The literature blog “Cherrypicker” presents selected novels and non-fiction, graphic novels and stories, audio books and literature for children and teenagers. And it gathers concise voices from the world of literature. Every week a new recommendation, every week the chance to discover remarkable texts, images and opinions.
Melancholic, comic, humorous: In “Ready America”, Anna Haifisch portrays a land of contrasts. Billboards meet lonely dogs, palm trees encounter comic figures. A picture book full of references and original juxtapositions.
How much can a friendship endure when society threatens to tear it apart, when the inequalities seem more important than everything we have experienced together? A novel that gets under your skin with its probing questions.
Five German fairy tales And they lived happily ever after
Once upon a time – there was an ancient text form that can be found in all cultures. These fantastic stories were so important that they were even recognised as intangible cultural heritage in Germany in 2016. About five German fairy tales that still live on our bookshelves today.
Cherrypicker | Literature Is the truth worth five million?
In Ursula Poznanski's new thriller, 100 people fight against a lie detector and for five million euros in prize money. The condition: Always tell the truth.
mauritius images / Brigitte Deus-Neumann
Cherrypicker | Literature Invitation to take a deep breath
Taking a break from life and exploring it anew - Stephan Schäfer's novel does just that. He tells the story of two strangers who become friends. In doing so, he speaks not only to himself, but to us all.
A hot summer day. Four young people are sitting in the vineyards, somewhat bored. Suddenly, one of them has a life-changing idea. Saša Stanišić turned it into an entire collection of stories.
Cherrypicker | Literature The ossification of the East
After German reunification, many people believed that East German society would soon become more like West German society. For Steffen Mau, one thing is clear: that was an illusion - East Germany will remain different.
German Book Prize 2024 Martina Hefter wins the German Book Prize
There was a festive atmosphere in the Kaisersaal of Frankfurt's Römer when the six finalists were presented. The tension grew until it was finally announced that Martina Hefter would receive the German Book Prize 2024.
Interview with Teresa Ciuffoletti The whole world is one village
Teresa Ciuffoletti has translated works by Judith Hermann, Dörte Hansen and Fatma Aydemir into Italian. In this interview, she explains why she doesn't use translation tools, what North Friesland and Tuscany have in common and which book she would like to translate one day.
Frankfurt Book Fair 2024 Defying the reports of losses
Less is not more here: a profound structural change in the publishing sector is becoming apparent ahead of the 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair. Some outstanding new publications also deal with the current crises in society.
Cherrypicker | Literature On searching and finding family roots
With her debut novel, Mirrianne Mahn realises her desire to write a story about strong women in Cameroon and Germany. The result is a work of art of immense power that reaches back to the German colonial era in Cameroon.
A book that explains the climate crisis in pictures, without a lot of text and a jumble of figures? Together with journalist Christian Endt and graphic designer Ole Häntzschel, activist Luisa Neubauer has achieved just that. They present facts about the climate crisis in 80 information graphics - presented in an easy-to-understand manner.
In her third book, nominated for the German Book Prize 2024, Maren Kames eloquently guides her audience into the proverbial “rabbit hole” of her mind and tells her family story along the way.
Cherrypicker | Literature Three dead bodies in Hanover
Rita Aitzinger's very first appearance: detective inspector – in Hanover of all places. She swears, loves motorsport and has to solve a series of murders of young men. Jakob Nolte, theatre and novelist, presents his first crime thriller: funny, sad, full of allusions.
The shortlist for this year's German Book Prize is out! It has now been decided which six authors can hope to win the prestigious and lucrative prize with their latest novels.
Cherrypicker | Literature Sleepless through the night
Theresia Enzensberger lies awake all night involuntarily. So she reflects on the unique physical phenomenon called sleep, which leaves us vulnerable and weak – and without which we are incapable of any performance.
Cherrypicker | Literature On the road in the Ruhr area
Ingo Schulze spent six months exploring the Ruhr area. Not only did he discover many new things there, but also some things that connect this part of the West with the East.
New graphic novels demonstrate the diversity of the genre. Anke Feuchtenberger's magnum opus was honoured as literature, Sandra Rummler looks back on East Berlin and the post-reunification period. And the two Swiss authors Nando von Arb and Tobias Aeschbacher were awarded for works that could not be more different.
Cherrypicker | Literature On a foray through the suburbs
Anne Weber has lived in Paris for decades, but hardly knows the suburbs on her own doorstep. For her new book, she has therefore embarked on an unusual journey of discovery.
"Rural punk" Rocko Schamoni delivers the second part of his autobiography in his familiar anecdotal style, in which he gains a foothold in the Hamburg music scene, tries his hand as a rock star and eventually becomes co-founder of the Pudel Club, a beacon of Hamburg's nightlife.
Cherrypicker | Literature With the manuscript across the Pyrenees
When the Wehrmacht invaded France in May 1940, some of Germany's best-known artists were forced to flee for a second time in exile. The writer and journalist Uwe Wittstock tells the story of their fates in a sensitive and gripping way.
The setting for Friedrich Ani’s latest novel may be Munich, but this is not the Munich of the rich and beautiful. A murder case is also unravelled, though not solved.
Cherrypicker | Literature Forever in the listicles labyrinth
Algorithms, AI, clicks and likes – everyday life in any office. Especially when content is produced endlessly. Elias Hirschl imagines such a content farm. His digital dystopia is so grotesquely funny that you almost overlook the abysses.
In the summer of 1914, four people meet in Berlin who couldn’t be more different but have one thing in common: They cherish liberty and despise colonialism.
Cherrypicker | Literature And the ball rolls forever
The European Football Championship has just kicked off in Germany. Just in time, we present a small, well-rounded selection of football books – including painted goals and literary texts.
In her explosive debut novel, Austrian author Julia Jost describes growing up in 1990s Carinthia, a place caught between its Nazi past and right-wing populist present.
Andreas Stichmann was born in Bonn and has seen plenty of water flow down the Rhine. His stories tell of people who live by the river, exploring their desires and yearnings – and the way they deal with reality.
Cherrypicker | Literature The Everyday Horror Show
Barbi Marković presents a multi-layered episodic novel in which she mixes everyday events with elements of the fantastic. The result: educational horror stories – and the award of the Leipzig Book Fair 2024.
Ilona Hartmann presents an anti-novel for young adults that breaks with the illusion that the years of our youth have to be just wonderful from start to finish. As a counterpoint, the author portrays the mind-numbing mediocrity of the daily lives of three young people who move to the big city.
They first they met on his talk show, then regularly at Vienna’s Hotel Imperial: Dirk Stermann, cult cabaret artist, and Erika Freemann, psychoanalyst. At the age of twelve, Freeman had fled from the Nazis to New York. Now she speaks with Stermann about her life in a way that is ever witty, touching, and quite entertaining.
Cherrypicker | Literature Light with many, many shadows
In Daniel Kehlmann’s latest novel, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, one of the most famous directors of the Weimar Republic, sells his soul to the Nazis, albeit with comical contortions.
Jasmin Schreiber’s third novel takes us on a road trip set against a backdrop of loss, species extinction and political reprisals in the year 2041. Not to mention plenty of flora and fauna.
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.
Cherrypicker | Literature Kant is by no means rigid!
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.
Cherrypicker | Literature Does AI dream of electric books?
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.
Cherrypicker | Literature Goethe gets writer’s block
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.
Cherrypicker | Literature Kafka’s Failed Money-Making Scheme
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.
Cherrypicker | Literature For which there are no words
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.
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.
Cherrypicker | Literature Get in the listening habit
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cherrypicker Travelling Europe One Railway at a Time
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.
