Cherrypicker
Review 2020

A young man of Turkish origin from Heilbronn tries to make a football career in Turkey but fails. He then returns home without knowing how he will go on. And the city is seething.

The magical voices of the narrators, an unusual interpretation of the subject matter: Audiobooks promise unique pleasures. This selection is about yearning for departures and works that never grow old.

What happens when a bloke from Berlin-Mitte travels to the eastern German backwoods to report on those frenzied fellows with dodgy pasts? About ten years later, author Moritz von Uslar repeated the experiment.

Did anyone before Benjamin Quaderer write a Liechtenstein novel? I doubt it. But there are plenty of stories to tell about the tranquil principality with its secret dirty money stash. In this case, the storyteller is a con man, data thief, and public enemy number one.

Outsiders past and present, absentee fathers, a famous stolen skull, and how anyone can make the world a slightly better place are the themes of some new German novels for young adults.

Michael Stavarič is a master of dystopia. In his latest novel, the earth has perished. Some people have managed to escape by spaceship, but only one of them makes it alive to a frozen planet, where her memories of the Inuit and of Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen help her survive.

In the latest children’s books, we read not only of first love but also about a boy who feels like a girl and how normal it is to be “disabled.” And then there’s a comic book about a childhood in the 1970s and a comic book with poems.

More or less voluntarily, Gisela moves to Chemnitz to study. As a leftist political science student, she becomes quite frustrated there – yet finds the best friends for partying, protesting, and forming a band.

A man, a woman, drugs, sex, music, tea, Frankfurt, Berlin, a few friends and family members – and the plot for Leif Randt’s new book is in place.

A canary that travels all the way to New York, an illustrated piece of German history, a rollicking alphabet, sailors’ yarns, and an adventure around a home office: Picture books can be as rich and colourful as life itself.

“Kultur für alle” – culture for everyone – was a political demand in the 1970s. In 2008, the Kultur für ALLE association was founded in Frankfurt. Now Hauke Hückstädt, director of the Frankfurt Literaturhaus, has published a volume of stories with simple-language literature in this tradition that is quite worth reading.

A murder at a motorway service area, the brother of the murder victim who is looking for the murderer, plenty of lowlife stories from the present and the past – these are the ingredients of Frank Göhre’s new crime thriller.

Grandfather and his deeds during the Second World War lead to trauma that threatens to overwhelm the subsequent generations in Valerie Fritsch’s family novel. Only a trip to the deserted steppes of Kazakhstan breaks the chains of the past.

“Before raping my sister Claudia, the guest from Moscow filled his belly with our food.” It’s not just the uncommon opening words that make Maxim Biller’s family stories so remarkable.

What does it mean to grow up on the margins of society? Christian Baron’s autobiographical novel gives us an idea.

The filmmaker and writer Oskar Roehler has come out with a novel about growing up in 1960s Germany. The story is set in a small provincial housing estate, a microcosm that reveals the flipside of West Germany’s economic miracle – from the children’s perspective.

All Paula needs in life is her flat, a little money and her beloved brother Tim. When Tim dies in an accident, she plunges into a deep depression. It takes a road trip with a bereaved old man – along with a dog and a chicken – for her to resurface.

From non-fiction to picture books, climate change – and what we can do about it – is an issue for publishers.

Where do I come from? How formative are my origins? Does my family history curse me? These are questions the narrator asks himself in Bov Bjerg’s new novel. He also wants to be a good father – or at least not a “rotten dad”.

The three sisters used to stick together, but life drove them apart. They take a hike through the moor to try and bridge the gap. They bring memories of their shared past and their present in their luggage. There’s nothing around to hold them back.

A journey across our breathtakingly beautiful world that is currently going up in flames narrated from the perspective of a 12-year-old. Jana Steingässer’s book, turns out to be a brilliant and informative work of non-fiction about climate change for children and teenagers.

Mina's way of loving is different from that of most people. Leona Stahlmann’s debut novel, explores supposedly “deviant” conceptions of sexuality, home and identity, and delves deep into the nature of being human.

Essays don’t have to be long. Sometimes they’re just a way to start us thinking. Katharina Hacker’s minute-long essays fit between two bus stops, but also between two situations – the one before and the one after reading.

A graphic novel about Hannah Arendt, probably the greatest philosophical and political thinker of the twentieth century – does that make sense? Does it ever! Ken Krimstein provides the proof.

When we speak of digitisation, it’s often about the technologies and their effects, but not about what social problem it actually solves. That’s exactly the question Armin Nassehi asks in his new book.

Motti was kicked out of his home because of his affair with a non-Jewish girl. As a member of a Jewish global conspiracy force, he again encounters a shiksa – this time she’s a beautiful Nazi shiksa with a murder contract.

Moving from Dublin to a backwater town in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania doesn’t sound very tempting. To the chagrin of Emma and her two siblings, their family ends up in their German mother’s home village. It’s a disruption to which the children react very differently.

