I’m so pleased that I can finally announce that German Literature Month is returning. Mark November in your calendar and join Lizzy and me for the occasion.
While we focused on countries last year, this year we are structuring the month around genres and literary formats.
Week 1 (November 1-7) Novellas, plays and poems
Week 2 (November 8-14) Literary Novels
Week 3 (November 15-21) Genre Fiction – Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Romance
Week 4 (November 22-30) Read as you please
We chose that sequence so that Judith’s previously announced Bernhard Schlink Week (November 11-17) would span both literary novels and genre week. So if you read something by Schlink this month, you can partake in two blogging events for the price of one. Cunning, don’t you think?
2012 is also the bi-centennial of the birth of the Brothers Grimm. We can’t let it pass without aBrothers Grimm Readathon. So we’ve put that in the calendar from 22-26 November.
My Literature and War Readalong of Gert Ledig’s The Stalin Front will bring the month to a close on the 30th.
I’m looking forward to another wonderful month with lots to read, discuss and discover. Please join us.
Looking for inspiration? Why don’t you browse through last year’s discussion or the German Literature Month 2011 page. You never know what you’ll be inspired to pick up.
Like last year there will be giveaways. Additionally I’m planning on doing a series of introductory posts during October.
Links
Announcements
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Week I
Introduction to GLM (Tony’s Reading List)
Introduction GLM (Obooki’s Obloquy)
The Fury by Paul Heyse (The Reading Life)
Five from the Archive: Contemporary German Literature (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Brigita and Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter (Tony’s Reading List)
German Literature Recommendations II – 89 Shorty Story and Novella Writers You Should Read (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
Introduction to GLM (The Little Red Reader Library)
Introduction GLM (A Fiction Habit)
Introduction to GLM (Vishy’s Blog)
Introduction to GLM (AJ Reads)
From the Diary of a Snail by Günter Grass (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
The Journey to the Harz by Heinrich Heine (Obooki’s Obloquy)
Introduction to GLM (Everybookhasasoul)
What not to drink when reading Matthias Politicky (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Dyning by Arthur Schnitzler (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
Lieutnant Gustl and Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach (The Little Red Reader Library)
Introduction to GLM (Tabula Rasa)
German Literature – A Short Introduction by Nicholas Boyle (Vishy’s Blog)
Confusion by Stefan Zweig (His Futile Preoccupations)
Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
Sea of Ink by Richar Weihe (The Parrish Lantern)
Love and Intrigues by Friedrich Schiller (Tony’s Reading List)
Two Poems Based on Folklore (Tabula Rasa)
Literature and War Readalong – Gert Ledig (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
Translation Duel – Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (Lizzy’s Literaray Life)
The Fairy Tale by J.W. von Goethe (A Work in Progress)
The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind (Vishy’s Blog)
Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki (A Fiction Habit)
Prague German Writers: A List – A Guest Post by literalab (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
Prague German Writers (literalab)
Goethe’s Hermann and Dorothea and Heinrich Heine’s Germany. A Winter’s Tale (Tony’s Reading List)
Seven Years by Peter Stamm and EIBF report (everybookhasasoul)
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Vishy’s Blog)
Prague German Writers – Franzy Werfel’s A Palee-Blue Ink in a Lady’s Hand – A Guest Post by literalab (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
Prague German Witers – Franz Werfel (literalab)
The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffmann (Obooki’s Obloquy)
In Free Fall (aka Dark Matter) by Juli Zeh (Still Life With Books)
The Corrections by Thomas Bernhard (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
This Wednesday is Wunderbar (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
German Literature Month – Week I Links (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
Week II
Unformed Landscape by Peter Stamm (Tony’s Reading List)
The Cow by Beat Sterchi (Farm Lane Books)
One Hundred Days by Lukas Bärfuss (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
German Literature Month (and then she read)
The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig (Tabula Rasa)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (Still Life With Books)
A Happy Man by Hansjörg Schertenleib (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser (Vapour Trails)
Sea of Ink by Richard Weihe (Iris on Books)
Reckless by Cornelia Funke (and then she read)
Bernhard Schlink Week (Reader in the Wilderness)
L’adultera by Theodor Fontane (Tony’s Reading List)
My Prizes by Thomas Bernhard (in lieu of a field guide)
The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller (Vishy’s Blog)
Introduction GLM (Curious Incidents in the North East)
On the Edge by Markus Werner (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (Sightly Cutural, Most Toughtful and Inevitably Irrelevant)
The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel (A Hot Cup of Pleasure)
Eckbert the Fair by Ludwig Tiek (A Work in Progress)
Summer Lies by Bernhard Schlink (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
The Land of Green Plums by Herta Müller (Tony’s Reading List)
Summer Lies by Bernhard Schlink (Reader in the Wilderness)
Schnitzler’s Short Fiction (Wuthering Expectations)
The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig (The Little Reader Library)
Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer (Leeswamme’s Blog)
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek (A Fiction Habit)
Summer Lies by Berhard Schlink (Lizzy’s Literaray Life)
The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
