All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler
Rebecca Donner
The INSTANT New York Times Bestseller Winner of the 2022 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist for the Plutarch Award A New York Times Notable Book of 2021 A New York Times BookReview Editors' Choice A New York Times Critics' Top Pick of 2021 Wall Street Journal 10 Best Books of 2021 Time Magazine 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 Publishers Weekly Top Ten Books of 2021 An Economist Best Book of the Year A New York Post Best Book of the Year A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Best Book of the Year Oprah Daily Best New Books of August A New York Public Library Book of the Week In this "stunning literary achievement," Donner chronicles the extraordinary life and brutal death of her great-great-aunt Mildred Harnack, the American leader of one of the largest underground resistance groups in Germany during WWII--"a page-turner story of espionage, love and betrayal" (Kai Bird, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography) Born and raised in Milwaukee, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six when she enrolled in a PhD program in Germany and witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. In 1932, she began holding secret meetings in her apartment--a small band of political activists that by 1940 had grown into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin.
Award History
2 wins · 4 total
| Award | Year | Result | Category / Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Book Critics Circle Award for BiographyMajor | 2021 | Winner | Secondary source |
| PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography | 2022 | Winner | Secondary source |
| Governor General's Literary Awards: English-language Non-fictionMajor | 2022 | Finalist | Secondary source |
| Los Angeles Times Book Prize for BiographyMajor | 2021 | Finalist | Secondary source |
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies
This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.
01 Central figures
- Mildred Harnack85%
02 Central places
None extracted with sufficient confidence.
These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.
- Milwaukee55%
- Germany45%
- Berlin45%
03 Suggested argument
No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.
04 Reading orientation
35 / 100 academicSerious trade
An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.
Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.