This is my actual “To-be-reviewed” list – which means that I will very probably publish a write-up of these books on my blog within the next months. But don’t be surprised when I add reviews of books that are not on this list. The list is just giving you an idea what you can expect (among others) in the near future on this site.
Tawfik al-Hakim: Diary of a Country Prosecutor
Jim al-Khalili: The House of Wisdom
Fabio Antoldi / Daniele Cerrato / Donatella Depperu: Export Consortia in Developing Countries
Abhijit Banerjee / Esther Duflo: Poor Economics
Joseph Brodsky: On Grief and Reason
Christopher Clark: The Sleepwalkers
Beqe Cufaj: projekt@party
Mahmoud Darwish: Memory of Forgetfulness
Oei Hong Djien: Art & Collecting Art
Anton Donchev: Time of Parting
Michael R. Dove: The Banana Tree at the Gate
Patrick Leigh Fermor: Mani
David Fromkin: A Peace to End All Peace
Amitav Ghosh: In an Antique Land
Georgi Gospodinov: Estestven Roman
Richard Hamilton: The Last Storytellers
Ludwig Harig: Die Hortensien der Frau von Roselius
Albert Hofmann / Ernst Jünger: LSD
Hans Henny Jahnn: Fluss ohne Ufer (River without Banks)
Ismail Kadare: The Siege
Douglas Kammen and Katharine McGregor (Editors): The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia: 1965-1968
Orhan Kemal: The Prisoners
Theodor Kramer: Poems
Sean McMeekin: The Berlin-Baghdad Express
Wilhelm Raabe: Die schwarze Galeere
Deborah Rohan: The Olive Grove
Anthony Shadid: House of Stones
Tahir Shah: In Arabian Nights
Raja Shehadeh: A Rift in Time
Werner Sonne: Staatsräson?
© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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Hi, Thomas,
A fascinating list of books, none of which I’ve heard of! Besides feeling a bit embarrassed, I feel the need to bemoan the fact that more “books in translation” are not published in the U.S. Sometimes I get lucky and can get UK books in translation from the Book Depository. I’ll look forward to your reading explorations!
Judith
Hi Judith,
thanks for the kind words. I had to laugh a bit – there is no need to feel embarrassed, my taste is a bit special and I am always curious to discover interesting books that are not so well-known.
You do have a point regarding translations. I wish much more books would be translated. A lot of problems in the world could be resolved if we only knew much more of each other. Maybe we are all a bit afraid of “the Other”, but only as long as we don’t know it.
I’ll be glad when my blog can make a small contribution to discover new books and make people curious about the unknown. It can be quite rewarding to start such a journey, either in real life or in your armchair with a good book.
Gosh, I sound very philosophical today, haha.
Thomas,
I am in complete agreement with you. I happen to teach Children’s Literature to future teachers, and I insist on bringing to them as many works in translation as I can. Hiroshima No Pika for one, and The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco, which is about the Holocaust, and so on.
Enjoying your blog,
Judith
Sorry!
The Butterfly by Polacco is not the title I meant to cite.
We read Hans Peter Richter’s novel Friedrich, and my students are wild for it and enjoy heated debates on it. I especially choose this title because Richter was born in the same year as his nameless narrator and lived through the events he portrays. It’s a wonderful books for young college students. I dread the day that Richter’s and other writers who lived through the period of Germany from 1933-1945 see their books go out of print. There’s nothing like teaching a novel based on the life of someone who lived through the events.
Judith (Please don’t feel obliged to reply. I’m just babbling.)
You have a terrific job, Judith! It’s so important to encourage children to read. When you don’t learn about the fascination of books at a young age, chances are small that you will ever become a real reader. So I wish you excellent students – and them a big success in their later profession.
I have to admit that I know Richter only by name and so far haven’t read anything by him. He was born the same year as my father, so it might be interesting to give it a try. One of my favorite novels written by a survivor of that time is Kaiserhofstrasse 12 by Valentin Senger. There was an English translation published in 1980, but it seems it is out of print. Maybe you can find it at ZVAB or Abebooks. It’s based on the life story of the author, born in Frankfurt from a Jewish family who survived against all odds (and even served as a Wehrmacht soldier).