This post has two parts. First is the wrap-up of Week I of our German Literature Month – focussing on literature from Germany. Please do not just skip it. It’s a tribute to all our participants. We have already seen some really amazing contributions and I would like to thank all of you for this.

There have been a lot of interesting lists and contributions made during October. They are HERE. This is the wrap-up of Week I.

Here are all of this weeks’ links with my impressions:

Week I

Lizzy has made a post on how to find German books in translation and a review of a very unique sounding book by Alina Bronsky.

The Magic Mountain of German Literature

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky

Caroline – I have compiled a post with 14 women writers that shouldn’t be missed and reviewed Sebald’s book on the absence of the description of the destruction of German cities during WWII from German post-war literature. The book leads us to the Böll readalong on November 26.

14 Women Writers You Shouldn’t Miss

On the Natural History of Destruction – Luftkrieg und Literatur by W. G. Sebald

The Participants

Neer (A Hot Cup of Pleasure) shares her German Literature Month inspired Wishlist.  That’s always a risk with events like this. You may end up with far more books than before.

Christina from Ardent Reader hopes to be able to keep up with her Reading plans.

Danielle (AWork in Progress) introduces her choices. A list with descriptions. Plans for German Literature Month 

Emma (Book Around the Corner) wrote an enthusiastic review of  Fame by Daniel Kehlmann that she calls a “strange exhilarating book”.

sakura (chasing bawa) is thrilled by her discovery of Dark Matter by Juli Zeh  and adds (after having been tracked down by the German Literature Month Police , i.e. me) an Introduction.

Jackie (Farm Lane Books) wrote a very appealing review of the WWII novel Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson. Not an easy read, highly literary but rewarding.

Guy Savage (His Futile Preoccupations) dethrones Goethe in his musings on  On Goethe’s Elective Affinities and reestablishes him again – at least in parts – in  On Goethe’s Elective Affinities Part II. The review is to follow.

Rise (in lieu of a field guide) reviewed Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck and compares it to the passage of time chapter in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

Harvey (Leben, Kochen, Bier u. Fussball) offers a list with interesting choices Introduction with choices.

Eibhlin (Mar gheall ar a léim) shares he reading plans in Eibhlin’s reading plans.

Fay (Read, Ramble) reviews  Herta Müller – Land of Green Plums describing how she wanted to give up after a little while but was rewarded by her persistence.

Rikki (Rikki’s Teleidoscope) enjoyed The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky as much as Lizzy. She captures the unusual voice of the narrator very well.

Susanna P (Susie Bookworm)  has added her reading plans German Lit Month Kick off. She already read Lotte in Weimar and is about to pick something else soon.

Priya (Tabula Rasa) shares her reading plans Plans.

Alex The Children’s War wrote an in-depth review of The Oppermann’s by Lion Feuchtwanger. He writes  “What makes The Oppermanns so interesting is that it has the distinction of being the first story of its kind to tell about life under the Nazis and how it affected people opposed to Hitler.”

Parrish (The Parrish Lantern)  wrote a thoughtful review On The Joys of Morphinism by Fallada. Introducing first the life of the author and then writing about the book.

Mel u (The Reading Lives) announces German Literature Month and reviews a very interesting short story by Gerstacker, a lesser known author. His review is proof that it is worth looking for the lesser known.  Announcing German Literature Month and Short Story by Gerstacker

Tony (Tony’s Reading List) has really liked Alois Hotschnig’s – Maybe This Time and already read it twice but he doubts that he will re-read  All the Lights by Clemens Meyer. Although he didn’t mind reading it at all, he doesn’t seem to be convinced it’s all that literary.

Liz (Tortoisebook) shares he reading plans. German Literature Month Plans

Vishy (Vishy’s Blog) has reviewed a wide range of short stories and novellas. A really wide range. Both Lizzy and myself were stunned. This is pretty much an introduction to the most important German writers.  A Wide Range of German Short Stories

Stu (Winstonsdad’s Blog) I was equally amazed about the wide range of books reviewed by Stu. There are some wonderful books to discover here.  An early novel by the Nobel Prize winner Nadirs by Herta Müller , a novella by the author of Perfume The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind, a poetical novella Jarmila by Ernst Weiss and a novel of a Swiss writer A Perfect Waiter by Alain Claude Sulzer.

Amateur Reader (Tom) Wuthering Expectations wrote one post on the melancholic story Flagman Thiel by Gehart Hauptmann (also reveiwed by Vishy) and two posts on Hauptmann’s play Gerhart Hauptmann-Before Daybreak – Gerhart Hauptmann’s characters.

Effi Briest Readalong

Week I

The following people have posted so far, some freestyle, some answering our questions.

Andrew

Caroline

Danielle 

 

Fay

Eibhlin

Iris

Lizzy

Sarah

Tony

This and That

Yes, we were also featured on the web.

