German Literature Month took up most of my reading time this month, with a pronounced leaning towards crime fiction:
- Julia Franck: West (transl. Anthea Bell)
- Friedrich Durrenmatt: Der Verdacht (Suspicion)
- Alexander Lernet-Holenia: I Was Jack Mortimer (transl. Ignat Avsey)
- Jutta Profijt: Morgue Drawer Four (transl. Erick Macki)
- Jakob Arjouni: Ein Mann, ein Mord (One Man, One Murder)
- Stefan Zweig: Meisternovellen
Of course, there were some other crime books which caught my eye:
- David Lagercrantz: Fall of Man in Wilmslow (transl. George Goulding)
- Nicci French: Friday on My Mind
- Helen Fitzgerald : Viral (to be reviewed on CFL)
- Gregoire Carbasse: L’Helvete Underground
- Jari Järvelä: The Girl and the Bomb
- Mary Kubica: Pretty Baby
- SJ Watson: Second Life
11 out of 13 so far have been crime/psychological thriller type novels, but I did also read some other ‘genres’, namely:
- Stanislaw Lam: Solaris (transl. Bill Johnston) – science-fiction
- Kim Thuy: Ru – Quebecois-Vietnamese poetic literature about immigration
- Finally, this childhood favourite off my son’s bookshelves: Jules Verne’s Voyage to the Centre of the Earth, which I read for the first time in French.
So, a lot of reading, far less reviewing, a mix of languages and 6 out of 16 books by women authors (I’m surprised, I expected it to a higher proportion). I travelled to Canada, Berlin, Bern, Vienna, Frankfurt and an ocean liner on the Atlantic; London, Chicago, Wilmslow, Magaluf, Geneva and Kotka in Finland; finally, Vietnam, space and the centre of the earth. What more could one ask for?
For December, I am still on track to blast a corridor through my virtual mounds, a special effort to clear the cobwebs off my Netgalley shelf in particular.
My Crime Fiction Pick of the Month is Jakob Arjouni. My favourite overall read: Julia Franck (sorry, Stefan Zweig, but you were a re-read anyway).
findingtimetowrite 
Such a wonderfully eclectic, cosmopolitan mix!
I’m very impressed, Marina Sofia! You’ve got such a variety here, and you’ve read quite a lot of books, too. Well done!
Hi, on the crime front did you ever try Joel Dicker?
I read his Harry Quebert affair and was not all that impressed, I have to admit. It was OK but not outstanding.
I much enjoyed it but then again, I took it on audiobook
A very nice selection there – crime fiction really is surprisingly soothing, isn’t it!
I have a copy of Julia Franck’s West, so it’s encouraging to see it listed as your favourite read of the month!
Not a very cheerful read, though, so perhaps one to save for the merriest time of year?
What a great selection. Well done!
A great selection!
It’s always interesting to look back over the month and realise where your own view of your reading may have been wrong – I’m the same about female writers. I always think I read mostly books by women, but am regularly surprised when I then do an actual count!
I did a similar miscalculation a year or two ago, when I thought that I read lots of translated fiction. It turned out it was less than 30%. I think it’s gone up now, but it just goes to show that when publishers and readers talk about diversity, they too may be a little blinkered.
This might seem like a silly question but how do you actually manage to read that many books? Just wondering if you have any secret tricks up your sleeve, haha
Suffering from insomnia is a good start! Having other professional deadlines which you’d rather not think about also helps. And finally, nothing like a little personal stress to make you seek escapism and refuge in fiction!
Haha! Hear, hear
An unreliable commute works well for me in terms of reading a lot 👍