The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 1774
    

The Silent Angel


Heinrich Böll - 1992
    an occasion for renewing our appreciation for Boll's genius" — Booklist"Terrifically on target with its series of tragic, ascetically drawn tableaux. a great document." — Kirkus

The Passport


Herta Müller - 1986
    Stories from the past are woven together with the problems Windisch, the village miller, faces after he applies for permission to migrate to West Germany. Herta Müller (Herta Mueller) describes with poetic attention the dreams and superstitions, conflicts and oppression of a forgotten region, the Banat, in the Danube Plain. In sparse, poetic language, Muller captures the forlorn plight of a trapped people.

Open Door Marriage


Naleighna Kai - 2014
    A chance encounter lands NBA star Dallas Avery back in the arms of the woman of his dreams. A woman he hasn't seen in years. A woman he soon discovers just so happens to be his fiancée's aunt! But Dallas' fiancee, Tori, isn't ready to give up all that she's worked for, so she makes him a shocking offer - go through with the wedding and she'll still allow him to be with the one woman he now can't seem to do without. Dallas will get a family, something her much older aunt, Alicia can't give him. Tori will get the lifestyle she clamors. And Alicia will get the love she's longed for all her life. Everyone will get a little of what they want ... and maybe a whole lot of what they don't. Be careful what you ask for... The details of the trio's love life play out in the tabloids and on talk shows, making Dallas the center of an NBA scandal. And eventually, the doors slam shut on this open marriage and Dallas is forced to make a choice to end the chaos. But moving on is easier than it looks and by the time all is said and done, secrets will be revealed, passions will be extinguished, and everyone's lives will be forever changed.

Patterns of Childhood


Christa Wolf - 1976
    This novel is a testament of what seemed at the time a fairly ordinary childhood, in the bosom of a normal Nazi family in Landsberg.Returning to her native town in East Germany forty years later, accompanied by her inquisitive and sometimes demanding daughter, Christa Wolf attempts to recapture her past and to clarify memories of growing up in Nazi Germany

Stories of Five Decades


Hermann Hesse - 1954
    Francis of Assisi (1919)Inside and Outside (1920)Tragic (1923)Dream Journeys (1927)Harry, the Steppenwolf (1928)An Evening with Dr. Faust (1929)Edmund (1934)The Interrupted Class (1948)

Bláznova moudrost aneb Smrt a slavné zmrtvýchvstání Jeana Jacquesa Rousseaua ('Tis Folly to be Wise, or Death and Transfiguration of Jean Jacques Rousseau)


Lion Feuchtwanger - 1952
    

The Marquise of O— and Other Stories


Heinrich von Kleist - 1808
    It is this loss of faith, together with his vulnerability and disequilibrium, his pronounced sense of evil, his desperate challenge to established values and beliefs, that carries Kleist more forcefully than Goethe or Schiller across the gap between the eighteenth century and today.

The Eternal Philistine


Ödön von Horváth - 1930
    Adrift in their acquisitive desires, they are vulnerable to the propaganda of the State — making this novel brilliantly foresightful in its understanding of politics and human nature at a crucial point in modern history.Ödön von Horváth’s scathing insight, in fact, led to his having to flee the very society he depicted when, living in Berlin, he drew the wrath of the Nazis. And yet this hilarious tour-de-force — written just after his escape, and just before his death in a tragic accident — eschews bitterness for rambunctious perseverance and compassion, and provides ample evidence of why von Horváth deserves renewed appreciation.

Nobodaddy's Children: Scenes from the Life of a Faun, Brand's Heath, Dark Mirrors


Arno Schmidt - 1963
    Scenes from the Life of a Faun recounts the dreary life of a government worker who escapes the banality of war by researching the exploits of a deserter from the Napoleonic Wars nicknamed The Faun. Brand's Heath deals with the chaos of the immediate postwar period as a writer joins a small community of "survivors" to try to forge a new life. Dark Mirrors is set in a future where civilization has been virtually destroyed; the narrator fears he may be the last man on earth, until the discovery of another creates new fears.All three novels are characterized by Schmidt's unique combination of sharply observed details, sarcastic asides, and wide erudition.

Unordnung und frühes Leid und andere Erzählungen


Thomas Mann - 1925
    Mann, German essayist, cultural critic, and novelist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. Among Mann's most famous works are Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain. His novels usually explore the relationship between the exceptional individual and his or her environment, the environment of family, or of the world in general. Early Sorrow is among his later writings and are tales about parental love.

Stealing the Future: An East German Spy Story


Max Hertzberg - 2015
    After forty years of communist rule it's time for change in the GDR.Direct democracy, citizen's movements and de-centralization are changing the political landscape.But when a politician's crushed body is found a constitutional crisis erupts.Former dissident, Martin Grobe, is caught up in an investigation that points towards the KGB, the Stasi and the West Germans—but is it really the start of a putsch against the new GDR, or just a murder?

The Nibelungenlied


Unknown
    Siegfried, a great prince of the Netherlands, wins the hand of the beautiful princess Kriemhild of Burgundy, by aiding her brother Gunther in his struggle to seduce a powerful Icelandic Queen. But the two women quarrel, and Siegfried is ultimately destroyed by those he trusts the most. Comparable in scope to the Iliad, this skilfully crafted work combines the fragments of half-forgotten myths to create one of the greatest epic poems - the principal version of the heroic legends used by Richard Wagner, in The Ring.

Enterprise Stardust


Karl-Herbert Scheer - 1961
    Major Perry Rhodan, commander of the spaceship "Stardust", found more than anyone had expected might exist on the moon - for he became the first man to make contact with another sentient race! The Arkonides had come from a distant star, and they possessed a knowledge of science and philosophy that dwarfed mankind's knowledge. But these enormously powerful alien beings refused to cooperate with the people of Earth - unless Perry Rhodan could pass the most difficult test any human being had ever faced..."Enterprise Stardust" is the first novel in the Perry Rhodan series which sold more than 70 million copies in Europe and America.

The Sudden Weight of Snow


Laisha Rosnau - 2002
    Seventeen-year-old Sylvia (Harper) Kostak is caught between her mother’s regrets and the strictures of small-town life in the interior of British Columbia. When Harper meets Gabe, an intense and enigmatic young man living on the ’60s-style arts commune outside of town, she is transfixed. Gradually we learn Gabe’s story and what led him to join his estranged mother on the commune, where, in a bid for freedom, Harper eventually finds herself, setting in motion a series of events leading to tragedy. Resonant with longing and a sense of isolation, the novel brings alive the agonies and ecstasies of growing up, sexual discovery, and how the need to belong can shape both decisions and destinies.Author Biography: Laisha Rosnau was born in Pointe Claire, Quebec, and grew up in Vernon, British Columbia. She has worked as a child-care worker, a landscaper, a waitress, a fruit picker, an interpretive guide, a journalist, and an editor. She received a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where she was the Executive Editor of PRISM international. Her poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals and anthologies in Canada, the United States, and Australia. The Sudden Weight of Snow is her first novel. Laisha Rosnau lives in Vancouver, where she is at work on a collection of poetry and on her second novel.