Jun 23 2024
A hotel, especially a grand one in the center of a major metropolis, can be its own world. Vicki Baum opens up one such world in Menschen im Hotel (lit. “People in a Hotel” but published under the better title of Grand Hotel), telling interlocking stories of people in Berlin’s finest hotel over the course …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/06/23/menschen-im-hotel-by-vicki-baum/
Jun 15 2024
How much fury fits into 142 pages? Monika Maron tells her readers from the very first sentence that Herbert Beerenbaum dies, so a good bit of Stille Zeile Sechs (Silent Close Number Six — “Close” in the sense of a small cul-de-sac street, with six as the house number) is finding out who he his, how …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/06/15/stille-zeile-sechs-by-monika-maron/
Mar 02 2024
With Marzahn Mon Amour Katja Oskamp aims for a double re-evaluation: of her own writing, seemingly derailed after two novels and a story collection are followed by publishers’ rejections of the novellas that followed, and of the district of Marzahn in the northeastern corner of Berlin, far from the city’s hip party places or its …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2024/03/02/marzahn-mon-amour/
Dec 01 2023
and illustrated by Bernd Kissel, subtitled “Du würdest es eh nicht glauben” — You Wouldn’t Believe it Anyway This second volume of the kangaroo comics concludes the hardback publication of the odd couple’s 2020–23 run in Germany’s leading intellectual weekly newspaper. There are some nice touches in the two volumes: the first is dedicated “For …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/12/01/die-kanguru-comics-2-written-by-marc-uwe-kling/
Sep 06 2023
and illustrated by Bernd Kessel One of twenty-first century Germany’s best-known characters is a kangaroo. Talking, obviously, but less obviously a Communist, a fan of Nirvana (“The band?” asks Marc-Uwe Kling, narrator of the stories. “No, the Beyond,” says the kangaroo, and after a pause, “Of course the band! You like to pose unnecessary questions!” …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/06/die-kanguru-comics-written-by-marc-uwe-kling/
Apr 30 2023
The title of Katja Berlin’s book translates as Things for Which Women Have to Justify Themselves, and the cover shows a circle divided into four equal parts. They are labeled “Only children,” “Only career,” “Children and career,” and “No children and no career.” She is the creator of a pointedly humorous set of graphs that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/04/30/wofur-frauen-sich-rechtfertigen-mussen-by-katja-berlin/
Apr 02 2023
The October Man begins with what I have come to think of as a hallmark of Ben Aaronovitch‘s Rivers of London: a death that is in nearly equal measure grisly, fascinating and supernatural. This novella offers “a suspicious death with unusual biological characteristics.” (p. 4) The narrator’s local police liaison adds, a few pages later, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/04/02/the-october-man-by-ben-aaronovitch/
Mar 05 2023
How’s this for introducing the subject of your biography? Wilhelm von Habsburg, the Red Prince, wore the uniform of an Austrian officer, the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke, the simple suit of a Parisian exile, the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and, every so often, a dress. He could handle a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/03/05/the-red-prince-by-timothy-snyder/
Jan 28 2023
Dave Hutchinson, like William Gibson, is an artiste of the slightly funny deal. They run all through Cold Water, and trying to figure out just who is running a caper on whom is one of the pleasures of the novel. Carey Tews, the novel’s main protagonist, is a Texan who’s been in Europe for decades …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/01/28/cold-water-by-dave-hutchinson/
Jun 22 2021
Hey, Doug, I’m reading a novel translated from the German! Ably translated into English by Tess Lewis, who’s done a really good job, in particular, of getting the song lyrics from the 1980s not quite right when the characters are explaining them to one another. What You Can See From Here is an interesting sort …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/06/22/what-you-can-see-from-here-by-mariana-leky/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire