'Like a private invitation back to the city's most beguiling era ... Irreverent and yet always enthusiastic, [Hessel's] 88-year-old love letter to this city is a true map of the traces of a bygone world.'
-- Vanessa Thorpe * The Observer Magazine *
'Captures a portrait of a city on the brink of irrevocable change ... Hessel was both detailed chronicler of the present, and a man keenly aware of the city's history ... Apt then that Walking in Berlin now joins this historical hall of fame.'
-- Lucy Scholes * The Independent *
'[Walking in Berlin] is not only an important record of old Berlin; it is a testimony to its enduring spirit.'
-- Harry Strawson * TLS *
'An absolutely epic book, a walking remembrance.'
* Walter Benjamin *
'Hessel's conversational style and subtle insights evoke Weimar Berlin and reveal a great deal about the Germany of his days.'
-- Eileen Battersby * The Irish Times *
'Walking in Berlin is a magical mystery tour of a city on the brink of upheaval. Hessel may have wandered haphazardly but he wrote with purpose, never once losing his way.'
-- Malcolm Forbes * Sunday Herald *
'Hessel is a modest master of spontaneous observation.'
-- Sabine Vogel * Berliner Zeitung *
'Hessel's warm enthusiasm for his home town informs every page, and provides the reader with a geographical guide that still holds value, despite the enormous changes in the city. More than that, though, it evokes a time that, although just about within living memory, seems almost as remote as the nineteenth-century Berlin of Schinkel.'
* Shiny New Books *
'A newly rediscovered treasure.'
* Die Welt *
'To this day, there is no better Berlin travel guide.'
-- Peter von Becker * Tagesspiegel *
'Beautiful ... a classic observation of the German city in the late 1920s that illuminates many of the historic shadows and provides a wonderful map for modern-day wanderings.'
* Sydney Morning Herald *
'When you think of Berlin in the 1920s, you cannot avoid thinking of the storyteller, critic and translator Franz Hessel.'
* Manfred Papst recommends Spazieren in Berlin in the Neue Zuricher Zeitung *
'Walking in Berlin can be read lightly as a postcard from the past; it should be read seriously as an inexhaustible record of all that Berlin was and might have been, as an enthralling guide to a wealth of references, sidetracks, lost paths ... This is a first encounter with the myth and the reality of that intangible fantastic beast of a city.'
Mika Provata-Carlone, Bookanista -- Mika Provata-Carlone * Bookanista *
'Hessel is a feisty, clever, and witty guide to Berlin; his prose is animated and sumptuous and his perceptions glamorously lyrical. For anyone who knows the geography of Berlin, this book is an especial treat.'
-- Sail Jones * Saturday Age *
'A timely ode to a good meander and [Hessel's] home city [Berlin].'
* Wanderlust *
'Hessel's wanderings in the Weimar-era German capital mix social commentary with artistic and architectural analysis ... his musings offer a fresh set of eyes.'
* GQ *
'[A] sprawling panorama of cultural memory and miscellany, a vibrant catalog of metropolitan life, and a seismograph of a city on the verge of disaster.'
* Los Angeles Review of Books *
