This book is terrific. I'd recommend it even to friends who don't typically read historical non-fiction. It's the (non-fictional) account of an American ambassador and his family who move from the Midwest to Berlin in 1933, told through their eyes, and sourced from memoirs, letters, and other meticulously-researched materials. Hitler had become chancellor about a year earlier, and so it was a historical moment when many ex-pats were gravely concerned about what they saw happening in Germany, while the German government was working very hard to assuage those fears and make it look like violent and troubling events were merely isolated incidents that could be easily dismissed, with the complainants just histrionic liars who had a personal stake in castigating Germany.

What's great about the book is that the protagonist and his family arrive in Berlin mostly believing that the negative stories have been overblown, and slowly realize, based on first-hand experience, that the signs they are seeing are more ominous than they realized. It's fascinating to see 1930s Germany as it looked to contemporary outsiders, without the benefit of knowing that Hitler would eventually become the most evil monster of the 20th century.

Erik Larson's storytelling style makes the subjects of the book feel like real characters (especially the ambassador's free-spirited, 20-something daughter), and his books are much more compelling than other historical accounts I have read. Highly recommended, both for the history lesson and for the page-turning story.