Cherrypicker —
Every week, new literature

Olga Hohmann's meandering puzzle of literary miniatures tells stories from the everyday life of its protagonist, of failure, of sideways and forward movements and the sublimity of opera.

In her evocative young adult novel, Kathrin Schrocke writes about pervasive racism, white privilege and the typical adolescent thought processes of a 16-year-old.

300 years ago, on 22 April 1724, Immanuel Kant was born. In this anniversary year, he is being honoured, celebrated and critically examined as an important philosopher and pioneer of the Enlightenment. Here is a small selection of current books about him.

In a spectacularly designed graphic novel, the Croatian artist Danijel Žeželj tackles several Franz Kafka novels at once.
 

In her new book, Stefanie Sargnagel reports on a stay in the USA, accompanied by singer Christiane Rösinger.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay, and we will have to learn to live with this omnipresent technology. Hannes Bajohr has conducted a bold experiment in narrative literature by getting an AI language model to write a novel.

Anyone tired of the cult of Goethe’s genius should read Charles Lewinsky’s satirical novel in which the great poet and writer is plagued by all-too-human problems.

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.
 

In her new book, Angelika Klüssendorf revisits the painful childhood and youth of the girl from her novel trilogy.
 

The latest young adult novels deal with big questions about friendship, true greatness, life and death. They also offer science fiction and fantasy.

16 years after the final novel in the Inkheart series was published, the author and illustrator Cornelia Funke has embarked on another foray into the world of Meggie, Dustfinger and co. And created a captivating sequel in which the written word is no longer the focus.

Realistic yet fantastical, full of adventure, exciting and informative: all of these attributes apply to our small selection of new children’s books.

In his new novel, Sepp Mall tells the story of a South Tyrolean family during the Second World War from the both innocent and harrowing perspective of a child.

The stories told in picture books these days are fantastical, full of adventures and fun. Animals drive construction vehicles and are puzzled by humans, while grown-ups are taught a lesson by children – and the Moon orders itself a dress.

If you’re not in the mood for reading, why not try taking pleasure in listening? More recent audiobooks deal with special family relationships and the magic of music.

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

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.

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.
 

A farmhand, a mathematics students and a young aristocrat are teetering through war-drunk Vienna. A plot line spanning just 24 glittering hours in August 1914 is all that Raphaela Edelbauer needs to portray a country on the brink of an abyss that threatens to devour not only the young.

Anne Rabe’s remarkable family novel impressively traces a history of violence in (East) Germany. It stretches from the Nazi era to the present day.

With his new novel, Maxim Biller has created a touching literary memorial to his mother.

Özge İnan has written a debut novel that is extremely well worth reading. It is about Turkey in the 1980s, the difficult decision to emigrate and the omnipresence of politics.

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.

Drugs, guns, murders in a multistorey car park: there’s plenty going on in Kim Koplin’s debut crime novel. We are taken on a hectic trip through Berlin, where somebody is always on the run. And in amongst it all we have a detective with problems at home and a night watchman with a daughter and a past.

Charlotte Gneuss’s everyday drama set in East Germany is surprising for its oppressive intensity and extraordinary, ordinary protagonist.

Katharina Mevissen tells an entirely unusual mother’s story.

A Frankfurt customs investigator finds an eel head on his doorstep. The next day, he doesn’t survive his fishing trip. The police say it was an accident. The public prosecutor thinks otherwise.

Hardly any other author writes as bluntly about the misery of the everyday as Heinz Strunk. His new collection of stories is no exception.

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

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.

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

Frank Goosen and Thomas Brussig write about what is supposedly the world’s most wonderful pastime. No, not sex; it’s more complicated.

Book Lovers Day is celebrated every year on 9 August. It is meant to encourage people to find their favourite reading nook, a good book, and spend the day immersed reading. Our editorial team presents some of their personal favourites for inspiration for new reading material.

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.

The publication of Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre’s new novel was a major event for the feuilletonists. What will remain after the excitement has died down? A lot of unanswered questions and, one hopes, a lot of attention for an important social topic.

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.
 

On just one book page, comic artist Simon Schwartz presents his whimsical and varied historical vignettes.

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.

Recent picture books tell stories about animals that can be the best of friends. And how imagination opens our eyes to the invisible.

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. 

New children’s books tell gripping, quirky stories, but also address serious subjects, such as pandemics and war.

 

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.

The post-reunification period, upheavals, queerness, ethics, and morality: new books for young people offer a wide range of topics

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

When it’s beginning to look like spring, it’s time to get out of the house. That doesn’t mean you have to put down your books, though. Audiobooks are ideal for walks and outings, whether read by well-known authors or accomplished audiobook narrators, whether the subject matter is dark or light.

Vicco von Bülow, also known as Loriot, would have turned 100 on 12 November 2023. To celebrate the great humourist and artist, the booklet “Wahre Liebe mit Loriot” (True Love with Loriot) has been published by Diogenes Verlag and we are collecting your favourite Loriot moments.
 

The lives of women in the past are often presented as trivial. Annabelle Hirsch contradicts this theory. In a compassionate account, she guides readers through the many facets of women’s history, based on 100 objects.
 

In Clemens J. Setz’s new novel, the main character believes that people do not live on, but inside the earth.

Matthias Matschke’s debut novel is ostensibly about growing up in a small West German town in the 1980s. But much more so, it tells the more universal story of what it’s like to search for one’s own place in the world.

In a graphic novel, the composer and pioneer of electronic music Karlheinz Stockhausen seems like a being from another world to a small-town boy.

Sven Regener and Andreas Dorau have written a second book about the life of the one-time New German Wave star. It demonstrates that it’s not just success that’s fun.

Where exactly does genius reside? In Franzobel’s latest novel, an American pathologist asks that question – and steals the brain of the recently deceased Albert Einstein to find out.

The young graphic designer Leander Zerwer has created a somewhat different Berlin architectural guide for the years between 1946 and 2022.

In his new novel, Christoph Peters dares to play games – with literature, current political events, his own creative process and readers.

Interrail pass, backpack, laptop, notepad: Alex Rühle travelled light on his tour of Europe. But he asked some weighty questions: What is the European Union today? Do its early values still apply? Rühle collected all sorts of answers while crossing its borders – and tens of thousands of kilometres.

Markus Heitz impressively demonstrates what fantasy can do - create a visually-stunning world that feels both familiar and strange and a story with surprising yet logical twists that is never dull.

My job is hell! – that's probably what everyone has thought at one time or another. In a comic book by Patrick Wirbeleit, a pubescent actually finds work in the realm of the devil.

The only thing Lukas Bärfuss inherited from his father is a banana crate with unknown contents. Using his own family history, he reflects on inherited injustice in general and on how it could be eliminated.

Dörte Hansen’s new novel is a farewell to the everyday life of the native population of a small island in the North Sea. If we take a closer look, though, slivers of hope glow from among the dark waves again and again.

Our times are marked by crisis. Looking back a hundred years, we realise 1923 was no better.

Andreas Steinhöfel and Melanie Garanin have produced a moving and humorous graphic novel from a TV series about anti-Semitism and racism at school.