Melville House Press on What to drink when reading Heinrich Böll 

The Millions announce German Literature Month

kulturplease announces German Literature Month

love german books – Kid – On German Literature Month

The Victory Stitch – Peggy  If I were reading

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And here, finally, the winners of the Heinrich Böll giveaway courtesy of Melville House Press.

The winner of The Train Was on Time and The Clown is

Priya from Tabula Rasa

The winner of Group Portrait with Lady and Billards at Half-Past Nine is

Guy from His Futile Preoccupations

And the winner of The Irish Journal and The Safety Net is

Stu from Winstonsdad’s Blog

Happy reading Priya, Guy and Stu!

Please send me your address via beautyisasleepingcat at gmail dot com.

The giveaway is part of German Literature Month.

The next giveaway will take place on Wednesday 9 November 2011. Remember… It’s crime week…. there are some great books to be won. And, yes, those who won already can still participate.

I’m so glad that I can give away six books by Heinrich Böll, my favourite German author. The giveaway has been kindly provided by Melville House Press.

We give away 6 novels to 3 winners, 2 novels each. Please tell us which novels you would like.

Here we go (the blurbs are all from the Melville House Böll Page):

The Train was on Time

Heinrich Böll’s taut and haunting first novel tells the story of twenty-four-year-old Private Andreas as he journeys on a troop train across the German countryside to the Eastern front. Trapped, he knows that Hitler has already lost the war … yet he is suddenly galvanized by the thought that he is on the way to his death.

As the train hurtles on, he riffs through prayers and memories, talks with other soldiers about what they’ve been through, and gazes desperately out the window at his country racing away. With mounting suspense, Andreas is gripped by one thought over all: Is there a way to defy his fate?

The Safety Net

Fritz Tolm has risen to the most powerful position in Germany.

With fame comes fear and vulnerability. Threats to his life are met with the all-pervasive “safety-net” of police protection and surveillance.

Trapped in a house they dare not leave, where every visitor is suspect and every object a potential bomb, Tolm and his family wait to discover when and how terrorism will overtake them.

Group Portrait with Lady

Cited by the Nobel Prize committee as the “crown” of Heinrich Böll’s work, the gripping story of Group Portrait With Lady unspools like a suspenseful documentary. Via a series of tense interviews, an unnamed narrator uncovers the story—past and present—of one of Böll’s most intriguing characters, the enigmatic Leni Pfeiffer, a struggling war widow.

At the center of her struggle is her effort to prevent the demolition of her Cologne apartment building, a fight in which she is joined by a motley group of neighbors. Along with her illegitimate son, Lev, she becomes the nexus of a countercultural group rebelling against Germany’s dehumanizing past under the Nazis … and what looks to be an equally dehumanizing future under capitalism.

Billards at Half-Past Nine

Heinrich Böll’s well-known opposition to fascism and war informs this moving story of a single day in the life of traumatized soldier Robert Faehmel, scion of a family of successful Cologne architects, as he struggles to return to ordinary life after the Second World War. An encounter with a war-time nemesis, now a power in the reconstruction of Germay, forces him to confront private memories and the wounds of Germany’s defeat in the two World Wars.

The Clown

Acclaimed entertainer Hans Schnier collapses when his beloved Marie leaves him because he won’t marry her within the Catholic Church.

The desertion triggers a searing re-examination of his life — the loss of his sister during the war, the demands of his millionaire father, and the hypocrisies of hs mother, who first fought to “save” Germany from the Jews, then worked for “reconciliation” afterwards.

Heinrich Böll’s gripping consideration of how to overcome guilted and live up to idealism — how to find something to believe in — gives stirring evidence of why he was such an unwelcome presence in post-War German consciousness … and why he was such a necessary one.

Irish Journal

When Heinrich Böll traveled with his wife to Ireland in the early 1950′s, he was immediately enchanted by the landscape and the people. Reveling in respite from a Europe still recovering from war, he was captivated by what he saw as a friendly and classless society that took life at a more leisurely pace. He was delighted, for example, by the Irish saying that explained why the trains were always late: “When God made time he made plenty of it.” Böll would return again and again.

In this unique entry in his oeuvre, Böll documents his eccentric travels around the Emerald Isle, detailing its charm in a way that gives his own habit of studying character and paradox, not mention national identity, a beguiling twist. The result, here presented with an epilogue written years later with Böll’s observation of changes since his first visit, is a reflection on the essence of a place and its people that is, indeed, evergreen.

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If you are interested in two or more of these books, tell me which ones you would like. The only condition is that you tell us about a favourite German book or author or – if you only get started – tell us what books you plan on discovering, which authors or books tempt you.

The giveaway is part of German Literature Month.

Also visit What to drink while reading Heinrich Böll on the Melville House Blog.

The giveaway is open internationally, the books will be shipped by the editor. The winners will be announced on Sunday 6 November 18.00 – European – (Zürich) time.