Berlinica Publishing LLC

12/02/2025

Advent, Advent! Today is the second day of our Advent Calendar. Today, we will remember West Berlin, the only socialist place that ever existed successfully because the money never ran out — until the Wall came down. Where bars and pubs were open all night so the locals could plot the revolution! Where beer was cheap and sausage on a roll was considered dinner. Where the tenements still bore bullet holes from World War II, and the draft did not exist. You can now buy the hardcover at Amazon.com for a limited time in America for $20 only. And in Germany you can, of course, buy it in every book store.

https://berlinica.com/unser-west-berlin

12/01/2025

Advent, Advent! This is December 1, the day the traditional Advent Calendar begins. Usually, you get little shiny color pictures, or chocolates, and since chocolates is out of the question, you will get a literary gift, tied to the date.

So, yesterday, Mark Twain would have turned 190 years old, had he lived, and his writing is a fresh than the day he stepped aboard the Enterprise (by some time-traveling accident). However, did you know that Mark Twain spent half a year in Berlin?

This was quite an adventure. He conspired with diplomats, frequented the famed salons, had breakfast with duchesses, and dined with the emperor. He suffered an “organized dog-choir club,” at his first address, which he deemed a “rag-picker's paradise,” picked a fight with the police, who made him look under his maid's petticoats, was abused by a porter, got lost on streetcars, was nearly struck down by pneumonia, and witnessed a proletarian uprising in front of his hotel Unter den Linden. He even began a novel about Wilhelmina von Preussen, the lonely Prussian princess. Read all about it here, also the stories he wrote about Berlin.

https://berlinica.com/mark-twain-in-berlin

11/11/2025

Today in 1483, the great German reformer Martin Luther was born. Born in Eisleben, Luther was ordained to the priesthood in 1507. He came to reject several teachings and practices of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church, in particular the view on indulgences and papal authority. Luther initiated an international debate on these in works like his Ninety-five Theses, which he authored in 1517. In 1520, Pope Leo X demanded that Luther renounce all of his writings, and when Luther refused to do so, excommunicated him in January 1521. Later that year, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V condemned Luther as an outlaw at the Diet of Worms. When Luther died in 1546, his excommunication by Leo X was still in effect.
Read all about it in Martin Luther's Travel Guide by Cornelia Doemer.

https://berlinica.com/leipzig-and-luther

09/16/2025

Upcoming! The Brooklyn Book Fair, this weekend in Brooklyn!

Our citywide Bookend events are underway and our big celebratory Festival weekend is coming up. Plan your week!
Be a book tourist and travel to all 5 boroughs for our literary Bookends from Sept. 14 - 22.

Then the book party comes to Downtown Brooklyn on Sept. 2oth for our celebratory Children's Day and on Sept. 21st for our flagship Festival Day and Literary Marketplace, both at Brooklyn Borough Hall.

We are at booth 132. Plans of the Festival are distributed all over. See you there.

08/26/2025

European shippers like DHL are pausing services to the U.S. as the de minimis tax loophole ends and Trump administration tariffs take hold.

08/13/2025

Today in 1961—The Berlin Wall was built

On this day 64 years ago, the Berlin Wall went up. It was a surprise for the people of East Berlin who were suddenly trapped, but politicians in Germany and in America had a hunch of what was coming. John F. Kennedy, President of the USA at that time dreaded instability in the middle of the Cold War, when millions of people fled the Eastern bloc. He feared that the Soviet Union would militarily take over all of Berlin and force the U.S. Army out, especially since the CIA was using West Berlin as a spy post. A Wall was a hell of a lot better than a war was his thinking, based on advisors such as Senator William Fulbright, a Democrat from South Dakota. The rest is history.
If you want to know more about the Berlin Wall, its history and its aftermath, these are the two books Berlinica can offer.

https://berlinica.com/berlin-city-history

08/08/2025

From a distance I have always found Bruce Springsteen interesting, especially in his current incarnation as a committed populist straddling the line between his own politics and those of his many MAGA fans. But his set-to last spring with President Trump, who called him “overrated” and “not a talented guy,” made me realize how very little of Springsteen’s music I have ever really engaged. I must come clean and say that I just never got it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/opinion/bruce-springsteen-music-poetry.html

08/07/2025

Ein Goldbarren im Bücherhaufen: „Wenn wir einmal nicht grausam sind, dann glauben wir gleich, wir seien gut“ von Kurt Tucholsky, hg. v. Robert Stadlober.
Leseprobe:https://www.verbrecherverlag.de/shop/wenn-wir-einmal-nicht-grausam-sind/

08/05/2025

07/19/2025

Today in 1988—Bruce Springsteen's Legendary Concert in Berlin

On July 19, 1988, The Boss gave his legendary concert in East Berlin that helped bring down the Wall. This is the story Erik Kirschbaum tells in Rocking The Wall, a book that explores how this changed concert the world. Kirschbaum spoke to scores of fans and concert organizers on both sides of the Berlin Wall, including Jon Landau, Springsteen's long-time friend and manager. With lively behind-the-scenes details from eyewitness accounts, magazine and newspaper clippings, TV recordings, and even Stasi files, as well as photos and memorabilia, this gripping book transports you back to those heady times before the Berlin Wall fell and gives you a front-row spot at one of the most exciting rock concerts ever. It takes you to an unforgettable journey with Springsteen through the divided city, to the open air concert grounds in Weissensee, where The Boss, live on stage, delivered a speech against the Wall to a record-breaking crowd of more than 300,000 delirious young East Germans full of joy and hope.

Now back for sale everywhere were books are sold.

https://mailchi.mp/679e89eaacde/932185x3xo-10594383

07/18/2025

Bruce Springsteen: Das berühmte Konzert in Weissensee. -