Reviews

• A True "Novel"

  Anna Funder;s "Stasiland" is a book I reread every couple of years and every time I reread it it reads fresh. In Germany last year I was passing through Cologne on my way to Hamburg when "Stasiland" came to mind and being on a free flow trip I detoured via Berlin, firstly to visit the punks and drunks at Alexanderplatz and secondly to visit the former Stasi headquarters - I never did get to Hamburg. Thus when "All That I Am" came into print I wanted to read it. I also wanted to wait for the paperback (being a meanie) but the temptation was too strong and when Amazon put it on special offer I lapsed and bought it in hardback. Once I'd received it I let it sit for a while on my "To Read" bookshelf because I just knew that as soon as I picked it up I wouldn't be able to put it down and so I had to make the window for reading it. My lady was away for a few days last week and I booked two consecutive days off work. As soon as I picked it off the shelf and opened it pre-WWII Berlin sprung to life. Anna Funder's writing is just so human, descriptive and personal without flounces. The two protagonists, Ruth and Ernst, were both real people: both anti-nazi and socialist, who survived the war and as the book flicks backwards into their individual histories the story unfolds, bringing a host of other vivid characters and tales of heroism, despair and sometimes treachery. This is a book about people and their flaws and stregnths. It is a book about survival and a book that should be read by all who love humanity.

• Brilliant

  This is a book that I had read and bought it for my daughter in Canada via Amazon. I have given it five stars but perhaps for someone living outside Australia it might be a four as later in the book it is set in Australia. Anyone interested in stories of the Second World War will find this interesting. Not interested? Don't be put off as the characters woven through are wonderfully described. It has some twists which come as a surprise.

• An essential read

  The story was a riveting account of a person's life on the wrong side of the fence. A book that was very hard to put down.

• Growth of Dictatorship

  While there is a lot to be learned from so-called primary sources there are also nuggets to be found in fact-based fiction. This novel is a narrative in two voices: Ruth, a refugee from Hitler's Germany now resident in Australia, and Toller, also a refugee but in New York City. Their voices alternate as they reflect on the anti-Nazi group, of which they are the surviving remnant, and on the group's activities and life style. World War I ended in 1918. The Nazis came to power in the twenties and by 1939 were to be counted as almost the only powerful nation in Europe. Clearly, the humiliation of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles and the rampant inflation made the people anxious for change, for a better society. Hitler emerged as a leader and formed the Nazi party to respond to that perceived need. Following the Armistice of 1918 a group of young people, many of them Jewish,found themselves in opposition to the growth of the Nazi party, and many paid with their lives, some as a result of their activities, and resulting from the betrayals of the Judas among them. This self-identified novel appears to be the result of extensive research into the people and events of the time. Most likely the dialogue is composed, not quoted, but it is nonetheless consistent within each character. In fact, for me, this book tells a truthful answer to the questions: what was it like to oppose the Nazi regime? What was it like to live there then? I found this book well written and engrossing. It cannot answer all questions about the period, but it goes a long way to telling how it was.

• Great read for ww2 social histoy fans

  It is not a book to read a page at a time, it needs a bit of dedication as it is narrated by two characters and moves between past and present time. You will be rewarded with a gripping, well written and researched story surrounding the plight of politically active German exiles living in london leading up to ww2.

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