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Recommended by Debbie R. in Riverside A Finalist for the Costa Book AwardLonglisted for the Orwell PrizeNamed a Best Book of the Year byThe Times (London) * New Statesman (London) * Daily Express (London) * Commonweal magazine In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding traveled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a small house by a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. It had been her "soul place," she said -- a holiday home for her and her family, but also a refuge -- until the 1930s, when the Nazis' rise to power forced them to leave.The trip was his grandmother's chance to remember her childhood sanctuary as it was. But the house had changed, and when Harding returned once again nearly twenty years later, it was about to be demolished. It now belonged to the government, and as Harding began to inquire about whether the house could be saved, he unearthed secrets that had lain hidden for decades.