The House by the Lake: The Story of a Home and a Hundred Years of History

A beautiful picture-book adaptation of Thomas Harding's Costa-shortlisted biography for adults, exquisitely illustrated by Britta Teckentrup. On the outskirts of Berlin, a wooden cottage stands on the shore of a lake. Over the course of a century, this little house played host to a loving Jewish family, a renowned Nazi composer, wartime refugees and a Stasi informant; in that time, a world war came and went, and the Berlin Wall was built a stone's throw from the cottage's back door. Thomas Harding first shared this remarkable story in his Costa-shortlisted biography The House by the Lake - now he has rendered it into a deeply moving picture-book for young readers. With words that read like a haunting fairy-tale, and magnificent artwork by Britta Teckentrup, this is the astonishing true story of the house by the lake. PRAISE FOR THE ORIGINAL BIOGRAPHY OF THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE: A Radio 4 Book of the Week Named a Best Book of the Year by: The Times >> New Statesman >> Daily Express >> Commonweal magazine Shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award 2015 Longlisted for the Orwell Prize 2016 Over 50 five-star reviews on Amazon "A passionate memoir." - Neil MacGregor "A superb portrait of twentieth century Germany seen through the prism of a house which was lived in, and lost, by five different families. A remarkable book." - Tom Holland "A book that will stay with me for a very long time." - Rachel Joyce "A superb work of social history." - The Sunday Times "Diamond brilliant ... an extraordinary book." - Sunday Express "A deft history of a cabin containing many secrets." - Independent "A fascinating window on a tumultuous period" - Financial Times "Original, personal, moving and uplifting" - Literary Review "This is a history that is often poignant, sometimes heartening, and never other than intimate." - Spectator "An extraordinary book.... Harding has extracted the past from the dust that collects between floorboards and from layers of peeling wallpaper." - Washington Post SEE ALSO THOMAS HARDING'S NEW BIOGRAPHY, LEGACY: "I was riveted: this is a fascinating social history." - Nigella Lawson "Written with love and imagination ... a masterclass in historical empathy." - TLS "Nobody quite stirs the soup of historical detail like Harding." - Express