“Who would want to be without Caroline and Lizzy’s German Literature Month?” asks Sally-Ann Spencer in the 20th anniversary edition of New Books in German. The good news is that neither Caroline nor I want to be without it. So it is our great pleasure to announce that German Literature Month VI is now inked in our diaries for this coming November.
Albeit a little less structured than in previous iterations. We’ve learned that regular GLMers are not short of ideas, and love to read as they please. So that’s what German Literature Month VI is about. Fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, novellas, short stories, plays, poetry, classic or contemporary, written by male or female, the choice is yours. As long as the original work was written in German, read as you please, and enjoy yourselves!
That said, there are a couple of scheduled activities for those who like to participate in group reading.
1) I will be hosting a Krimi week during week two concentrating mainly on Austrian and Swiss crime fiction. (If anyone is looking for a cracking read to discuss that week, I recommend Ursula P Archer’s Five.)
2) Caroline has scheduled a Literature and War readalong for Friday 25 November. The book for discussion is Walter Kempowski’s All For Nothing.
We are very much looking forward to this, and hope you will join us. Don’t forget to tell us your plans. There’s often as much fun in the planning as there is in the reading!
Sent from my iPad
Lizzy's Literary Life (Volume One) 
I’m in, of course, and even though I’ve amassed all the lovely books in the photo I tweeted earlier, I’m sure there’ll be a few more purchases before November 🙂
I’ll do my best to join in, time permitting – I’m sure I can find something suitable on my shelves!
Do I dare announce my participation, after quietly abandoning my project of reading lots of German books throughout this year? I do have plenty of books to read and got a nice new batch when my mom visited a few months ago.
Looking forward to you re-joining the fold, TJ. As for the 12 Germans, I have Malina, Rummelplatz and Seghers on my list of potential reads.
As ever count me in already in my thoughts working through Grass Too far afield
I’m in again this year. The only problem is which ones to leave out.
I know the feeling, Jonathan.
Would you be interested in doing a guest blog on my site – Booker Talk – to share some thoughts about German literature? it would be part of the View From Here series – https://bookertalk.com/world-literature/the-view-from-here/
Would make a good companion to your reading challenge
Happy to do this, but it should be a joint effort with my co-hostess Caroline.
absolutely – thats what I was hoping for. if you can contact me on heenandavies at yahoo dot co dot uk I can send both of you more info
My favourite reading event of the year is back! Whoohoo! Thanks Lizzy for hosting German Literature Month and delighting us, German literature fans! Can’t wait to make reading plans now! Maybe some Stefan Zweig, maybe some Ingeborg Bachmann. And should I read Arno Schmidt’s Bottom’s Dream? 😀 So happy, happy, happy!
Forgot to mention this. Love the new badge! It looks so cool!
I haven’t yet organised the photo like Tony, but I do have a few books lined up – even one for the Krimi week! Looking forward to it!
This event is a must – thanks to you and Caroline to host it again. I don’t want to come up with a long list of books and will not promise more than I can manage, but I definitely want to review Gert Hofmann’s Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl and Robert Seethaler’s Der Trafikant (not yet translated if I am not mistaken). I have plenty of ideas beside from that, but we will see…
Haha – Seethaler’s The Tobacconist will be published by Picador on 20.10.2016.
So glad to see this announcement.
And I’m glad that you’re glad, Mel. 😄
Whoopee!!! Thank you Lizzie and Caroline!! I always look forward to this as it furnishes me with ideas aplenty. Because of my love of lieder, I cherish Hermann Prey’s recording of Hermann Loens poetry.and that got me to Loens’ book, The Wehrwolf, available in German at Gutenberg. Has anyone else read this?
In reading a forthcoming collection of essays by Yiyun Li I was struck by what she said about Thomas Mann’s remark on the suicide of Stefan Zweig and his wife and wanted to see if others might have any thoughts
“One of the most callous criticisms of Stefan Zweig’s suicide along with his wife Lotte came from Thomas Mann. “He can’t have killed himself out of grief, let alone desperation. His suicide note is quite inadequate. What on earth does he mean with the reconstruction of life that he found so difficult? The fair sex must have something to do with it, a scandal in the offing?”
What is your reaction to this?