50 Books That Travel 2020

It is 1989 and a young literature student named Ed, fleeing unspeakable tragedy, arrives on the Baltic island of Hiddensee....

It is 1989 and a young literature student named Ed, fleeing unspeakable tragedy, arrives on the Baltic island of Hiddensee. Long shrouded in myth, the island is a notorious destination for hippies, idealists and those at odds with the East German state. On the island, Ed stumbles up- on the Klausner, Hiddensee’s most popular restaurant, and ends up washing dishes there, despite his lack of papers. Although he is keen to remain on the side-lines, Ed feels drawn to the charismatic Kruso, unofficial leader of the seasonal workers. Everyone dances to Kruso’s tune.

He is on a mission – but to what end, and at what cost? Ed finds himself pulled ever deeper into the island’s rituals, and in ever greater need of Kruso’s acceptance and affection. As the wave of history washes over the German Democratic Republic, the friends’ grip on reality loosens and life on the island will never be the same.

In Malina, originally published in Ger- man in 1971, Ingeborg Bachmann invites the reader into a world stretched to the...

In Malina, originally published in Ger- man in 1971, Ingeborg Bachmann invites the reader into a world stretched to the very limits of language. An unnamed narrator, a writer in Vienna, is torn between two men. Viewed through the tilting prism of obsession, she travels ever further into her own madness, anxiety and genius. Malina explores love, ”death styles“, the roots of fascism, and passion.

Katja Petrowskaja wanted to create a kind of family tree, charting relatives who had scattered across many countries and continents....

Katja Petrowskaja wanted to create a kind of family tree, charting relatives who had scattered across many countries and continents. The result was this striking and highly original work of narrative nonfiction, an account of her search for meaning in the stories of her ancestors.

In a series of short meditations, Petrowskaja delves into family legends and introduces a remarkable cast of characters: Judas Stern, her great-uncle, who shot a German diplomatic attaché in 1932 and was sentenced to death; her grandfather Semyon, who went to ground with a new name during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, splitting off that branch of the family for good; her grandmother Rosa, who ran an orphanage in the Urals for Jewish deaf-mute children; her Ukrainian grandfather Vasily, who disappeared during World War II and reappeared without explanation forty-one years later; and her great-grandmother, whose name may have been Esther, who alone remained in Kiev and was killed by the Nazis.

The friendly sea creatures Seal, Seagull and Crab introduce readers to their homes in the ocean and on the beach....

The friendly sea creatures Seal, Seagull and Crab introduce readers to their homes in the ocean and on the beach. They show us what plants grow on the ocean floor, what crabs look like, and which are the fish with the funny red dots. Elegantly designed with simple texts, Kathrin Wiehle‘s gentle, adorable illustrations complement the sustainable format. Printed on thick, 100 per cent recycled board, this eco-friendly series of books encourages young readers to enjoy nature – inside and out!

Nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, this first novel by celebrated playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig is a contemporary Berlin fairy...

Nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, this first novel by celebrated playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig is a contemporary Berlin fairy tale. Set in the former East Berlin, the story opens with a crash on the motorway. When a wolf is captured on camera at the scene, after crossing the border from Poland, it is the first of many sightings that connect a series of individuals whose paths intersect and diverge. Schimmelpfennig writes in powerful prose and has created a hypnotic and visually arresting novel.

Welcome to QualityLand, in the not-too-distant future, where everything works on automatic, from careers to relationships, and the fool proof...

Welcome to QualityLand, in the not-too-distant future, where everything works on automatic, from careers to relationships, and the fool proof algorithms of the biggest company in the world, TheShop, know what you want before you do and conveniently deliver it to your doorstep before you even order it. Peter Jobless is a machine scrapper in QualityCity who can‘t quite bring himself to destroy the imperfect machines sent his way, and has become the unwitting leader of a band of robotic misfits hidden in his home and workplace.

One day, Peter receives a product from TheShop that he absolutely, positively knows he does not want, and which he decides, at great personal cost, to return. The only problem: Doing so means proving that TheShop’s perfect algorithm is wrong, calling into question the very foundations of QualityLand itself.

A woman moves to a London suburb near the River Lea, without knowing quite why or for how long. Over...

A woman moves to a London suburb near the River Lea, without knowing quite why or for how long. Over a series of long, solitary walks she reminisces about the rivers she has encountered during her life, from the Rhine, the river of her childhood, to the Saint Lawrence River and a stream in Tel Aviv. Filled with poignancy and poetic observation, River is an ode to nature, edgelands, and the transience of all things human.

North Africa, 1972. While the world is reeling from the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, a series...

