... about ugly men taking ugly drugs doing ugly things.
Slowly, in a land that is leaving Europe, the printing presses are getting into gear. It is the UK paperback version of Blitzed, with the drugged Patient A on the magnificent cover.
In celebration of this, check out a test version of said cover. The artist (in-house at Allen Lane!) was reluctant to share it with me. He said "it is not common."
Always a good idea to sign books in book shops. They can't be returned to the publisher.
ByGregory Paul Adkinson March 19, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
"Often an historian will find a novel thesis or angle for looking at the past. While there may be something in it, too often the new idea is oversold. That is not the case here. While the author's thesis may not explain everything completely, no explanation of Hitler's behavior can be complete without including an understanding of his drug addictions.
The records of Hitler's personal doctor are extensive enough to prove the dictator was an addict. There can simply cannot be a doubt. The author, a novelist, has simply changed the way we understand Hitler. No serious student of World War II can overlook this important, seminal book."
Startling Americans from coast to coast this morning with new shocking revelations about ... Nazis and drugs!
Blitzed at Nr. 3 of their Bestseller List.
The New Yorker picks up on Blitzed. I met the author Nick for breakfast at Veselka's on 2nd Avenue, and then we strolled through gentrified East Village - where once, in a different era, I suppose, I had turned into a writer. Check out what he has to say about the whole thing.
“Blitzed is delightfully nuts, in a ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ kind of way.”
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/20/the-writer-who-uncovered-the-nazis-drug-use
... calling the book a “fascinating, engrossing, often dark history of drug use in the Third Reich.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-nazis-rode-into-battle-high-on-crystal-meth/2017/03/09/815794f0-f9fb-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html
Reviews that just got in:
“The book is an impressive work of scholarship, with more than two dozen pages of footnotes and the blessing of esteemed World War Two historians. From Hitler’s irregular hours and unusual dietary preferences—his staff would leave out apple raisin cakes for him to eat in the middle of the night—to his increasingly monomaniacal demands, Ohler offers a compelling explanation for Hitler’s erratic behavior in the final years of the war, and how the biomedical landscape of the time affected the way history unfolded.” —THE NEW REPUBLIC
“While drugs alone cannot explain Germany’s early successes in World War II, Ohler makes an important case for the importance of the exploration of this subject toward a more complete historical understanding of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.” —THE JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL
“Ohler’s reputation precedes him… [Ohler] brings storytelling vigor to an unexplored corner of Hitlerology… Mordant and casual even in translation, it’s easy to mainline (with a pinch of salt mixed in).” —VULTURE