BERLIN QUOTE OF THE DAY: VICTOR AUBURTIN

The reading room at Berlin's Municipal Library (Berliner Stadtbibliothek), which in 1920 moved into the Neues Marstall, New Royal Stables, opposite the Stadtschloss. Photo dated 1922. Via Zentrale Landesbibliothek Berlin.

"I have done a bit of research into which book or which section at Berlin's Stadtbibliothek is most read - something one can tell quite well by studying grease marks on the pages.

The most read is Brehm*'s book - the chapter about sharks."

Victor Auburtin, 1921

*Alfred Brehm, German zoologist and zoo director, was also an author of several seminal books about the world of animals; in 1869, on the corner of Unter den Linden and Schadowstraße, he opened Berlin's first aquarium, whose director he was for the following nine years. You might know his name from Berlin's Tierpark, the former East Berlin zoo: Alfred-Brehms-Haus, once home to tigers and other large feline species, is now a gorgeous rainforest landscape).