Berlin

Can anyone recommend books set in Berlin, hopefully fiction?
(I'm going for the first time in October!)

Hi,
I can't think of anything written on Berlin (in English, anyway), but do watch "Run, Lola, Run" if you haven't seen the movie yet :)

Berlin is great!

Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin for Berlin between the wars. Some of John LeCarre's work is set in Cold War Berlin.

Berlin by Jason Lutes is an ambitious comic book set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, and might be worth reading.

One of the classic novels set in Berlin is Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Doblin, famously filmed by Fassbinder.

Berlin Noir by Philip Kerr is a crime trilogy set in 1930s Berlin, and there is also City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin (Diana Norman), which has garnered great reviews for its description of the city and Germany between the wars.

For present day Berlin, perhaps you should check out Russian Disco by Wladimir Kaminer.

Ghosts of Berlin by Brian Ladd seems like an interesting look at the city as well.

I would like to second the recommendation to watch "Run, Lola, Run". Great movie.

A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous is gripping.

There are two old works by Vicki Baum that are set in Berlin:

Grand hotel (1931)

Hotel Berlin '43

I did a tagmash on Berlin, novel -- and came up with one novel that is pretty contemporary:

All souls' Day by Cees Nooteboom has the protagonist walking around reunited Berlin.

Four other books that came up are post-World War II, but from the earlier divided days:

The Innocent by Ian McEwan
The Good German: a novel by Joseph Kanon
Fatherland by Robert Harris
Armageddon; a novel of Berlin by Leon Uris

I've started A woman in Berlin from my local library and have Berlin Noir pending on Bookmooch :)

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder. Such an interesting book you won't forget for a while!

I will be visiting Berlin in July. Any recommendations for bookstores?

I haven't been to Berlin for ages, but I remember Dussmann in the Friedrichsstraße as being the big box shop that stays open late.
I've bought a few things from specialist transport bookshop Flügelrad, but never visited it. Pro qm seems to be the place to be if you're the sort of postmodernist who talks about the discourse of the shelves, and I see there's a specialist crime bookshop called Totsicher, which sounds fun.

Since this topic was last active, Volker Kutscher has had great success with his Babylon Berlin books. Those are crime novels set in Berlin during the final years of the Weimar Republic, as the Nazis were growing powerful, with police detective Gereon Rath and his assistant Charlotte Ritter as the main characters.