Fontane's sought-after Berlin stroll book. Gotthard Erler, an excellent connoisseur of Fontane's work, has compiled the most beautiful and surprising statements into an enjoyable city travel book. Every long-time resident will take great pleasure in it, and it will help newcomers to see beyond the charms and pitfalls of the metropolis. Whether one loves or hates Berlin, one simply cannot escape Fontane's charming and witty remarks about the capital and emerging world city. "The more Berliners you are, the more you complain or mock Berlin." Yet he was aware of the advantages of the great city and could not have lived and written anywhere else in the world. He confessed to his friend and colleague Paul Heyse: "It has become a necessity for me to hear such a flywheel whirring nearby, even at the risk of it occasionally turning into the well-known mill wheel.".