North Africa, 1972. While the world is reeling from the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, a series of mysterious events is playing out in the Sahara. Four people are murdered in a hippie commune, a suitcase full of money disappears and a pair of unenthusiastic detectives are assigned to investigate. In the midst of it all, a man with no memory tries to evade his armed pursuers. Who are they? What do they want from him? If he could just recall his own identity he might have a chance of working it out...

This darkly sophisticated literary thriller – the last novel Wolfgang Herrndorf completed before his untimely death in 2013 – is, in the words of Michael Maar, “the greatest, grisliest, funniest and wisest novel of the past decade”. Certainly no reader will ever forget it.

In Scatterbrain, we learn why perfectionism is pointless. Boredom awakens the muse, distractions spark creativity and misjudging time creates valuable...

In Scatterbrain, we learn why perfectionism is pointless. Boredom awakens the muse, distractions spark creativity and misjudging time creates valuable memories. These are just some of the benefits of our faulty minds – the faults them- selves being secret weapons that prove our superiority to computers and artificial intelligence.

The hilarious asides and brain-boosting advice from award-winning neuroscientist Henning Beck make for delightful reading throughout, as we take on board the most cutting-edge neuroscience our brains will (maybe never) remember.

It’s night and a young man is sitting writing at a table. He‘s afraid. Afraid of having to decide –...

It’s night and a young man is sitting writing at a table. He‘s afraid. Afraid of having to decide – on a woman, a group of friends, an annual holiday destination. He’s afraid of becoming numb to emotion. Afraid of growing up. But all that is about to change. An acquaintance makes him a proposition: Each night at seven o’clock, he must commit one of the seven deadly sins. He must be greedy, show pride, give in to lust... he must decide how far he is truly willing to go in his efforts to stave off habit and ennui and save his own life.

The most widely reviewed, discussed and recommended German language debut of the last decade, Seven Nights earned Simon Strauß praise from the Tagesspiegel newspaper as “one of the greatest talents of his generation” but also one of the most controversial.

After an unexpected breakup, a young woman named Selma wants to start afresh, but she experiences a series of emotional...

After an unexpected breakup, a young woman named Selma wants to start afresh, but she experiences a series of emotional setbacks. Struggling to relate to her friends and accomplish even the simplest tasks like using a modern laundromat, she sinks deeper into depression. She moves into her neighbour’s apartment but her growing despair distances her from her eager and sympathetic friend.

Aisha Franz is a master of portraying feminine loneliness and confusion while keeping her characters tough and real. Her artwork shifts from sparseness to detailed futurist with ease. Her characters fidget and twirl as they zip through a world both foreign and familiar. Base human desires and functions alternate with dreamlike symbolism to create a tension-filled tale of the nightmare that is modern life.

In this alluring, melancholic novel, a writer haunted by his double blurs the line between past and present, fiction and...

In this alluring, melancholic novel, a writer haunted by his double blurs the line between past and present, fiction and reality, in his attempt to outrun the unknown. ”Please come to Skogskyrkogården tomorrow at 2. I have a story I want to tell you.” Lena agrees to Christoph’s out-of-the-blue request, though the two have never met. In Stockholm’s Woodland Cemetery, he tells her his story, which is also somehow hers. Twenty years before, he loved a woman named Magdalena — an actress like Lena, with her looks, her personality, her past. Their breakup inspired him to write his first novel, about the time they were together, and in its scenes Lena recognizes the uncanny, intimate details of her own relationship with an aspiring writer, Chris. Is it possible that she and Chris are living the same lives as Magdalena and Christoph two decades apart? Are they headed towards the same scripted separation? Or, in the fever of writing, has Christoph lost track of what is real and what is imagined? In this subtle, kaleidoscopic tale, Peter Stamm exposes a fundamental human yearning: to beat life’s mysteries by forcing answers on questions that have yet to be fully asked.

After an idyllic childhood among the rolling hills and forests of North Germany, fate leads Hans into the guardianship of...

After an idyllic childhood among the rolling hills and forests of North Germany, fate leads Hans into the guardianship of his eccentric English aunt, Alex. A professor of art history at Cambridge, Alex will make sure his application to St John’s College is accepted, but in return Hans must help her investigate a secretive Cambridge institution known as the Pitt Club. The club has existed for centuries, its long legacy of tradition, privilege, and decadence largely unquestioned.

Hans is drawn into a glamorous world of debauchery and macho solidarity. And when he falls in love with fellow student Charlotte the stakes of his deception are raised. For there are dark secrets in the club’s history, as well as in its present – and Hans soon finds himself in the inner sanctum of a dangerous institution. A provocative and timely novel from a highly regarded young writer, The Club is an invitation into a world behind closed doors, one of long-held secrets, hallowed history and toxic behaviour.

On a wet and misty weekend in October, the Niemann family find a stranger in their garden. He is armed...

