This engaging book centres on the author’s recollections of his grandparents, his parents, and his own growing up in postwar Germany in an environment of bourgeois stability and comfort. As the author chronicles his family’s ups and downs and abiding love for music, food, and art across several generations, a rich tapestry of anecdotes unfolds—about opera singers, restaurants, and travels, and about family relations, romance, and the kind of “impromptu reactions to people, places, and situations that often result in uncontrollable giggles.”