| Springtime for Germany: Or How I Learned to Love Lederhosen | 
 enlarge | Author: Ben Donald
Publisher: Little, Brown
Category: Book
List Price: £11.99
Buy New: £5.48
You Save: £6.51 (54%)
New (31) Used (9) from £4.67
Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 91555
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 0316732478
EAN: 9780316732475
ASIN: 0316732478
Publication Date: June 14, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New - Please allow 1-3 working days for delivery. UK Seller
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
Unusual piece of travel writing about a unique country July 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I read some of the other reviewers' entries I was surprised that there was so much negative feeling about this book. I enjoyed it and think that writing a travel book about Germany was a novel (from the lack of similar books) and interesting idea!
I am British and it is hard to judge how accurate the author's comments about Germany are, not being a country or people I know well or have much experience of. That is a pity since all the Germans I have met have been very pleasant and polite and although stereotypes are amusing, the Germans I've met are quite unlike their national stereotype!
The book itself was mostly good and added quite a lot to my knowledge about Germany (for example I hadn't realised that most fairytales had a German origin or that there were more old castles in Germany than Spain). However, there were parts of the book that went into too much philosophical detail and, for the general reader, I think these parts are a bit dull and the book would be better without them. It is quite an unusual piece of travel writing as, unlike Bryson or Theroux, the author doesn't meet that many locals (at least not in any level of depth); I think the book suffers for this lack of direct human interaction
Still, definitely one worth reading and it certainly increased my knowledge of Germany (if not so much of the Germans themselves).
 Possibly the worst book I've ever read July 5, 2008
How did this ever get published? Selling itself as a"humorous" travel book could surely make it liable for prosecution under the Trades Description Act. I gave up counting the "ho ho ho" references to sun-loungers when I reached 20 and I hadn't even read that many pages. Whoever gave Ben Donald the idea that he was in any way a wit has done us all a great disservice. Tim Moore this is not.
Somebody else wrote a review here saying they wouldn't even give their copy to a charity shop, this struck a chord as I had come to the same conclusion. I briefly contemplated returning it to the publishers and demanding my money back, (with every feeble sun-lounger crack underlined) but life is too short. So mine went in the bin.
Despite the large number of similarly dismayed reviews here on Amazon I notice the book has been given an average of over 4 stars. This appears to have been a result of a number of 5 star reviews, all written in a suspiciously similar style (not in the least bit as amusing as they clearly think they are). Baffling behaviour as I doubt even the author's mother could love this book.
Mixed bag of cliches and good stuff ! May 3, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having just read 'Springtime in Germany' I am not surprised to see all the previous negative comments about it. Yes this book is a very odd mix of near insults and occasional declaration of love. The artificial device of 'Manny' the travel doctor and mentor is just that : artificial and dreadful and nearly stopped me reading the book. Yet I persisted and indeed considering how few are the travel writing books on Germany, it is quite worth reading. If lots of stuff come through as 'cliches', it is difficult to deny there's always some part of truth in there. Ben Donald managed to be sometimes genuinely amusing , and on the whole, if one has never been to Germany and want to have some feel for the place in advance, I suppose one can read Donald for want of a better equivalent.
But I agree that if I were german, I would feel rather insulted by the crass cover and the overall condescending tone of the book.
Disappointly awful April 29, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
As a student of German who spent a very happy year studying in Germany I had high hopes for this book. I was bitterly disappointed at how the author was apparently unable to finish each chapter without resorting to at least one of the old cliches, resorting to the lowest common denominator while all the while claiming to break away fom these cliches. I couldn't even bring myself to finish the book but judging by the rest of the reviews I don't believe the author was going to redeem himself by the end of it.
A disappointment February 18, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read the entire book in the hope that somehow it would eventually begin to live up to its hype, but that did not happen.
It is a waste of a good idea, and sadly reading it was just a bit of a waste of precious time.
Hopefully one day someone will write a fun book about modern Germany that is not only easy to read but accurate, informative and interesting, and not simply vaguely patronising and rather shallow. This however is not that book.
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