Gratuitous Iconoclasm

I'm all for a spot of classics-bashing, so my gratitude goes out to Isa for pointing out a magnificent piece in the ZEIT, in which writers under the random age of 35 bitch about German and American classics. Hemingway's way too sweaty for Paul Brodowsky, Brecht wrote too many darn poems for Nora Bossong, Thomas Klupp just doesn't get Döblin. And more.

With plenty of gratuitous exclamation marks!

Bargain Bucket ZEIT Classics

Looking to top up your supply of German classics on a tight budget? DIE ZEIT has just launched a new edition of twenty favourites as chosen by its readers, for a total price of €119.95.

Here are the titles, each with a special afterword by a ZEIT editor, should you value that kind of thing:

Sophie von La Roche:	Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim
Johann Wolfgang Goethe:	Die Leiden des jungen Werther
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing:	Nathan der Weise
Friedrich Schiller:	Die Räuber
Johann Wolfgang Goethe:	Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil
Heinrich von Kleist:	Michael Kohlhaas
Jakob und Wilhelm Grimm:	Ausgewählte Kinder- und Hausmärchen
Joseph von Eichendorff:	Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts
Annette von Droste Hülshoff:	Die Judenbuche
Heinrich Heine:	Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen
Wilhelm Busch:	Ausgewählte Werke
Friedrich Nietzsche:	Also sprach Zarathustra
Theodor Storm:	Der Schimmelreiter
Theodor Fontane:	Effi Briest
Thomas Mann:	Buddenbrooks
Rainer Maria Rilke:	Gedichte
Franz Kafka:	Der Proceß
Heinrich Mann:	Der Untertan
Max Frisch:	Homo faber
Günter Grass:	Die Blechtrommel

I must admit I'm tempted, tempted, very very tempted - even by the rather attractive cover design. If only they'd deliver a time machine along with them so I could get some work done once they arrived.