reading group

Der Reisende / The Passenger: a Novel, Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, trans. by Philip Boehm

Lori Straus — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 20:16:30 +0000

Der Reisende / The Passenger: a Novel, Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, trans. by Philip Boehm Lori Straus Fri, 10/01/2021 - 16:16

From the book's back cover:

Hailed as a remarkable literary discovery, a lost novel of heart-stopping intensity and harrowing absurdity about flight and persecution in 1930s Germany

Berlin, November 1938. Jewish shops have been ransacked and looted, synagogues destroyed. As storm troopers pound on his door, Otto Silbermann, a respected businessman who fought for Germany in the Great War, is forced to sneak out the back of his own home. Turned away from establishments he had long patronized, and fearful of being exposed as a Jew despite his Aryan looks, he boards a train.

And then another. And another . . . until his flight becomes a frantic odyssey across Germany, as he searches first for information, then for help, and finally for escape. His travels bring him face-to-face with waiters and conductors, officials and fellow outcasts, seductive women and vicious thieves, a few of whom disapprove of the regime while the rest embrace it wholeheartedly.

Clinging to his existence as it was just days before, Silbermann refuses to believe what is happening even as he is beset by opportunists, betrayed by associates, and bereft of family, friends, and fortune. As his world collapses around him, he is forced to concede that his nightmare is all too real.

Twenty-three-year-old Ulrich Boschwitz wrote The Passenger at breakneck speed in 1938, fresh in the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, and his prose flies at the same pace. Taut, immediate, infused with acerbic Kafkaesque humor, The Passenger is an indelible portrait of a man and a society careening out of control.

This book appeared in English as The Man Who Took Trains in 1939 and met with mediocre success. The author drowned when his ship was torpedoed a few years later, a revised copy of the manuscript with him. The Passenger is a new translation based on the original manuscript found in German archives. This is only the beginning of the full story. Please check out these links to learn more:

To get a copy of the book, try here:
German: Kobo, Amazon, Kindle, Onleihe (free, register via the Goethe-Institut), Bookdepository
English: Amazon, Kindle, Indigo, Kobo

Registration & COVID

***Updated November 1***

The group will meet virtually over Zoom. The link will be sent out a few days before the meeting.

Please RSVP via email to Lori Straus by November 1.

WCGS Reading Group: A Complicated Kindness/Ein komplizierter Akt der Liebe, by Miriam Toews, translation by Christiane Buchner

Lori Straus — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 18:53:28 +0000

WCGS Reading Group: A Complicated Kindness/Ein komplizierter Akt der Liebe, by Miriam Toews, translation by Christiane Buchner Lori Straus Mon, 07/19/2021 - 14:53

Canada is the guest of honour at the 2021 Frankfurt Book Fair. In that spirit, the ��ݮ��Ƶ Centre for German Studies has chosen a Canadian author in German translation and is offering this meeting on a Sunday to make it more convenient for fellow readers from Germany to join us. We'll be reading A Complicated Kindness/Ein komplizierter Akt der Liebe, by Miriam Toews, translation by Christiane Buchner.

What's the Book About?

Sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel longs to hang out with Lou Reed and Marianne Faithfull in New York City’s East Village. Instead she’s trapped in East Village, Manitoba, a small town whose population is Mennonite: “the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager.” East Village is a town with no train and no bar whose job prospects consist of slaughtering chickens at the Happy Family Farms abattoir or churning butter for tourists at the pioneer village. Ministered with an iron fist by Nomi’s uncle Hans, a.k.a. The Mouth of Darkness, East Village is a town that’s tall on rules and short on fun: no dancing, drinking, rock ’n’ roll, recreational sex, swimming, make-up, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities or staying up past nine o’clock.

As the novel begins, Nomi struggles to cope with the back-to-back departures three years earlier of Tash, her beautiful and mouthy sister, and Trudie, her warm and spirited mother. She lives with her father, Ray, a sweet yet hapless schoolteacher whose love is unconditional but whose parenting skills amount to benign neglect. Father and daughter deal with their losses in very different ways. Ray, a committed elder of the church, seeks to create an artificial sense of order by reorganizing the city dump late at night. Nomi, on the other hand, favours chaos as she tries to blunt her pain through “drugs and imagination.” Together they live in a limbo of unanswered questions.

