Berlin Bookhaul

Two weeks ago I visited Berlin for the first time. I was overwhelmed while walking through the streets. Everywhere the city seemed to be brimming with history. The architecture, the museums, the ruins of the wall, it all impressed me greatly. It's truly a city of great culture, and I felt like I was walking through different time periods.

One of my favourite things to do when I'm visiting a city is go to the museums. I love to roam the galleries and explore its culture and history. To see all the important figures and moments in history captured. It gives me a surreal feeling. A feeling of gratitude, to be able to experience it all.
Anyway, I'm moving away from the subject.
I also really love their shops. Most of them anyway. An ideal museum shop for me is one that sells a lot of books to do with the subject matters in the museum itself. When I walk through a museum I can never read all of the information cards, because then I would be there for the whole day (in most cases). But one of the many purposes of a museum is to peak your interest and awaken your curiosity. Which it did for me in Berlin. The best museum shop out of the museums I visited was the one from the Neues Museum, where they stocked mostly English books all about history. I was in bookish heaven to be sure! But, when you're on holiday you have limited suitcase space (unfortunately), so I had to limit it down to buying one book.

I chose one that seemed like a very accessible book about the world's history, namely, A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich (published by Yale University Press).
I'm very much looking forward to reading it, since I got the illustrated edition, which makes it even more enjoyable to read (I presume).

The other three books are something a little special. I bought them in a very nice bookstore called St. George's. They sell both new and second-hand English books. Their stock is excellent and I think everybody could find something to their taste.
At first I had a couple of books in my hands I wanted to buy anyway because they were on my (endlessly long) wishlist/tbr, but then I stumbled upon these three Folio Society books.
If you are not familiar with the Folio Society, they publish beautiful, high-quality books and are an absolute treasure to have on your bookshelf. Anyway, I stumbled upon them in St George's and I couldn't resist. They were very cheap and as an avid book collector, I couldn't leave without them.
So I bought all three of them: Civilisation by Kenneth Clark, A History of England, Victorian England by G.M. Young (part of a set of 12 volumes covering English history), and Goodbye To All That by Robert Graves. And yes, these books were heavy, very heavy. But totally worth it.

Have you been to Berlin? Which one of these books have you read or would you recommend me to read first?

St George's Bookstore

Order from The Folio Society

Bookish love,