In the novel “About People”, the protagonist, Dora, relocates from
Berlin to a small village in the former East-German Brandenburg, in search of
a different life. Life is indeed different in this village, and Dora discovers that
her metropolitan views are not as universally accepted as she had thought.

A middle-aged woman abandons her writing career to retrain as a podiatrist in Marzahn, a Berlin suburb known for its formerly modern Communist flats. The novel describes her interactions with co-workers and patients, revealing the hidden stories and personal struggles of the community’s colourful characters.

“Go, Went, Gone” tells the story of a retired German classics professor who becomes involved with a group of African refugees in Berlin and tries to help them. It is a moving and sincere novel that explores the complexities of the asylum crisis in Europe.

In his novel “The House by the Lake”, Thomas Harding visits his grandmother’s holiday house by a lake outside of Berlin and recounts the life events of its various residents. The narrative spans from the sale of the house by a Jewish doctor in the 1930s, through the hardships of the Communist era, to the challenges of the present day.

In Martin Mosebach’s novel “What was Before”, a young woman asks her lover about his life before they met. While the question seems harmless, the answer is anything but. The narrator begins to recount his experiences, including his acquaintance with a wealthy family in the upper echelons of Frankfurt society, and the amorous intrigues that followed.

Jenny Erpenbeck’s novella “Visitation” tells the story of a summerhouse by a lake in Brandenburg and the lives of its various inhabitants. Spanning from the 1930s, when a Jewish family is forced to sell their property, the story unfolds through its subsequent occupants during key periods of 20th century German history including the Second World War, the Communist GDR (DDR) era, and the revolution of 1989. It is a moving and poetic book that explores themes of exile, identity, and the passage of time.

“The Blind Side of the Heart” follows the life of Helen Würsich, a German woman of Jewish descent during the first half of the 20th century. The novel traces her childhood in Bautzen (now in eastern Germany) around 1900, her youth in 1920s Berlin, and her years as a wife and mother during the Nazi regime and the Second World War in Stettin (then Germany, now Poland). The story opens with a dramatic scene in which Helene abandons her son Peter at a chaotic train station in Pasewalk in 1945.

In his autobiography “Not I”, Joachim Fest recalls memories of his childhood in Berlin, beginning with his father’s dismissal from his post as a school headmaster in 1933 for refusing to support the Nazi regime. The book recounts the hardships faced by his family due to their moral convictions, his adolescence under totalitarian rule, and his personal life after the war.

Set in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, “The Book Thief” tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl living with her foster parents in a town near Munich. Amidst the chaos of war – with bombs falling from the sky and the Nazi regime growing ever more brutal – Liesel finds purpose in stealing, reading, and sharing books that have been condemned by the authorities.

The historical novel “Measuring the World” recounts the lives of two German Enlightenment scientists at the beginning of the 19th century: the geographer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. The novel contrasts their different approaches to understanding the world: Humboldt by travelling through South America (the Orinoco region, the Andes, and beyond), exploring forests, mountains, and rivers, meticulously measuring and cataloguing his observations; Gauss by remaining at home in Göttingen, carrying out his geometric calculations. In old age, the two finally meet in Berlin in 1828, but the encounter is far from harmonious.