- Aram Yardumian, Persepolis (Bloomsbury)
- Erinn E. Knyt, Ferruccio Busoni as Architect of Sound (Oxford University Press)
It’s my first time visiting Berlin in springtime. Incapable of shaping my own destiny, I find a tongue-in-cheek itinerary for a couple of politics-themed hours in the German capital, designed for irony-addled people with time to burn. I decide to follow the plan with slavish sincerity, heading from Alexanderplatz down Karl-Marx-Allee towards Cafe Sibylle, a self-styled “Cold War hangout.”