My husband and I are planning a trip to Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany next year and I am looking for reading recommendations for that area - fiction, memoirs, biographies, histories, etc. I like most genres, although I am not big on romance. Favorites are historical fiction, mystery, memoirs, family sagas, ghost stories.

Our preliminary itinerary is Brussels, Amsterdam, Bamberg, and the Mosel Valley.

Thanks

Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
Crabwalk - Gunter Grass
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
Austerlitz - W.G. Sebald

here is an old thread with ideas
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34884775

For Germany I have enjoyed
A Time of Gifts Patrick Leigh Fermor
A small Town in Germany--Le Carre
Stones from the River-Ursula Hegi
The REader--Schlink

Freeling's Van der Valk mysteries are very good.

A friend who lives in Belgium just gave me Cheese.

Netherlands:
The Coffee Trader by David Liss
Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

bookmarking

Try Janwillem van de Wetering's Grijpstra en de Gier books. v d Wetering lived in the Maine for a good part of his life but wrote books about these two quirky Amsterdam detectives.
Also worth reading to get an insight into the Dutch character is the UnDutchables. Have a look at www.undutchables.com.

There is always the diary of Anne Frank of course.

Not exactly the correct region of Germany but extremely enjoyable and funny: Mark Twain - A Tramp Abroad. Describes, half authentic half fiction, his trip along the Rhine to Heidelberg and the Black Forest and on to Switzerland.

Excellent - thank you all. And any additional recommendations, bring them on

I think I will reread Anne Frank - I read her diary when I was junior high age or there abouts.

I've got a leather-bound book of Mark Twain's works, and I think A Tramp Abroad is in there. That is another book that probably deserves a re-reading.

A few years back, I read Anja the Liar, which I believe was written by Thomas Mann - definitely enjoyed it, so I will make sure to look up his other books.

November Moon (love your name since my birthday is in November), here are the books I read about Germany before the tour I took of that country last July:

THE WAGNER CLAN, The Saga of Germany’s Most Illustrious and Infamous Family by Jonathan Carr

KING, KAISER, TSAR Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War by Catrine Clay

AFTER THE REICH: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation by Giles McDonough

THE RAPE OF EUROPA The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H. Nichols

Germany remains a fascinating study...

I have a november birthday too Happy early birthday to us.

Thanks for the additional recommendations.

We went to southern Germany a couple years ago and I can't wait to go back and explore more of the country. It is a facinating place to study.

I realized I got my authors mixed up in the last post though - Anja the Liar was written by Thomas MORAN not Mann, totally different person - LOL. I'll blame it on Friday afternoon sleepiness

Another fascinating book about Germany is the Arms of Krupp by William Manchester--out of print for many years but there is a trade paperback version again

Could I hijack this slightly, please? I urgently need (OK, that's a relative term) a recommendation for a contemporary crime/mystery/thriller set in Berlin. Can anyone help, please?

sheila - I enjoyed reading Fatherland by Robert Harris. It's not quite contemporary, but set in WWII time.

Sheila,

Trt "The Weather in Berlin" by Ward Just.

Thanks, Dutch. I've ordered that now.

My husband enjoyed A Tall Man in a Low Land, Life Among the Belgians. I can't think of the author right now, but I'm pretty sure that's the title.

Not a book but a movie: "In Bruges" with Colin Farrell
http://www.inbruges.co.uk/