The House on the Lake

Well thanks to a sick dog, many (very welcome!) visitors and school holidays (already doing my head in), I haven't had much time to think of a proper post this week.  Not that many of my posts are 'proper' really.

 

So as I have previously done, I am going to recommend something in the meantime and leave you to investigate.  The above picture shows a holiday house in Germany.  It is the subject of a fantastic book called The House on the Lake by Thomas Harding and I have just finished listening to it on Audible (my favourite way of trying to get through a few more of my endless 'to read' list - I even listen whilst doing the supermarket shopping).

 

The author has a personal connection with the house but he has managed to weave the story of Germany's last hundred years or so very skilfully into the history of the building.  As I said on Twitter this week, I did not know how woeful my post-war German history knowledge was until I listened to this book!  It is excellent and has left me wanting to know more.

 

It also ties nicely into a topic which I have mentioned a few times since I started this blog.  That of the everyday history around us and its effect on our ancestors.  In our buildings and landscape.  I always wonder what buildings have seen.  Not just stately homes but ordinary homes.  For example, the Victorian houses owned by York friends which flooded at Christmas.  Imagine if they could tell of previous floods.  Imagine the many people who must have suffered the same but who had no access to floodlines, to emergency services, to dehumidifiers, etc.

 

So The House on the Lake is on a matter close to my research heart.  Give it a try if you have a chance.

 

There are extra photos at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06sgxjc although you can no longer listen on BBC iPlayer. 

 

I downloaded the book at http://www.audible.co.uk/