Nomi’s first person narrative shifts effortlessly between the present and the past. Within the present, Nomi goes through the motions of finishing high school while flagrantly rebelling against Mennonite tradition. She hangs out on Suicide Hill, hooks up with a boy named Travis, goes on the Pill, wanders around town, skips class and cranks Led Zeppelin. But the past is never far from her mind as she remembers happy times with her mother and sister — as well as the painful events that led them to flee town. Throughout, in a voice both defiant and vulnerable, she offers hilarious and heartbreaking reflections on life, death, family, faith and love.

Eventually Nomi’s grief — and a growing sense of hypocrisy — cause her to spiral ever downward to a climax that seems at once startling and inevitable. But even when one more loss is heaped on her piles of losses, Nomi maintains hope and finds the imagination and willingness to envision what lies beyond.

[...] Miriam Toews’s third novel has earned both critical acclaim and a long and steady position on our national bestseller lists. In the Globe and Mail, author Bill Richardson writes the following: “There is so much that’s accomplished and fine. The momentum of the narrative, the quality of the storytelling, the startling images, the brilliant rendering of a time and place, the observant, cataloguing eye of the writer, her great grace. But if I had to name Miriam Toews’s crowning achievement, it would be the creation of Nomi Nickel, who deserves to take her place beside Daisy Goodwill Flett, Pi Patel and Hagar Shipley as a brilliantly realized character for whom the reader comes to care, okay, comes to love.”

From the Amazon.ca listing

More Details About the Book

A Complicated Kindness won the Governor General's Award and was a finalist for a Giller Prize. Here are a few reviews:

Details About the Meeting

The WCGS German Reading Group will meet virtually using Zoom. The software is free. Conversations will be held in English or German, whatever language participants are comfortable using, so knowledge of German is not required.

Email Lori Straus, the group coordinator, by August 15th if you'd like to join us. To facilitate online discussion, the group will be capped at 12.

WCGS Reading Group: Töchter / Daughters by Lucy Fricke, translation by Sinéad Crowe

Lori Straus — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 17:51:29 +0000

WCGS Reading Group: Töchter / Daughters by Lucy Fricke, translation by Sinéad Crowe Lori Straus Fri, 03/26/2021 - 13:51

The WCGS German Reading Group has selected Töchter / Daughters by Lucy Fricke, translation by Sinéad Crowe as its next read.

What's the Book About?

Lucy Fricke's Daughters tells the story of two women either side of forty on a road trip across Europe, each of them dealing with difficult fathers along the way. A bestseller and booksellers' favourite in Germany, Daughters evokes laughter and tears by way of life and death, friendship and family.

Lucy Frickes Töchter erzählt die Geschichte von zwei Frauen um die vierzig, die sich auf einem Roadtrip durch Europa mit ihren jeweils ganz unterschiedlichschwierigen Vätern auseinandersetzen. Töchter bringt uns zum Lachen und zum Weinen — über das Leben und den Tod, über Freundschaft und Familie. Im deutschsprachigen Raum avancierte der Roman zum Buchhandelsliebling und Bestseller.

More Details About the Book

Töchter won the Bavarian Book Prize in 2018 and was chosen as a Book of the Month by the Goethe-Institut for March of this year. These links have more information:

https://www.writing.ie/readers/daughters-by-lucy-fricke/ (Describes the original as "This was German literature that was very funny indeed.")
https://nbmagazine.co.uk/daughters-interview-with-author-lucy-fricke-and-translator-sinead-crowe/
https://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/lucy-fricke/toechter.html (in German)

Details About the Meeting

Because of the pandemic, the WCGS German Reading Group will meet virtually using Microsoft Teams. The software is free. Conversations are held in whatever language participants are comfortable using, so knowledge of German is not required.

Email Lori Straus, the group coordinator, by May 18th if you'd like to join us.

