Today is October 29, which means there are five months left until the release of The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin! Last month, I began my monthly release countdowns with a book teaser. This time, I’m here to share some of the book research I did as I was writing and revising. (As a reminder, here’s a link that lists out what I’ll be sharing each month until release.)

Like most historical fiction authors, I absolutely love research, and I especially loved researching the world of Berlin in 1932 for this novel. Besides reading general works of nonfiction about the era, most of the books I read fell in one of four categories:

Journalism: Along with reading issues from many periodicals from 1932, these books were great resources for me.

Guidebooks: The Moreck and Hessel books are reprints of guidebooks from the time, but the book in the center is actually from 1929 (purchased from a used bookseller).

Memoirs: I read several others, but these are a couple I purchased in non-electronic form. The one on the left contains stories from several women, and the one on the right is by singer Claire Waldoff (who makes an appearance in the novel).

Fiction: These stories all take place in Berlin in the 1930s, all by authors who lived there at the time.

Overall, these books represent just a portion of my research, but hope they are useful for anyone wanting to learn more about my process and about this world.