Monthly Archives: November 2023

Reading List November 2023

Posted on November 30, 2023 by admin

Nine books finished this month, six by women/POC, six in German for #GermanLitMonth, and one in Portuguese. I’ve covered the German books in a little more depth than usual in separate posts, so just to summarise: Austria Echtzeitalter, by Tonio … Continue reading →

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GermanLitMonth: Knochenlieder

Posted on November 29, 2023 by admin

#GermanLitMonth book six completes my perfectly balanced pattern: representing Swiss woman is Martina Clavadetscher, with Knochenlieder. This is a wonderfully strange book. Most obviously, it’s a novel written (pretty much) in verse. That is, there are line breaks, and while … Continue reading →

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GermanLitMonth: Sieben Jahre

Posted on November 28, 2023 by admin

#GermanLitMonth book five is Sieben Jahre, by my Swiss gentleman for the month, Peter Stamm. It’s narrated by a Munich architect, within a framework of his telling an acquaintance “now” of various events between his student days and middle age. … Continue reading →

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GermanLitMonth: Die Inkommensurablen

Posted on November 23, 2023 by admin

And my fourth #GermanLitMonth book, my second for Austria, makes a nice pair with Schachinger’s Echtzeitalter: Die Inkommensurablen, by Raphaela Edelbauer. It again takes place in Vienna, and is viewed through the eyes of an outsider teenager, but this time … Continue reading →

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GermanLitMonth: Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg

Posted on November 23, 2023 by admin

My third #GermanLitMonth book completes my pair of German books, and is by chance also non-fiction: Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg, by Antje Rávik Strubel. This is certainly odd — as if Margaret Atwood had decided to write a guide … Continue reading →

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GermanLitMonth: Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger!

Posted on November 19, 2023 by admin

Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger! by Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi is my second book for #GermanLitMonth — sort of. I was reading it for Black History Month in October, before things got in the way, but it fits into the rulebreakers week of this … Continue reading →

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GermanLitMonth: Echtzeitalter

Posted on November 10, 2023 by admin

I’ve finished my first book for #GermanLitMonth: Echtzeitalter, by Tonio Schachinger. Deutscher Buchpreis-winner this year, it’s a Bildungsroman following a teen gamer at a Viennese school very similar to the one Schachinger went to, where he encounters first a Snape-like … Continue reading →

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