Lists of the Month

There's the SWR-Bestenliste, for which thirty critics have been selecting ten top-quality reads a month since 1975. And then there's the "Literaturen"-Bestenliste, for which twelve other critics select ten great books a month.

While the SWR critics only have to suggest four titles each every month, those poor Literaturen people have to hand in a top ten of their own every month - which seems like a full-time job to me. The funny thing is though, there aren't that many overlaps. The only books on both lists for November are Bolano's 2666, David Grossman's Isha Borahat Mibesora ("Woman flees tidings", not available in English) - and a single German book, Brigitte Kronauer's wickedly funny Zwei schwarze Jäger.