On a wet and misty weekend in October, the Niemann family find a stranger in their garden. He is armed and tries to force his way into the house, but disappears as soon as the police are alerted. That night he returns with an impossible ultimatum... Freiburg detective Louise Boni and her colleagues are under enormous pressure to investigate the case. The trail leads her to a dangerous no-man‘s land, and to a ruthless criminal who brings with him the trauma of conflict in the Balkans.

An epic family saga beginning with the Russian Revolution and swirling across a century, encompassing war, loss, loves requited and...

An epic family saga beginning with the Russian Revolution and swirling across a century, encompassing war, loss, loves requited and unrequited, ghosts, joy, massacres and tragedy. And hot chocolate.

At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe that is passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. The caution is justified: This is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste... Having learned the recipe from her Georgian father, Stasia takes it north when she follows her new husband to his posting in St Petersburg – which becomes the centre of the Russian Revolution. Stasia’s is only the first in a symphony of grand but all too often doomed romances that swirl from sweet to sour in this epic tale of the red century. Cascading down the years and across Europe, the tale follows generation after generation of this compelling family.

Jules Moreau’s sheltered childhood is shattered by the sudden death of his parents. At boarding school he and his siblings...

Jules Moreau’s sheltered childhood is shattered by the sudden death of his parents. At boarding school he and his siblings are forced to live apart causing a lasting rupture to their relationship, and the once vivacious and fearless Jules retreats into himself – until he meets Alva, a kindred soul caught in her own grief. Fifteen years pass and the siblings remain strangers, bound by tragedy and struggling to recover the family they once were.

Jules, still adrift, is anchored only by his desires to be a writer and to reunite with Alva. A kaleidoscopic family saga told through the fractured lives of the three Moreau siblings, alongside a faltering, recovering love story, The End of Loneliness is a stunning meditation on the power of our memories, of what can be lost and what can never be let go. With inimitable compassion and luminous, affecting prose, Benedict Wells examines what it means to find a way through life, never losing hope of finding someone to go with you.

It is July 1932 and a drowned man is found in a freight elevator in the legendary palace of entertainment...

It is July 1932 and a drowned man is found in a freight elevator in the legendary palace of entertainment on Potsdamer Platz, far from any standing water. Inspector Gereon Rath‘s hunt for a mysterious contract killer has stalled, but this new case will take him to a small town on the Polish border and confrontation with the rising Nazi party.

1959, Seoul. Divided from his family by the violent tumult of the Korean civil war, Yunho arrives in South Korea‘s...

1959, Seoul. Divided from his family by the violent tumult of the Korean civil war, Yunho arrives in South Korea‘s capital searching for his oldest friend. He finds him in the arms of a mysterious dancer, Eve Moon; a woman of many names who may be a refugee fleeing the communist North, or an American spy. Beguiled by her beauty, Yunho falls desperately in love. But nothing in Seoul is what it seems. The city is crowded with double agents and soldiers, and wracked by protests and poverty. Meanwhile, across the border in North Korea, Pyongyang grows more prosperous by the day. When a series of betrayals and a brutal crime drive the friends into exile, Yunho finds himself caught in the riptide of history.

A young woman returns to her hometown, Frankfurt am Main, after living abroad for some time. Her sister Ines, a...

A young woman returns to her hometown, Frankfurt am Main, after living abroad for some time. Her sister Ines, a painter, beautiful and impetuous, who still lives in Frankfurt, soon appears and asks her for financial help. The returning sister knew this was coming. It’s how their relationship always used to work, but this time she’s determined to change things. However, many plans often succumb to the surprises of life. Just as the sister is about to drift into an affair with Ines’s lover, the two women unexpectedly grow closer.

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf is a tale of disorientation in a modern, fundamentally rootless society that has become increasingly erratic and self-absorbed. It is a powerful exploration of the difficulties of intimacy and addiction.

In many western societies today, optimism has given way to a deep unease and sense of foreboding. After the financial...

In many western societies today, optimism has given way to a deep unease and sense of foreboding. After the financial crisis, many people feel worse off and the future seems bleak. The mood has changed – that’s clear. But what is „the mood“? How can feelings be shared by many people, and how do these shared feelings shape the course of events? Sociologist Heinz Bude offers a highly original analysis of this vital but neglected topic.

Moods, he argues, are ways of being in the world. Moods shape how we experience the world, but they are not purely private. On the contrary, they give basic colour to our collective existence and experience. They are crucial in determining our political outlook and preferences, our attitudes and identities, and they provide much of the energy for forms of collective action, including social movements that seem to appear suddenly from nowhere. With the growing significance of the politics of discontent, Bude’s insightful analysis of the power of collective moods could not be more relevant. His book will appeal to anyone who wants to understand how our societies are changing in these profoundly uncertain times.