Wednesday 19 August 2009

German Book Prize Longlist

Is this the most exciting day of the year or what? Apart from 16 September when they announce the shortlist and 12 October when they announce the winner, perhaps.

The longlist is out:

Sibylle Berg: Der Mann schläft (Hanser, August 2009)

• Mirko Bonné: Wie wir verschwinden (Schöffling & Co., February 2009)

• Thomas Glavinic: Das Leben der Wünsche (Hanser, August 2009)

• Wolf Haas: Der Brenner und der liebe Gott (Hoffmann und Campe, August 2009)

• Ernst-Wilhelm Händler: Welt aus Glas (Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, September 2009)

• Anna-Katharina Hahn: Kürzere Tage (Suhrkamp, March 2009)

• Reinhard Jirgl: Die Stille (Hanser, March 2009)

• Brigitte Kronauer: Zwei schwarze Jäger (Klett-Cotta, August 2009)

• Rainer Merkel: Lichtjahre entfernt (S. Fischer, March 2009)

• Terézia Mora: Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent (Luchterhand, August 2009)

• Herta Müller: Atemschaukel (Hanser, August 2009)

• Angelika Overath: Flughafenfische (Luchterhand, May 2009)

• Norbert Scheuer: Überm Rauschen (C. H. Beck, June 2009)

• Kathrin Schmidt: Du stirbst nicht (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, February 2009)

• Clemens J. Setz: Die Frequenzen (Residenz, February 2009)

• Peter Stamm: Sieben Jahre (S. Fischer, August 2009)

• Thomas Stangl: Was kommt (Droschl, January 2009)

• Stephan Thome: Grenzgang (Suhrkamp, August 2009)

• David Wagner: Vier Äpfel (Rowohlt, September 2009)

• Norbert Zähringer: Einer von vielen (Rowohlt, July 2009)

I haven't read a single one of them, apart from an extract from Terézia Mora. But this year you can download extracts from all twenty novels via Libreka (as of tomorrow), as well as tracking down the print version at a few participating bookstores. Hooray for progress - there will no repeat performance of last year's exploits for me.

I'll report back with my impressions toot sweet.

11 comments:

Harvey Morrell said...

Now if only I could get any of them for the Kindle (or any eBook format), I'd be a happy lad.

kjd said...

I quote:

Auszüge aus den nominierten Romanen stehen ab 20. August auf www.libreka.de kostenlos zum Download bereit. Sie können auf einen Computer oder E-Book-Reader herunter geladen und dort gelesen werden.

Harvey Morrell said...

You deserve a big hug for pointing that out that link. I owe you big time!

Harvey Morrell said...

Just to let you know, the downloaded excerpts worked like a charm. Vive Calibre, Libreka u. kjd!

david said...

kjd - Will you review the other Julia Franck books you recently read?

kjd said...

I suppose I could, couldn't I? It would only be Lagerfeuer though, as Die Mittagsfrau is just too long ago.

David said...

Does Lagerfeuer measure up to Mittagsfrau?

kjd said...

It's completely different, David. Almost impossible to compare, in fact, aside from the mother-daughter theme that runs through a lot of her writing.

Karl-Marx-Straße said...

You can get the printed extracts in any bookshop even vaguely worth its salt. Its not as if they cost more than a few pence to buy.

kjd said...

Hi KMS,

Last year I spent a whole morning chasing after the booklet in six different bookshops. And none of them had it. So this year I went for the easy option. But I'm not all that happy with it to be honest; the extracts are unwieldy and you don't get the charming introductions. Next year I'll try again and hope the booklet thing has caught on, as you say.

Karl-Marx-Straße said...

I'm back in town at the beginning of next week - I'm sure our printed copies will have arrived and some will still be left... I hope they are anyway, as I intend to have one myself. If you need one, get in touch via my (very dormant) blog...