Tricky to pick just one book on Berlin, but I would probably plump for Mr Norris Changes Trains, Christopher Isherwood’s sometimes infuriating account of louche early-1930s Berlin, on the brink of Nazi lunacy.
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The Ghosts of Berlin (Chicago University Press,1997) by Brian Ladd is especially rewarding. It's about the city now, what it was like at earlier times in the last couple of centuries, and is copiously illustrated. The text is allusive, sensitive and humane.
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