The Dead Are Silent by Arthur Schnitzler (Wuthering Expectations)
German Stories from Best European Fiction 2012 (The Reading Life)
Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane (Still Life With Books)
Loving Rilke (Tales From the Reading Room)
This Wednesday is Wunderbar (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
The Collinin Case by Ferdinand von Schirach (A Book Sanctuary)
The Beggar Woman of Locarno by Heinrich von Kleist (The Reading Life)
Week III
Schnitzler’s Substitue for the Talking Cure (Wutherin Expectations)
Meet the Translator Sally-Ann Spencer (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth (Tony’s Reading List)
Schlink Week – Links (Reader in the Wilderness)
A Schlink Link – A Key to Understanding (Reader in the Wilderness)
Night Games – Schnitzler Stretches Out (Wuthering Expectations)
Tell me What You See by Zoran Drvenkar (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
The Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler (Wuthering Expectations)
The Swarm by Frank Schätzing and The Sweetness of Life by Paulus Hochgatterer (Farm Lane Books)
Summerhouse, Later by Judith Hermann (Tony’s Reading List)
Seven Years by Peter Stamm (Tony’s Book World)
Tell Me What You See by Zoran Drvenkar (Vishy’s Blog)
Talking of Romance… (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Being German, Writing Fiction and the Holocaust (Reader in the Wilderness)
Final Words About Bernhard Schlink Week (Reader in the Wilderness)
Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler (A Work in Progress)
Man of Straw by Heinrich Mann (His Futile Preoccupations)
Grimm’s Fairy Tales Day by Day (Read, Ramble)
Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
Love Virtually by Daniel Glattauer (The Little Reader Library)
The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach (Vishy’s Blog)
Winters in the South by Norbert Gstrein (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
Mesmerized by Allissa Walser (50 Year Project)
Der Elfenbeinturm by Herbert W. Franke (Slightly Cultural, Most Thoughtful and Inevitably Irrelevant)
The Poetry of Trakl (Wuthering Expectations)
This Wednesday is Wunderbar (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Salzburg in Trakl’s Poems (Wuthering Expectations)
All Roads Lead to Berlin (Tony’s Reading List)
Week IV
Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (A Work in Progress)
Grimm Readathon 2012: Meet me at Hanau (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
No Place on Earth by Christa Wolf (Tony’s Reading List)
Unformed Landscape by Peter Stamm (Vishy’s Blog)
Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler (Tales from the Reading Room)
The Story of the Hard Nut by E.T.A. Hoffmann (The Reading Life)
Grimm Readathon from Hauna to Kassel (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
My First Wife by Jakob Wassermann (Gaskella)
Demian by Hermann Hesse (Babbling Books)
Grimm Readathon: From kassel to Fürstenberg (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Brenner and God by Wolf Haas (His Futile Preoccupations)
Ich sehe was, was Du nicht siehst by Birgit Vanderbeke (Tony’s Reading List)
The Weekend by Berhard Schlink (Vishy’s Blog)
Grimm Readathon: From Fürstenberg to Bremen (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
The Tale of the Honest Caspar and Fair Annie by Clemens Brentano (A Work in Progress)
Crime & Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach (A Fiction Habit)
After Midnight by Irmgard Keun (chasing bawa)
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin (Tony’s Reading List)
Grimm Readathon 2012 Meets Book Week Scotland (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Wonderful, Wonderful Times by Elfriede Jelinek (St. Orberose)
Schnitzler and Stoppard collaborate (Wuthering Expectations)
Forbidden – Ostracized – Banned German Women Writers Under National Socialism (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
Amerika by Franz Kafka (A Hot Cup of Pleasure)
Sci-Fi Stories by German Authors (Slightly Cultural, Most Thoughtful and Inevitably Irrelevant)
The Pharmacist by Ingrid Noll (A Work in Progress)
Another Schnitzler – Stoppard Play (Wuthering Expectations)
Siddharta by Hermann Hesse (Tabula Rasa)
The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
This Wednesday is Wunderbar GLM extension (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
The Reader by Bernard Schlink (Iris on Books)
End of the Month and Bonus Week
Mary Stuart by Friedrich von Schiller (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Seven Years by Peter Stamm (Vishy’s Blog)
Grimm Times at the Fusion Lit Bistro (Tony’s Reading List)
Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhardt (Winstonsdad’s Blog)
The Stalin Front by Gert Ledig (Caravana de recuerdos)
The Stalin Front by Gert Ledig (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)
The Stalin Front by Gert Ledig (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Goethe’s ellusive Fairy Tale (Several, Four, Many)
Contemporary German Literature and 5 Dials Magazine – A Reminder (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
Justiz by Friedrich Dürenmatt (Liburuak)
This is Not a Love Song by Karen Duve (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
All Quiet on the Western Fron by Erich Maria Remarque (JoV’s Book Pyramid)
Sorry by Zoran Drvenkar (Vishy’S Blog)
The Life and Opinions of the Tomvayt Murry by E.T.A Hoffmann (Slightly Cultural, Most Thoughtful and Inevitably Irrelevant)
Léon and Louise by Alex Capus (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
The Method by Juli Zeh (Lizzy’s Literary Life)
More Beer by Jakob Arjouni (A Fiction Habit)
Group Portrait With Lady by Heinrich Böll (Vapour Trails)
Angst by Stefan Zweig (Liburuak)
Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll (Curious Sloth)
Beauty is a Sleeping Cat 
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Hi, I am not sure where to leave my review link – so I’ll put it here for now: http://leeswammes.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/book-review-love-virtually-by-daniel-glattauer/
Thanks for the book, it was a great read.
