Poll

Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood

Originally published in 1976, Christopher and His Kind covers the most memorable ten years in the writer's life-from 1929, when Isherwood left England to spend a week in Berlin and decided to stay there indefinitely, to 1939, when he arrived in America. His friends and colleagues during this time included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and E. M. Forster, as well as colorful figures he met in Germany and later fictionalized in his two Berlin novels-who appeared again, fictionalized to an even greater degree, in I Am a Camera and Cabaret.

What most impressed the first readers of this memoir, however, was the candor with which he describes his life in gay Berlin of the 1930s and his struggles to save his companion, a German man named Heinz, from the Nazis. An engrossing and dramatic story and a fascinating glimpse into a little-known world, Christopher and His Kind remains one of Christopher Isherwood's greatest achievements.

A major figure in twentieth-century fiction and the gay rights movement, Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) is the author of Down There on a Visit, Lions and Shadows, A Meeting by the River, The Memorial, Prater Violet, A Single Man, The World in the Evening, and many more.

I thought "Christopher and His Kind" had it in the bag - I even got it out of the library ready for February, it was in the lead with a a few hours to go...


Christopher and His Kind 4 votes, 33.3%
The People of the Abyss 4 votes, 33.3%

Poll result - it's a draw



Christopher and His Kind 4 votes, 33.3%
The People of the Abyss 4 votes, 33.3%

How about we just read them both? I'd be up for that. Four people keen to discuss each book will make for a couple of good discussions.

Sounds good!

I recently finished reading Christopher and His Kind by Christopher Isherwood. I can confirm it makes a good companion read to Mr Norris Changes Trains.