But our main character is a city boy. University professor Antos loses his faithful friend, the beagle Argus. At the same time, his wife decides that their marriage has exhausted itself. Looking for a hobby to occupy his mind, Anton agrees to help his friend and decipher the text of mysterious notebooks found in an attic in one of the villages near the Abyss - the swamp near which the main...

Eine Halbinsel im nordfriesischen Wattenmeer. Hier, an der Nordsee, lebt Annett, Ende vierzig, seit vielen Jahren, hier hat sie nach dem frühen Tod ihres Mannes ihre Tochter Linn allein großgezogen. Linn, Mitte zwanzig, ist nach dem Abitur voller Energie in die Welt gezogen, hat sich in schwedischen und rumänischen Wäldern als Umweltvolontärin engagiert, arbeitet für ein Aufforstungsprojekt....

„Das Mädchen hatte schon immer gewusst, dass etwas mit ihm nicht stimmte.’ Cordelia, unehelich geboren, ist eine „Dreivierteljüdin’, ihre Mutter eine berühmte Schriftstellerin und glühende Katholikin. Im entscheidenden Moment schützt diese nicht ihre Tochter, sondern rettet sich selbst. Mit 14 Jahren wird Cordelia Edvardson nach Auschwitz deportiert. Ihr Roman ist die schmerzhafte Annäherung an...

Dieser Klassiker im neuen Gewand ist ein Schatz für alle, die auf der Suche nach pointierten, praktischen Lebensweisheiten sind. Er versammelt Kästners schönste und klügste Aphorismen, von denen viele längst zu geflügelten Worten geworden sind. Es ist geradezu verblüffend, wie viele bekannte Zitate sich hier auf engstem Raum tummeln - eine gute Gelegenheit, Kästner kennenzulernen oder ihn in...

Violets Traum, Schriftgelehrte am renommierten Basgiath War College zu werden, zerplatzt jäh, da sie als Tochter der Generalin am Auswahlverfahren der Drachenreiter teilnehmen muss. Das erste Jahr wird nicht einmal die Hälfte aller Bewerber überleben, denn Drachen binden keine schwachen Menschen, sie fackeln sie nieder. Die meisten Kadetten wollen Violet allein aufgrund ihrer Herkunft...

Lazar Lindt, a brilliant scientist and a big child, ‘a lawless comet in a circle of calculating luminaries’, is the center of the infernal personal stories of three extraordinary women. The childless Marusya, the wife of his older friend, will fall in love with a funny young man who appeared on the threshold of her house in 1918, not at all filial love, but it will remain his secret. After the...

The protagonists of Andris Kurprišs’s debut collection are at times melancholy and worrisome, and world-angry or absurdist at others. Kuprišs plays with tension, a building up to climaxes reminiscent of Henry James—but with endings that leave a lingering sense of having missed some important detail, some sinister clue that will reveal all meaning. Deceptively simple, nostalgic, and resigned,...

Samson Kolechko and his colleague have been dispatched to investigate the illegal sale of meat. How selling cuts of one’s own livestock qualifies as a crime eludes the young investigator, but an order is an order, and, at the insistence of the secret police officer assigned to ‘reinforce’ the Lybid police station, Samson vows to do his very best. But just as Samson is beginning to dig into the...

If you love touching stories that fill with meaning and shed light on the events of our lives, then the book by the Japanese author Genki Kawamura will not leave you indifferent. The main character's mother has Alzheimer's disease, and the woman forgets even her own son. Taking care of his mother, Izumi learns about her secret past and the life that her mother lived without him. This timeless...

This unforgettable tale as told through Edward's eyes takes on a new and decidedly dark twist. Meeting Bella is both the most unnerving and intriguing event he has experienced in all his years as a vampire. As we learn more fascinating details about Edward's past and the complexity of his inner thoughts, we understand why this is the defining struggle of his life. How can he justify following...

Left alone for the weekend while her husband and two children are visiting her in-laws, the narrator of KILLING STELLA recounts the addition of her friend’s daughter, Stella, into their already tense and tumultuous household. Staring out the window at her garden, she worries about the baby bird in the linden tree, about her husband, Richard, who flits from one adulterous affair to another,...

The novel tells the tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz. Curiosity turns to compassion and an inner transformation, as he visits their shelter, interviews them, and becomes embroiled in their harrowing fates. Go, Went, Gone is...