German must-reads

Digitization is changing the German book market. Five trends you should know about.

Libraries can be many things: treasure troves of literature, social centres and resources for a digital society.

Hope as the elixir of life: Jurek Becker's novel about the life of Jews in a ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland is gripping and melancholic, but also full of humor. It's a story of the Holocaust, but also much, more more.

The three Oppermann brothers and their sister lead comfortable, upper-class lives in Berlin. For a long while, they choose to ignore the rising tide of anti-Semitism — until it's too late.

A novel that had the impact of a bomb. World War II and the history of the century from the perspective of a small man — and a reckoning with Germany as it rebuilt itself during the 1950s.

Mascha is planning a career as a UN interpreter. But the sudden death of her boyfriend throws her completely off track. Olga Grjasnowa tells the story of a generation that knows no borders, but has no home either.

He captured the horrors of World War I in his novel, garnering him intense criticism. Did Ernst Jünger glorify the violence, or did he mercilessly describe it?

Nearly a decade after World War II, the ghosts of Germany's past return to haunt the streets of Rome. Wolfgang Koeppen's novel captures the German psyche at that time like no other.

A novel set in a Leipzig red light district filled with prostitution and drugs following the fall of the communist regime, it reveals how the sex trade became a booming industry in the former East Germany.

Mora is an astute observer of the world. Spotlighting the modern-day feelings of being uprooted and adrift, she is particularly fascinated by eccentric and mysterious men who live on the edge of society.

This work can be seen as an elegantly told detective novel, but it is also a portrait of a young woman on a search in the broken city of Berlin during the post-reunification period.

Peter Schneider wrote "The Wall Jumper" in 1982. Looking back, it almost seems prophetic, yet it is also a historical reflection. It also remains a text about German-German sensitivities in a nearly forgotten time.

A narrative biography of the writer's mother's life, 'You Are Not Like Other Mothers' tells the story of a rather unconventional woman in Weimar-era Berlin — and traces the history of the 20th century in a personal way.

A Jewish scholar crisscrosses Europe as he searches for his forgotten past, with the journey taking him to the edge of his limits. The book is considered one of the most important works of post-WWII literature.

Winner of the German Book Prize, translated into many languages: Uwe Tellkamp's monumental work revives a vanished world in Dresden's bourgeoisie during the late GDR period, offering a major novel about society.

Was the GDR really the better Germany? Does standing up for your own political ideals pay off? Christa Wolf has her qualms — and yet she defends the moral advantages of socialist daily life.

Does a legal system become questionable if it claims infallibility? To what extent may the state — with the best of intentions — restrict individual freedom? Juli Zeh's philosophical novella asks quite topical questions.