#GermanLitMonth 2025 Reading List
- November isn’t far away, and you all know what that means
- …German Literature Month is just around the corner!
- …reading German, Austrian, or Swiss books.
- Hosting: BeautyIsASleepingCat.com
- Co-host: Tony’sReadingList
- Hashtag: #GermanLitMonth
- One special feature for this year’s event is a
- ….Thomas Mann week to celebrate his 150th birthday.
- November 1st-9th: Genre Week (free choice)
- November 10th-16th: City – German city, or an author from a particular city
- November 17th-23rd – Thomas Mann week
- November 24th- 30th – (author from…) GDR Week
My List: (…reviews on blog in November)
- The Wall (1963) SciFi dystopia – Marlen Haushofer – READ
- Death in Venice (1911) novella – Thomas Mann – READ
- Michael Kohlhass (1810) novella – Heinrich von Kleist – READ
- Demian (1919) novel – Hermann Hesse – READ
- The Chess Story (1942) novella – Stefan Zweig – READ
- The Collini Case (2011) novel – F. Von Schirach – READ
- QualityLand (2017) SciFi – Marc-Uwe Kling – REVIEW
- Siddhartha (1922) novel – Hermann Hesse
- Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) novel – Hermann Hesse
- Dr. Faustus (1947) novel – Thomas Mann
- Hesse (2018) biography – Gunnar Decker
- The Trial (1925) SciFi dystopia – F. Kaka
- The Director (2023) historical fiction – Daniel Kehlmann – REVIEW
- The Glass Bead Game (1943) SciFi, utopia – Hermann Hesse – READ
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NancyElin.blog 
Please move No.16 up to No.1 The Wall is one of my all time favourite reads. Love that sculpture! Good luck with your November reads.
Will move The Wall to top 3! What are your reading plans for November?
No set plans but contemplating a couple of Booker shortlisters, Flashlight by Susan Choi and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, another Foundry Editions book #WIT and maybe a Lalla Romano, since I’ve read all my Natalya Ginzburg & Alba de Céspedes, so was looking for more Italian women authors like them.
Thanks so much for the reading suggestions! I’ve only read 1 Ginzburg and NO de Céspedes…so I have a lot to catching up to do! I’ll investigate Choi and Desai! Just started “The Wall”…it sounds like a great weekend read!
I’m envious of you encountering The Wall for the first time. Another author that’s been resurrected, like the Italians, but not mainstream Anglo that normally gets pushed.
I found you blogpost dd 16 Aug…and will have a deeper look at the authors you highlighted.
Oh I really enjoyed going back and rereading that post, Alba de Céspedes is definitely one of my favourite authors and you have the opportunity to begin with her debut. I’m not sure why Pushkin published them in a different order, maybe they thought Forbidden Notebook would have a more universal appeal. They’re all excellent and hopefully more still to come.
:)
Your list is great — I’m familiar with only around half the authors, and mainly from college classes years ago. I need to return to German literature.
I really have to research for some great German writers with the exemption of the top: Zweig, Hesse, and Mann. F. van Schirach is an amazing new writer!
I love seeing all these fun theme months/weeks. I’m adding The Wall to my TBR list based on the comments in your comments ;)
Monthly themes works really well for me. I prepare a reading list (…10-15 books) and see how far I get! No reading time lost “scrolling” for my next book. Still trying to decide what to read in December! Thanks so much for you comment…I have to get back to my reading now (The Wall) + a cup of coffee!
Thanks for mentioning GLM.
It’s a great list. I‘ve actually read quite a lot of them. The Wall is outstanding.
Still reading “The Wall”….tonight. The concept of solitude is very interesting…..but I hate when one of her animals dies. :(
I know. That was dreadful.
Struggling to get a few comments about The Wall on paper. It had an impact on me from many sides: writing style – dystopian dread of inevitable death…just so much to unpack. Animals? So hard to read, I had to skim when cats die (…as unabashed cat lover).
