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In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
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Publisher's summary
Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the best-selling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power.
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first, Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany”, she has one affair after another, including with the suprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate.
As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance - and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.
Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Göring and the expectedly charming - yet wholly sinister - Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively listenable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.
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A Most Appropriate Narrator
- By D.P. on 05-01-24
By: Erik Larson
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Lethal Passage
- The Story of a Gun
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture - its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists - but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
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great reasoned book
- By Claire on 04-26-20
By: Erik Larson
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Hotel Angeline
- A Novel in 36 Voices
- By: Erik Larson, Jamie Ford, Deb Caletti, and others
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page. Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence.
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Too Many Writers!
- By Lisa on 08-25-13
By: Erik Larson, and others
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In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson: Summary & Analysis
- By: Instaread
- Narrated by: Michael Gilboe
- Length: 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson explores several crucial years in Berlin through the eyes of the US ambassador and his family. Their experiences serve as both a cautionary tale about the insidiousness of evil and a harbinger of the hard realization that the rest of America was forced to make in a few short years.
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Way to Easy to Buy Wrong Item
- By Pordon on 09-07-21
By: Instaread
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Empire of Deception
- The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated the Nation
- By: Dean Jobb
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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It was a time of unregulated madness. And nowhere was it madder than in Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties. Speakeasies thrived, gang war shootings announced Al Capone's rise to underworld domination, Chicago's corrupt political leaders fraternized with gangsters, and the frenzy of stock market gambling was rampant. Enter a slick, smooth-talking, charismatic lawyer named Leo Koretz, who enticed hundreds of people (who should have known better) to invest as much as $30 million.
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Incredible Tale!
- By electricblue201 on 10-11-15
By: Dean Jobb
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The Last Days of Night
- A Novel
- By: Graham Moore
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history - and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul's client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the lightbulb and holds the right to power the country?
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Favorite book of 2016
- By Taryn on 12-19-16
By: Graham Moore
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Garden of Beasts
- A Novel of Berlin 1936
- By: Jeffery Deaver
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Paul Schumann, a German American living in New York City in 1936, is a mobster hitman known as much for his brilliant tactics as for taking only "righteous" assignments. But then Paul gets caught. And the arresting officer offers him a stark choice: prison or covert government service. Paul is asked to pose as a journalist covering the summer Olympics taking place in Berlin. He's to hunt down and kill Reinhard Ernst - the ruthless architect of Hitler's clandestine rearmament.
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One of my favs
- By nicholas on 11-02-17
By: Jeffery Deaver
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Mary Churchill’s War
- The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest Daughter
- By: Mary Churchill, Emma Soames - editor, Erik Larson - introduction
- Narrated by: Beth Eyre, Emma Soames
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1939, seventeen-year-old Mary found herself in an extraordinary position at an extraordinary time: it was the outbreak of World War II and her father, Winston Churchill, had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; within months he would become prime minister. The young Mary Churchill was uniquely placed to observe this remarkable historical moment, and her diaries—most never published until now—provide an immediate view of the great events of the war, as well as intimate moments with her father. These diaries also capture what it was like to be a young woman during wartime.
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Love Mary Soames
- By Robert on 11-21-22
By: Mary Churchill, and others
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American Demon
- Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper
- By: Daniel Stashower
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.
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Not what I expected at all
- By Iceboxannie on 11-10-22
By: Daniel Stashower
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The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel
- Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
- By: Douglas Brunt
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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September 29, 1913: the steamship Dresden is halfway between Belgium and England. On board is one of the most famous men in the world, Rudolf Diesel, whose new internal combustion engine is on the verge of revolutionizing global industry forever. But Diesel never arrives at his destination. He vanishes during the night and headlines around the world wonder if it was an accident, suicide, or murder.
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Great book!
- By Scott F on 09-24-23
By: Douglas Brunt
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Hitler
- The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer
- By: Ernst Hanfstaengl
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate friend of Adolf Hitler’s who turned against him during the Nazi rise to power delves into the character of one of history’s most evil dictators. Of American and German parentage, Ernst Hanfstaengl graduated from Harvard and ran the family business in New York for a dozen years before returning to Germany in 1921. By chance he heard a then little-known Adolf Hitler speaking in a Munich beer hall and, mesmerized by his extraordinary oratorical power, was convinced the man would some day come to power. As Hitler’s fanatical theories and ideas hardened, however, he surrounded himself with rabid extremists...
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Once a Nazi, always a Nazi
- By Alan on 04-10-13
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The Spy and the Traitor
- The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6.
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John Lee is GREAT!
- By David on 09-21-18
By: Ben Macintyre
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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- By: John Berendt
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman, Will Damron, John Berendt
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative flows like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.
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LOVED IT!!!
- By Heidi on 07-11-10
By: John Berendt
What listeners say about In the Garden of Beasts
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Chris
- 06-04-11
Frightening, Powerful, Deeply Thought-provoking.
What an incredible view of a pivotal moment in history. Perhaps this book is not as powerful if you have middling knowledge of 20th century history, but I found this portrait of Germany and the birth of the Third Reich chilling.
If you have ever asked, "how could THAT have happened?" read this book, and you'll know. Watching Berlin, one of the world's most important cultural centers, dissolve into barbaric, paranoid madness is very disturbing, particularly because of how easily it happened. Its also quite sad to know that there were a few moments at the beginning, here and there, when maybe it all could have been stopped.
I'm still thinking about it all days later. Very worth reading.
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- B.J.
