I'm a child of the 80s. Growing up in West Berlin, when Allied soldiers patrolled the streets, had a huge impact on my view of the world. There was this underlying feeling of uneasiness. I was well aware that Russian soldiers with tanks and nuclear weapons were waiting on the other side of the wall. Fascinating, terrifying times indeed. To convey this atmosphere to my readers is my foremost drive to write stories set within the framework of the cold war. Cheers and nastrovje!
What interested me most about this topic is the underlying continuity of the old Prussian attitude of mind within the framework of East German socialism. A gruesome mixture indeed. But see for yourself.
The American citizen Adam Hedman followed his ideals and went to the land of his ancestors, which is behind the Iron Curtain in the German East. As all his hope is lost and he only wants to see justice for his family, a coworker vanishes, and he gets blackmailed into looking for her. Unwillingly he starts a hunt for the man who took her. A dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the socialist secret services unfolds, where it is impossible to emerge as a victor. Or is it?
Mortality. White Noise is not so much a novel. To me, it's more of a wildly amusing collection of clever observations about life. The book's protagonist is a professor of Hitler studies, something he invented. And that's not the last thing he invents. He's invented a patchwork family of absurd proportions. In fact, he invents so much that he doesn't know what to believe. And there we are at the center of this novel: what can we believe in when we don't even know if death is finite or if there is life after death. The absurdity of mortality as we ride through American academia. If you sometimes wonder if it's all real or just a simulation, this book is for you.
The National Book Award-winning classic from the author of Underworld and Libra-an "eerie, brilliant, and touching" (New York Times) family drama about mass culture and the numbing effects of technology-soon to be a major motion picture starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig
White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultra modern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event," a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent…
White supremacy. Is this genre literature or a witty comment on racism? You can guess the answer. It's both. Grisham puts a lawyer at the center of this story about the murder of a Black girl and her father, who avenges her death. What follows is not just a courtroom drama but the chaos and tragedy of a small town in the American South that is far from having thrown off the shackles of the American slave trade. When I picked up A Time to Kill, I was looking for a suspenseful story, but I got so much more. For example, insight into white privilege. What more could you ask for?
______________________________ THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLER
John Grisham's first and most shocking novel, adapted as a film starring Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey
When Carl Lee Hailey guns down the violent racists who raped his ten-year-old daughter, the people of the small town of Clanton, Mississippi see it as justice done, and call for his acquittal.
But when extremists outside Clanton - including the KKK - hear that a black man has killed two white men, they invade the town, determined to destroy anything and anyone that opposes their sense of justice. A national media circus descends on Clanton.
Glasnost. Honestly, I was expecting to pick Gorky Park for this list. The first installment of the Arkady Renko series made a significant impression on me as a teenager, as I was completely immersed in the gritty life in the Soviet Union. But then I found Polar Star in my library and remembered what I loved about this story. It is as tightly woven as the weirs of the net spun by the fishing boat where the murder investigator Renko now has to work. It's set on a fishing boat that mimics Russian society. And even during the liberalization of the late eighties, it becomes clear: the Soviet Union is the Soviet Union is the Soviet Union.
Don't miss the latest book in the Arkady Renko series, THE SIBERIAN DILEMMA by Martin Cruz Smith, 'the master of the international thriller' (New York Times) - available to order now!
AN ARKADY RENKO NOVEL: #2
'One of those writers that anyone who is serious about their craft views with respect bordering on awe' Val McDermid
'Makes tension rise through the page like a shark's fin' Independent
*** Arkady Renko, former Chief Investigator of the Moscow Town Prosecutor's Office, made too many enemies and lost the favour of his party. After a self-imposed exile in Siberia, Renko toils on the…
Self-abandonment. Haud oan a second. Ah wanted tae see Jean-Claude smash up this arrogant fucker.
You don't understand a word? Don't worry; you'll get the hang of it. Scotland is far from the rest of the world, as you can tell by the language. But in a way, this book is about what's happening in the world. It's about how to get lost and not find yourself again in the world. Just like Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo a decade earlier. It is a series of short stories that show the lives of people who follow no career path, who have no specific plot in mind for themselves, and end up with only random snippets of life, decay, and death—glimpses into the sad lives of people who get a fix when everything no longer makes sense. The stories are sometimes hard to take, but Welsh's writing style makes them worthwhile.
'An unremitting powerhouse of a novel that marks the arrival of a major new talent. Trainspotting is a loosely knotted string of jagged, dislocated tales that lay bare the hearts of darkness of the junkies, wide-boys and psychos who ride in the down escalator of opportunity in the nation's capital. Loud with laughter in the dark, this novel is the real McCoy. If you haven't heard of Irvine Welsh before-don't worry, you will' The Herald
Nihilism. Welcome to the world of Bret Easton Ellis, where nothing is as it seems. In the end, the protagonist has to ask himself if he really is a murderer or just a bored yuppie with too much imagination, so it would help if you didn't take this story too literally. I read it as a satire of the materialistic extravagance of the late 80s in its focal point of Manhattan. This book feels like a preview of what social media has brought us. Insecurities are brutal. Where individualism is becoming more sophisticated, no one achieves individuality anymore. No matter what I do, am I really seen for who I am? Or am I at all?
Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse to share. And while the animals may not have Frankie’s exalted human brain, they know things she doesn’t, like what happened before she was adopted.
To prove she’s sane, Frankie investigates her forgotten past and conducts clandestine experiments. But just when she uncovers the truth, she has to make an…
Frankie Conner, first-year graduate student at UC Berkeley, is finally getting her life together. After multiple failures and several false starts, she's found her calling: become a neuroscientist, discover the cause of her depression and anxiety, and hopefully find a cure for herself and everyone like her.
But her first day of the program, Frankie meets a mysterious group of talking animals who claim to have an urgent message for her. The problem is, they're not willing to share it. Not yet. Not until she's ready.
While Frankie's new friends may not have her highly evolved, state-of-the-art, exalted human brain,…
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