I read it as a teenager so the details are blurry but I remember being upset about dead animals.
No clue what happened to my comment. Half of it went missing.
I‘ve not read A Woman in the Polar Night but always meant to. I hope it’s good should you read it. The Reader is a favorite and I also liked Von Schirach‘s Books. The Collini Case has been made into a movie.
Enjoy your books.
Caroline, the comments….appear after I manually upload them to the blog. Looking forward to all the books…but must confess I’ve started reading already. Stephen Zweig’s book “Chess Story” was amazing. I must read more of his writing.
I know but half of it just disappeared and I couldn’t add anything. It was weird.
Zweig is a very reliable author. You can’t go wrong with any of his books.
Sorry about the SNAFU WordPress…I’m always
looking forward to your comments about German Lit. Not many people I follow ever read German authors! They don’t know what they are missing.
Oh thank you. I agree, they miss out.
Well, thanks for the list. Based on that and the comments, I’ve reserved The Wall.
I’ll be posting my review around 08 November for #GermanLitMonth25. The book had strong and some weak points. Thanks for your comment.
I remember reading The Glass Bead Game when I was in high school. I’ve always wanted to reread it.
I would like to read Dr. Faustus, too.
Good luck with the challenge.
Deb Nance… so many great books by German authors…I should read them every month, not only during #GermanLitMonth in November! Thanks for your comment…Glass Bead is a long book…I’m saving it for the end of the challenge.
I read Demian and Siddhartha in high school. Otherwise, your list is completely new to me. Enjoy your immersion in German literature. Happy reading!
Thank you for your comment!
Good luck with your reading list!
Thanks so much!
Only read two of your list, and enjoyed a lot #2, as a teen.
I read another Faust, Goethe’s
So many great books by German authors….! I’ve been reading many for French writers the past 10 years…now I have to catch up with the Germans! Death in Venice…I agree, was amazing.
Yasssss The Wall!!!! One of my favorite books of all time!!! The movie is equally as good. I saw the movie in the theater and I own the DVD and the book.
It was an unnerving read…really! Can you imagine trying to survive after an apoclolyptic disaster and you were isolated? The strong point of the book is that it makes the reader (me) uncomfortable, lets the reader squirm.The situation demanded that the woman break, but she did not. She built something out of nothing and carried the weight of caring or her animals.
Another great list Nancy!
And I am now adding The Wall to my wishlist – Vintage Classics have just rereleased it. And I have the Ritter on order at work.
I’d like to read one of the Mann’s on my TBR for his anniversary, but November is Persuasion month as well and I can only read so many books at once!
Good luck.
Thanks for your comment…in November there is so little time to read SO many books!
German reading is going well…I have som great books lined up that are not on the reading list…so stay tuned!
This morning while having my coffee.. I’m creating a reading list for #SciFiMonth2025. My sign-up post is ready for the blog next week. I’m going to concentrate on some classic SciFi writers,,,,and one current author: Adrian Tchaikovsky. (Children of Time (#1 in the series) His books score 4.0+ and I’m curious what they are like. Is Tchaikovsky on the bookstores’s SciFi shelf? Curious is AT has reached Australia! Do Scifi books sell well in the shoppe?
Sci-fi isn’t a big seller for us, though fantasy is. However Adrian Tchaikovsky and Brandon Sanderson are the two go-to’s in this area. Liu Cixin was also big for a while but his books seem to have petered out now. We occasionally get asked for something by Kim Stanley Robinson but his more recent books seem to have disappointed readers.
Thanks for the update….and BTW I just finished a book by Kim S. Robinson and I agree with your customers….it was awful. Review follows in November!
General opinion is he should have stopped writing about a decade ago!
General opinion is he should have stopped writing a decade ago!
Time to read more “new, younger” Scifi/climate/dystopia writers! If you notice any trends the purchase of these books…or any trends in the book shop world….I’d love to see a post on your blog about it! It is so fine that you have the opportunity to tell us what people are reading in your part of the world!! :)