Booker 2009: A letter to James Naughtie

Dear Mr Naughtie, I do hope you and your fellow judges had a delightful time reading the novels entered for the 2009 Booker Prize.  I have, regrettably for my pre-Booker reading, allowed myself to be distracted by a Great German Reading Tour this summer and so remain unacquainted with the majority of this year’s contenders.  A further distraction in the [...]

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TSS: Literary Pics: Café Josty, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin

Then the tram moved on so that the view was clear and Emil saw the man hesitate for a moment and then walk up the stairs to the terrace of an outdoor cafe. Now he must again be very careful, like a detective catching fleas.  Emil took in the situation at a glance, saw a [...]

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Top 10 Berlin

I’ve praised books by Dorling Kindersley before now and I’m here to praise them again.  To put it quite simply their Top 10 Berlin is a fantastic publication.  Let me list its top 10 features: 1)  Its size. 18.8 cm x 10.2 cm.  Narrow, therefore.  Perfect for slipping into pockets and handbags. 2) Complete with maps.  Handy [...]

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Berlin Tales – Stories Translated by Lyn Marven

There’s a lot of buzz in blogland about the forthcoming Citylit Berlin by Oxygen Books. It’s one I can’t wait to get my paws on as fellow book blogger Katy Derbyshire at Love German Books has translated some of the stories therein. However, it’s not published until November and so I packed another recently published [...]

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TSS: Holiday’s over, competition results

Here are the answers to the competition set before I went a wandering around Germania. 1) How many books in the bookstack  did I take with me?  There were 11 books – almost 1 for each day.  A perfectly reasonable amount for a beach holiday.  But I don’t do those – I wander round cities and [...]

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My suitcase simply isn’t big enough – a conundrum and a competition

As you can see, I’ve been collecting again.  Oh, that’ll do nicely for my German trip … and that … and that … oh, that too.  If I packed them all, there’d be no room left for clothing.  What is a bookworm to do? The good news is  the problem has been solved with bookworm and suitcase now on their [...]

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The Wall Jumper – Peter Schneider

It was icy. -21, if I remember correctly. January 1980. Berlin at the height of the Cold War was a very chilly and at times forbidding place to be. To the right a young Lizzy shivering at the bottom of the Russian War Memorial in Treptower Park, burial site of 15,000 soldiers who died during [...]

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From the Oneworld Classics German Bookshelf

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed 2 novels from Alma Books (Child’s Play, Dear Everybody) earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before I sampled something from their OneWorld Classics imprint, specifically something from their German literature shelf.  Click here to enter a proverbial sweetie shop. But where to start? I have previously bemoaned the fact that for [...]

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