The Love German Books Seasonal Gift List for 2013

Long nights drawing in, etc. etc. You need to buy presents for people. You have an evangelical streak and a passion for German books. I am here to help you. Here's my annual list of books translated from German to English this year, for you to give to your friends and relatives. You know they've been looking forward to it all year. See also the lists from 2012 and 2011. I can vouch for all these books because I've either read them at some point or heard very good things about them.

For Scotsmen: Naw Much of a Talker by Pedro Lenz (trans. Donal McLaughlin)

For organized people: Tretjak by Max Landorff (trans. Baida Dar)

For men who like talking about women: On the Edge by Markus Werner (trans. Robert E. Goodwin)

For women who like talking about men: The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke (trans. Jamie Bulloch)

For travel fans: The Village Indian by Abbas Khider (trans. Donal McLaughlin)

For China fans: The King of China by Tilman Rammstedt (trans. Katy Derbyshire)

For Persia fans: Death in Persia by Annemarie Schwarzenbach (trans. Lucy Renner-Jones)

For L.A. fans: City of Angels by Christa Wolf (trans. Damion Searls)

For Greenland fans: Anatomy of a Night by Anna Kim (trans. Bradley Schmidt)

For poetry-prose fans: Mirage by Thomas Lehr (trans. Mike Mitchell)

For spider fans: The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf (trans. Susan Bernofsky)

For chess fans: A Chess Story by Stefan Zweig (trans. Alexander Starritt)

For doggy fans: Puppy Love by Frauke Scheunemann (trans. Shelley Frisch)

For Walser fans: Her Not All Her by Elfriede Jelinek (trans. Damion Searls)

For Franzen fans: The Kraus Project by Jonathan Franzen (trans. Jonathan Franzen)

For graphic novel fans: Love Looks Away by Line Hoven (don't know who translated it)

For translation fans: Portrait of a Tongue by Yoko Tawada (trans. Chantal Wright)

For happy mothers: In Times of Fading Light by Eugen Ruge (trans. Anthea Bell)

For unhappy mothers: Wrecked by Charlotte Roche (trans. Tim Mohr)

For siblings: Back to Back by Julia Franck (trans. Anthea Bell)

For utopianists: Plan D by Simon Urban (trans. Katy Derbyshire)

For cynics: Apostoloff by Sibylle Lewitscharoff (trans. Katy Derbyshire)