn
  • Love Medicine/ Louise Erdrich
  • A Visit From the Goon Squad/ Jennifer Egan
  • Let the Great World Spin/ Colum McCann
  • Yesterday’s Weather/ Anne Enright
  • Gilead/ Marilynne Robinson
  • The Tender Bar/ J. R. Moehringer
  • Evening/ Susan Minot
  • American Romantic/ Ward Just
  • Open City/ Teju Cole
  • A Little Life/ Hanya Yanagihara

Great Movies That Inspired “Letters From Berlin”

  • A Woman in Berlin / A German film based on the anonymous memoir of a woman who survived the Russian invasion of Berlin—barely.
  • Good Evening Mr. Wallenberg / A Swedish film about Raoul Wallenberg.
  • Cabaret / Starring Liza Minelli and Michael York about life in Berlin just prior to WWII.
  • Sophie Scholl: The Final Days / A German-made film about a university student who was sentenced to death for her a participation in the resistance group in Munich called the “White Rose.”
  • The Bunker / A Time-Life movie made for TV starring Anthony Hopkins about Hitler’s final days in the Berlin bunker.
  • Downfall / A German-made film about the final ten days of Hitler’s life.
  • The Lives of Others / An eye-opening film about the Stazi in East Berlin in the year 1984.
  • Lore / As the Allies sweep across Eastern Europe at the end of WWII, five siblings flee for their lives.
  • Aimee and Jaguar / A love story set in Berlin during WWII.
  • Dersu Uzala / A Japanese film about the Russian Far-East Wilderness. A Golden Prize Winner for best foreign film, 1975.
  • Dr. Zhivago / Starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie. Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak, this film has some great scenes of the Siberian wilderness.

Favorite Movies

  • Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter / A beautifully filmed Korean movie set on a tree-lined lake where a Buddhist monastery floats on a raft.
  • Pulp Fiction, / Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
  • Life of Brian / Monty Python. Need I say more?
  • Run Lola Run / A German thriller film.
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel / With Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldblum, and Willem Dafoe, to name a few.
  • Fanny and Alexander / Directed by Ingmar Bergman.
  • The Big Lebowski / Need I say more?
  • Mulholland Drive / Directed by David Lynch.
  • Blue Velvet / Directed by David Lynch.
  • Passing Strange / Directed by Spike Lee. The film adaptation of the Broadway play about Stew.
  • No Country for Old Men / Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name.
  • Three Colors: Blue; Three Colors: White; Three Colors: Red / A French-Polish metaphorical trilogy about the French Republic.
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