In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson

This book portrays Berlin (and Germany) during Hitler's rise to power in the early 1930s through the lives of the American ambassador to Germany (William Dodd) and his daughter, Martha. I found this book fascinating--especially for the portrait it paints of Germany between the wars. At times, the storyline following the family struck me as a bit desultory, but overall, it gave a nuanced portrait. The book makes me think that what happened in Germany during that time was not inevitable, and that the various players were not as easily categorized as I might have suspected.