In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (PB)

Berlin, 1933. William E. Dodd is a mild-mannered academic from Chicago who to his own and everyone else's surprise becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany, in a year that proves to be a turning point in history. Dodd moves his family to the city where they observe firsthand the many changes--some subtle, some disturbing, and some horrifically violent--that signaled Hitler's consolidation of power.      Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the times, and with brilliant portraits of Hitler, Goebbels, Goering, and Himmler, In the Garden of Beasts lends a unique, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time. The result is an unforgettable, addictively readable work of narrative nonfiction.