I’m really glad you liked it, Judith. I’ve just read your review. I added it to the links list.
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Thanks to your recommendations (this November or last, I’m not sure; I only recently discovered your blog) I got hold of Alfred Andersch’s Flight to Afar and Uwe Timm’s The Invention of Curried Sausage. Enjoyed them both, and subsequently bought more of their books, none of which match those two titles in quality.
Andersch seems to me clearly the greater writer. Flight belongs in any list of best novels of the 20th century. Some of his short stories are as good. Efraim’s Book, on the other hand, is an embarrassing failure (after a magnificent opening chapter). He lost his way in the course of it, whether under some compulsion to be postmodern or just because he kept writing when he should have waited till he got back on track, I don’t know. But one masterpiece is good enough.
Timm is lightweight by comparison, with an unpleasant scent of the academic about him. I very much enjoyed Invention, but as I would any well-told, well-written narrative. And that book is about as good as he gets (nothing to sneeze at, but not the artist Andersch is). His book about his brother in the SS would have been better left unwritten, and his other novels, what I’ve read of them so far, are not up to the quality of Invention.
I thank you again for pointing our these writers to me. I doubt I would ever have come across them otherwise, American literary ignorance about other cultures being what it is.
I’m so glad you found some books you really liked. I have only read the Invention …. by Timm, so I can’t say anything about the others.
Andersch’s most highly acclaimed novels are Flight to Afar and The Redhead but I’m not sure how easily the second would be available in English (it has been translated).I need to re-read it.
I would love to recommend more but a lot has not been translated. I wonder if you would like Böll. He is one of my favourites. His books are quite diverese.
I love Böll. The Clown most of all. I can see his influence on Timm (the pseudo-detective device for the narrative about a character’s past, as in Group Portrait with Lady). Some of his short stories. Böll is the gold standard for me of modern German literature. I never warmed up to Mann the same way, apart from Death in Venice and a few other shorter pieces. I should probably try him again. I like The Clown as well for its portrait of Catholicism in the 1960s, very much the same, I suspect, in Germany as it was here in the US. I love Böll’s sense of the comic and no-nonsense approach — something the university-trained writers seem to lack. Of course, Timm didn’t have the “advantage” of witnessing the Third Reich firsthand, but I doubt he would have been as good a writer as Andersch even if he had. Andersch is probably influenced as much as Timm was by Böll, maybe by Mann?, but he reads to me like an original. I only wish he hadn’t tried to be clever in a postmodern way. As I said before, I think he badly ruined what started out as a splendid piece of work with Efraim’s Book. It’s a shame when a writer doesn’t stick to working to his strengths and tries to be au courant.
The Clown is one of my very favourite novels. I don’t know of many German writers post WWII I like as much as I like him.
Switzerland has great authors too. Notably Max Frisch. I’m sure you know him. Of the m ore recent authors Robert Schneider is one with the most beautiful style. Ransmayer (he is Austrian though) and Nadolny are worth exploring, Handke as well and how about W.G. Sebald?
Thanks. I will check out all of them.
The Redhead is not in print in English and not available even as a used book except at a high price. I wonder why.
I’m not sure why books are suddenly out of print. Andersch is not read that much these days, I would say. Not even in German which, obviously has nothing to do with quality.
I hope you find more interesting books.