The Sunday Times - UK (2021-11-28)

HISTORY

Aftermath Life in the Fallout

of the Third Reich 1945-1955

by Harald Jähner,

translated by Shaun Whiteside

WH Allen £20

Shortlisted for the Baillie

Gifford prize, this panoramic

journey through Germany in

the ruins of the Third Reich

is unforgettably thought-

provoking. Jähner is brilliant

on everyday privations, from

rubble to rationing, and

intensely moving on the

suffering of countless women.

His most powerful chapters

discuss how ordinary Germans

dealt with the trauma of

defeat. Many felt no shame,

and cast themselves as victims.

Embracing a kind of collective

amnesia, they rolled up their

sleeves and got back to work.^

River Kings The Vikings from

Scandinavia to the Silk Roads

by Cat Jarman

Wm Collins £9.99

This is history as a detective

story, as the bioarchaeologist

Jarman traces a single orange

bead from a Viking grave in

Derbyshire to Scandinavia,

into the Baltic and down the

Volga towards Baghdad and

India. It’s not just a riveting

adventure story, full of all the

berserkers and bloodshed

you’d expect, but an eye-

opening journey into the

overlooked world of the

Viking east, taking in the

origins of Russia, the Silk

Road slave trade and the

mysterious runic graffiti in

modern Istanbul.

Hidden Hands The Lives of

Manuscripts and Their Makers

by Mary Wellesley

riverrun £25

This is a lovely book,

beautifully written and

brimming with enthusiasm.

Wellesley adores medieval

manuscripts: poems and

meditations, Beowulf and the

Lindisfarne Gospels. She’s

particularly fascinated,

though, by the scribes who

Worlds of

reading

to inspire

Kicking off our two-week guide to the

year’s best books, the historian Dominic

Sandbrook roams from the Vikings and

the Third Reich to David Cameron

Twitter @TheTimesBooks l Instagram @thetimesbooks l Facebook First Edition

BOOKS YEAR

of the

▶

GETTY IMAGES

Medieval magic A scribe

at work on a manuscript

28 November 2021 33