A new booklet is advertised as “a guidebook-format who’s who of private art collections”. It presents 90 private but publicly accessible collections of contemporary and modern art in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Lucie, almost thirteen, is annoyed by many things; most of all that she’s expected to vacate her room for mom’s new boyfriend. That’s why she wants to move to Berlin, but it’s expensive. She finds a job – working for a very strange old man.

The turn of the year is a favourite time for examining past milestones as well as pressing issues of the present and future. Several audio books offer interesting incentives for this, each in their own and sometimes award-winning way.

What does a writer do all day long? If you want to find out in an entertaining way, you should definitely read Heinz Strunk’s latest work. Similarities with the diaries of late great writers are fully intentional.

The German publishing house of Kiepenheuer & Witsch has launched a series of compact  paperbacks in which various authors pay tribute to their favourite pop music idols. The music prompts each of them to think back on their lives and, in hindsight, what really counts in life.

A red E on a black ground: Erebos is back. And this merciless game has not been idle these past ten years: not only has it forced old gamers back into the game, it is even recruiting new ones. No one gets away, because the game is smarter than ever – and has a plan of its own.

Forget Neuschwanstein and the old town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, get to know Germany from a completely different, sometimes shockingly intimate side!

The international arty set has long felt at home in the rough but commodious party city of Berlin. But what about those who work behind the scenes at night? Thorsten Nagelschmidt depicts this in his new novel.

A Wunderkammer is a cabinet of curiosities, a collection of rarities. Language is a ragbag with plenty of rarities and curiosities too. This new, beautifully designed book presents some remarkable historical as well as contemporary curios of the German language.

The editor Jürgen Hosemann has written his first book. It is a log about a single day. From one sunrise to the next he sits by the sea and writes about what happens – or doesn't happen – during this time.

With his films and books, Alexander Kluge practices the art of associative overextension. This is also true of his latest book, which contains all sorts of anecdotes and esoteric ideas from and about Russia.

Is it “off and away” or “over and done”? Anna Katharina Hahn tells the story of a Swabian family’s struggling women and their attempts to escape. One heads to New York, the other to a low-income neighbourhood in Stuttgart.

The author, action artist, talk show host, film, theatre and opera director Christoph Schlingensief died ten years ago. Now a book of conversations reveals his personality, his obsessions, his fears, his hostility towards “cement-like stability.”

What can we expect from artificial intelligence in the future: the salvation of humanity or its downfall? Algorithms are seen as the future holders of power. Roberto Simanowski’s book is about the moral dilemma with which artificial intelligence confronts us.

Robert Seethaler empathises with the world-famous, mortally ill composer and conductor Gustav Mahler. Mahler is heading back across the sea to Europe from America. It is his final journey. The exceptional musician would die at the young age of fifty.

What’s it like for a black woman growing up in Thuringia, living in Berlin or experiencing Donald Trump's election first-hand in the USA? Olivia Wenzel’s “autofictional” debut portrays such a woman, who enlists humour and reflection to come to grips with her grief, her personal relationships and her identity.

Conversations that cross-fertilise ideas are rare; just as rare as extremely intelligent people. So it’s a stroke of luck when both rarities come together and we’re able to follow the speakers as they ideate, as this new collection of dialogues by Alexander Kluge and Joseph Vogl demonstrates.

A class outing, a road trip with a wolf, a spaceship in front of the Reichstag, a magical empire on an industrial wasteland, a model’s testimony. Our selection of newly published books for young people explores these and much more.

Ronya Othmann's debut novel is a special kind of history lesson: a sensitive and heart-wrenching story that introduces us to the Yazidis, to the war-torn world of the author’s grandparents in Syria.

Stimulating, poetic and insightful, audiobooks can really help ensure that the next few months aren’t remembered as the “winter of our discontent”. You might even find ideas for Christmas gifts in our selection.

Some recent children’s books take readers to magical worlds of adventure. In another, an unexpected inheritance changes lives. And because children should be able to talk about climate change, we present a suitable book on the topic.

There’s no shortage of unhappy people in unfortunate situations in Anke Stelling’s stories. But while Claudia, Franziska, Simone and Carina rail against their circumstances, Hannes, Heiner, Markus and Varut tend not to let themselves be hampered in their self-fulfilment.

A she-wolf has an unusual career goal, a little dog is left behind in a hotel and a mouse takes a journey through time. These and many more stories can be discovered in newly published picture books.

Cemile Sahin’s second novel is about Turkish society, which is influenced enormously by the military, spying and police brutality. In nine episodes, she describes what pervasive experiences of violence do to people.

Gerald Knaus initiated the 2016 refugee deal between the EU and Turkey, which is now said to have failed. The Austrian sociologist and migration researcher’s latest book is another attempt to make the case for a realistic and yet humane border regime

Most office routines have come to a standstill during the coronavirus pandemic. For anyone who misses them, there are two comic books that draw a rather tragicomic picture of office life. Another comic is like the Internet but “without all the nonsense”.