I bought this book at the Oxfam charity book shop on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, London on October 11, 2004. I was in town for GingerPeach's wedding, which I attended later in the day.

My boyfriend, Analphabetty, read this book before me actually. He liked it quite a bit and so did I. That the book is a fiction based on truth makes the central theme of young, liberal life in the Weimar Republic in the years just before Germany's Nazi era all the more fascinating. I also love that the book was originally written in 1930, then "lost", then "found" and rewritten by the author more than fifty years later and finally published in the mid-1980s. The writing is really good too. Stephen Spender is a poet and it shows in his writing, but he must be a *good* poet, I'm guessing, because the words are never grating as so much drippy poetry is. The story is fascinating, I thought. The feeling you take from the first four parts - about how beautiful it was to be young and free and full of energy and hope in Germany in the late 1920s - changes after reading the fifth and final part. That it's all based on Spender's own experiences makes this a really worthwhile read.

I gave this to a friend when she and her boyfriend came to visit my boyfriend and me in Nice. She took it back to Oxford, England with her.