- 12-08-14
Some good background info
As a glimpse of the politics during the early years of the Roosevelt Administration, this is an interesting book. The old boys club was certainly alive and well in the foreign service arena. I liked hearing about the communication people had - primarily letter-writing - and the way they viewed each other and spoke about each other. Some of the barbs are brutal and quite polished. That kind of writing is gone from our culture except in rare cases and it's fun to hear it.
As a glimpse of a year during Hitler's rise to power, I was less impressed. There's some good info that helps fill in a few blanks about the fear that swept a nation, but I felt that got lost in all the info about Martha and her behavior. There was not enough detail about the events and personalities that ended up having such a gigantic impact on the world during this critical build-up.
I like Larson's work and his meticulous attention to research. But in this particular case, I would have appreciated more of the style of writing that Laura Hillenbrand applies to non-fiction. I think I was expecting more ... more tenseness, more drama, more historical detail.
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- Kindle Customer
- 06-12-11
Non-Fiction That Any Historian Could be Proud of
The amount of research that went into this book was amazing. He must of read nearly everything available in American, German, and Soviet sources - including many diaries.
Professor Dodd was the central Character - but his daughter is was far more interesting. She committed nearly every indiscretion imaginable - and some of them several times.
We will never be able to understand the Nazi era, but this at least helps us.
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- Jillian Fischer
- 04-06-18
Disappointed.
I am a huge fan of Erik Larson & usually devour his books. This was the first Larson book I listened to instead of read, & I couldn't wait to get started! I don't know why but I just couldn't get in to the Audible version. I tried over & over again but often found myself distracted & then losing track of the story. Honestly, I found it boring...really surprising since Germany during the Hitler period was anything but boring. This might be one of those books that is better when actually read.
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- Schreiberling
- 07-20-20
Very informative book
You can learn a lot about Nazi Germany and America’s attitude toward it during that time. In that way the book is very enlightening and very worthwhile.
I was disappointed in the reader. Not only that he has a whiny intonation that doesn’t add anything but annoyance, but he doesn’t have an inkling about pronouncing the German words and names he is supposed to inform about. That is ridiculous! Can’t you hire an actor who will do a better job. It takes so much away from an excellent book.
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- R
- 05-15-13
I Remain an Erik Larson Fan!
I was lucky to stumble across on of Mr. Larson's books (Devil in the White City). I immediately loved his writing style. I listened to this audible and remained glued to it. I will probably sit down and actually read this book so that I can gain a much more deeper insight to history.
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- Saman
- 01-06-20
Terrific!
This was my second read from Erik Larson after Dead Wake. The author is a master in picking his subject matter and then writing down the complex history in a readable manner. This is another brilliant study of the Third Reich in its nascent stage of power.
Larson illuminates the period from 1933 to 1934 in Germany with the arrival of William Dodd and family, the USA Ambassador to Germany. This quirky family, fits rather uncomfortably into Berlin where the SA runs amok amongst the camps opposed to National Socialism. Dodd’s early objective is to keep the many US citizens being mercilessly beaten for not conforming to the Nazi salute. Dodd’s daughter Martha also adds to the intrigue by her reckless escapades with all manner of men whilst still being married in the USA. The story is fantastical and yet so horrifyingly true. And it takes a great author to unravel the intricacies of the narrative and present history to the modern reader. Larson does this magnificently. If there is a criticism, the story ends after the Night of the Long Knives in early July 1934. Thereafter we simply get a quick summary for closure.
The most interesting character in the book is clearly Martha Dodd. At 25, she is the light of the household and the numerous parties she attends. She even meets Hitler and slowly changes her political stance from being an apologist for the Nazi regime and onto a Soviet sympathizer through her NKVD lover. Someone should really write a biography of her remarkable life.
Thoroughly recommended for the history lover.
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- spencer
- 01-17-17
Couldn't stop listening!!
This was my first Erik Larson book, and I was not disappointed!
The story follows the U.S. Ambassador to Berlin in the years leading up to Hitler's reign of terror.
It is a uniquely American take on the rise of Naziism, which explores the profound difficulty of convincing the U.S. to see Hitler for who he truly was - dangerous and wicked.
It also presents a nuanced account of the German people during the rise of Hitler. Many dissidents were courageous, but were murdered in cold blood for speaking out against Hitler's persecution of the Jews or his senseless slaughter of the German people.
We must remember that in countries under totalitarian regimes there are always those that speak out and are killed for their bravery. I honor those that died in bravery by trying to stand up against tyranny and I know they would be glad to see the Germany of today.
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- Preston K. Crawford
- 11-06-17
Principle Skinner and Paris Hilton In Hitler’s Germany
Someone else wrote a review titled this and I couldn’t agree more. Interesting story when it talks about Germany, but Martha is frustrating. One gets the impression that Larsen focused on her because she had letters, where Bill or Mrs. Dodd did not.
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- Starlet
- 08-06-11
Hitler from the beginning of his stronghold
Loved this book -- read it straight through. I have read a lot about Nazi Germany, memoirs and history of holocaust experiences and lives of Germans during that time. This book provided an entirely new perspective for me -- a political one. I’m always surprised when I hear about events beginning in Germany as early as 1933 and how sinister the activities were and to be allowed to continue for so long without interference -- I can now see what contributed to this, though -- so many factors including the US wanting repayment of Germany's debt to US creditors, thereby, staying close to them not wanting to offend and the fact that the American public was so wary of getting involved in the problems of Europe. It was a real eye opener for me and it was actually a story about America's first ambassador to Germany, during the 1930's, William E. Dodd....A real 5 star read.
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