German Books On TV

If, unlike me, you have a working television set right now and can pick up German channels, you could tune in to the latest effort to bring literature to the small screen on ZDF tonight.

Blatantly cashing in on Schlink's bestseller, the show is called "Die Vorleser" and features a new team: sexy but arrogant Ijoma Mangold from Die Zeit - touted as "young" and "wild" but looking good in a well-cut suit nevertheless - and Amelie Fried, an experienced presenter and writer who I don't actually know, but who looks very mumsy and should therefore appeal to the book-buying Brigitte-reading demographic.

ZDF had to rethink its literature programming after kicking out Elke Heidenreich for being rude about the channel. She now does her show on the lovely litcolony website.

The programme pledges to inject some debate into the "books on TV" format, and it seems the two presenters do get into a bit of banter over books on the show. Which is a slightly less authoritarian approach than the "presenter holds book up to camera and orders viewers to read it" scheme adopted in the past. It remains to be seen whether Ijoma and Amelie will become Germany's Richard and Judy though...

The Rise and Rise of Elke Heidenreich

I've written about La Heidenreich before, the "most influential woman in German culture". Just when her star seemed to be waning - she got the sack from her TV show and the click rating or whatever it's called for the internet version was pretty unimpressive - she's back in the headlines again. Heidenreich has launched the first season of her own imprint, pithily named Edition Elke Heidenreich, combining literature and music in four Heidenreich-esque publications. They look like beautifully made books: two non-fiction titles, a Tuscany novel by Günther Freitag and a re-release of Franz Werfel's Roman der Oper from 1923 (published in English as Verdi. A Novel of the Opera).

Watch out for advertising spreads in Brigitte, the women's magazine that shifts more books than any other publication, and the more masculine mustachio'd press.

Throw Away Your Telly!*

German book lovers! Make like the Stones and throw your telly out the window! For Germany's answer to Richard 'n' Judy, Elke Heidenreich, is now doing her show Lesen! on the internet.

I have to admit I'd never watched it while it was on telly. Tucked away on ZDF late at night once every two months, it wasn't exactly ever at the forefront of my mind. But now I've seen it on the web and it's utterly charming. There she is, all auntified and bespectacled, sitting in a pub with snow driving past the windows behind her. And she's funny. And she clearly loves books in a very unpretentious way. And... she invited the very attractive ex-punk Campino on the show, who raves about William Goldman's The Princess Bride. And who seems to be Heidenreich's nephew.

La Heidenreich, once crowned the most influential German-speaking woman, got chucked off the telly for being rude about all the other programmes after Marcel Reich-Ranicki got the ball rolling by refusing his TV award. "It's an embarrassment to be working for a channel like this at all. Why not just chuck me out right now, I'm fed up with fighting anyway," she wrote in the FAZ. So they did. And now she's gone and done the coolest thing and moved onto the rather excellent website litColony (lots and lots of other good stuff to explore here, by the way), which seems to be part of Cologne's literary festival litCologne. Which, judging by the website, is pretty dang good too. If only Cologne wasn't so incredibly far away from Berlin...

*Actually, don't. Because you'd miss Denis Scheck in Druckfrisch.

The Most Influential German-Speaking Woman...

...according to Cicero magazine, is the literary critic and writer Elke Heidenreich. The magazine apparently evaluated women according to their mentions in the "most important" German-language newspapers and magazines since 1998, plus internet hits and archive inclusions. Heidenreich presents a very influential TV literary magazine called Lesen! (don't you just love that commanding tone?) and has had an incredibly varied career in the public eye.

She is followed in the top ten by the feminist Alice Schwarzer, Nobel literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek, the writer and director Doris Dörrie, the writers Christa Wolf and Cornelia Funke, university boss and possible presidential candidate Gesine Schwan, the literary critic Iris Radisch, Bishop Margot Käßmann and Jutta Limbach, the former head of the Goethe Institut.

Note that Angela Merkel doesn't seem to be included. I'd have thought she actually has more influence over life in Germany than Cornelia Funke. It seems they're actually talking about women who influence German-language culture - and there are plenty of heavyweights in that department. But if you look at the top women, you can make out that we're more influential in literature (creating and critiquing it) than in any other field of culture. After all, we've been at it long enough and we can do it from home while bouncing babies on our knees - not like film or theatre or music.

So hooray for German-speaking women. Long may they influence us!