From the German Bookshelves

What happens when something is lost to the world? With whatever traces left behind, can one retrace the lost object? What will remain when things are lost? These are some questions Judith Schalansky’s insightfully astute book An Inventory of Losses attempts to tackle.

“(the) central questions of my novel are about the individual strength to love, the political power to improve society, and to fight for those who are too weak to fend for themselves…”
German writer and poet Nora Bossong’s Gramsci’s Fall is a tale of hopes and the heart-breaking disappointment of some revolutions.

In her debut novel The High-Rise Diver, German author Julia von Lucadou envisions a society where surveillance has become the norm, and an individual's worth is determined solely by their performance metrics, painting a thought-provoking portrait of a dystopian future.

On the hundredth anniversary of his death, Franz Kafka’s life and work are being celebrated and illuminated. In his new graphic novel, illustrator Nicolas Mahler gives them a colourful brilliance – although it’s almost all black-and-white.
 

Coming to terms with absent fathers is the central theme of the novels by Necati Öziri and Deniz Utlu. One gives rise to anger, the other to melancholy.

In his new novel, Wolf Haas tells of a mother’s tragicomic life and sends his regards to the afterlife.

The Bosnian War: unsettling, brutal, forgotten by many today. Tijan Sila brings it back to life in his memoir. Years of violence, anger and grief lie between the siege of his native Sarajevo and his family’s flight to Germany.
 

Christian Handel and Andreas Suchanek take us along on a frenzied tour of two Berlins – one magical and one modern. But no matter where you are, devious intrigues lurk on both sides of the mirror.

Martin Suter’s latest novel has everything a good book needs – making it the perfect read for the summer holidays. This tale of a woman who disappears just before her wedding can be quickly devoured in a deckchair by the sea or in a hammock in the garden.

Julia suffers from asthma. And she has just lost her job. Back in the village where she grew up, she is struggling to make a fresh start. But that’s not possible without confronting the demands and expectations of her family and the drab reality of village life. When Julia meets the “guy from the city”, a glimmer of hope emerges amid all the hopelessness.
 

In her graphic novel debut, Helena Baumeister tells of her experiences with an online date.

The Austrian author Franz Schuh has written a new collection of essays in which the interest in death is mutual.
 

The moment they come near us, we swat them away. We regard them as the scourge of summer – yet they have almost only benefits to offer. Michael Ohl on wasps and the invaluable role they play in our ecosystem.

In his new novel, Lukas Bärfuss again focuses on the existential hardships of people in modern, capitalist society. Here he tells of the fate of a single mother.

They are three words, each of which means a beginning and an end: I love you. I’m leaving you. But what lies in between? In the case of the first-person narrator in Julia Schoch’s new novel, a 30-year relationship. First elation, celebration, then everyday life, children, betrayal, anger. 

In her second novel, Annika Büsing takes us on a fast-paced journey. To Leipzig, the flooded Ahr valley, a town on the Baltic Sea – a short trip turns into a road trip.

In Milena Michiko Flašar‘s new novel, a disorientated young woman finds not only an unusual new job, but also a substitute family.