Fall 2019 Reading Group

Misty Matthews-Roper — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 17:15:03 +0000

Fall 2019 Reading Group Misty Matthews-Roper Tue, 10/01/2019 - 13:15

This fall, we’ll be reading

Benedict Wells: Vom Ende der Einsamkeit / The End of Loneliness, trans. Charlotte Collins

If you want to learn more about the book here are some articles from the Guardian and Süddeutsche:

As always if you need a copy of the book try these vendors:

German: Amazon (possibly 3^rd party), Kindle, Kobo, Bookdepository.com
English: Amazon, Kindle, Indigo, Kobo

Meeting Details

Date & Time: Thursday, November 21, 7:00pm
Location: Please send Lori suggestions. The only requisite is that it be centrally located.
RSVP: Please send Lori an email by November 7^th if you plan on coming.

Summer 2019 Reading Group -Heike Geißler's Saisonarbeit

Misty Matthews-Roper — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 14:51:58 +0000

Summer 2019 Reading Group -Heike Geißler's Saisonarbeit Misty Matthews-Roper Mon, 06/10/2019 - 10:51

This summer, we’ll be reading

Heike Geißler: Saisonarbeit / Seasonal Associate, trans. Katy Derbyshire

Here are some reviews about the book:

https://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/heike-geissler/saisonarbeit.html

https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/seasonal-associate-is-a-labor-memoir-for-the-amazon-era

As always if you need a copy here are some places to check out:

German: Kobo, Amazon, Kindle

English: Amazon, Kindle, Indigo

Meeting Details

Date & Time: Monday, July 15, 7-9PM

Location: Please send Lori Straus any suggestions. The only requisitethat it be centrally located.

RSVP: Please confirm with the WCGS Reading Group Coordinator, Loris Straus, by July 5^th that you’re coming.

Fall 2018 WCGS Reading Group

Misty Matthews-Roper — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 16:09:21 +0000

Fall 2018 WCGS Reading Group Misty Matthews-Roper Wed, 10/17/2018 - 12:09

Choose Your Own German Book! - Thursday, November 29 7-9pm

Another 'choose your own adventure' Reading Group! Instead of the Centre stipulating the book, we're leaving it up to you! So, read whatever German-related book you'd like, be it written by a German/Swiss/Austria author in whatever language you can easily read, or a novel that really interests you that's been translated into German, and bring it along to the meeting.

We'll do a "go-around" and introduce our books and share what we thought about them, and then we'll see where the conversation goes from there.

Finding German-Language Books

If you're up to reading something in German, you have a few options:

The Kitchener Public Library has some German books you can borrow.
Many titles are also available on Kobo (Chapters) and Kindle (Amazon).
The UW Book Store may have a few in stock.
The Goethe-Institut has an e-book lending service called Onleihe. You must subscribe to participate, and the process takes about one business day.
www.bookdepository.com (but order now, because these usually come in from the UK)

Meeting Details

Date & Time: Thursday, November 29 @ 7-9PM
Location: TBD Please send Lori Straus, Reading Group Coordinator, some suggestions.
RSVP: Please email Lori by Friday, November 9 if you plan to come.

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Reading Group Fall 2017: Winnetou, by Karl May

Lori Straus — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 13:17:17 +0000

Reading Group Fall 2017: Winnetou, by Karl May Lori Straus Tue, 10/03/2017 - 09:17

We're going back to the Wild West, German style, with Karl May's Winnetou I (1893) and the Brubacher House.

We'll begin the evening with a short tour of the historic, Mennonite home and then sit down for our book discussion in its stone-walled basement, next to a cozy fire.

Because the book is no longer subject to copyright protection, you can download English and German digital copies for free. Hard copies are easy to come by at major online bookstores if you prefer to have a book in your hand.

Please RSVP by November 15 to confirm your spot. However, don't wait too long - RSVPs are accepted on a first come, first served basis, and spaces are limited. Free parking is available on the lot beside the home, or across the street at OpenText.

If you can't make it to this meeting but wish to stay informed about upcoming ones, sign up to our reading-group-only email list. You'll be able to offer input into upcoming titles and meeting dates and be among the first to hear about the finalized details.

For any questions, please contact the Centre. We hope to see you out!

Reading Group: Book Swap & Reading Discussion

Lori Straus — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 14:49:58 +0000

Reading Group: Book Swap & Reading Discussion Lori Straus Mon, 06/12/2017 - 10:49

Choose Your Own German Book!

This semester, instead of the Centre stipulating the book, we're leaving it up to you! So, read whatever German-related book you'd like, be it written by a German/Swiss/Austria author in whatever language you can easily read, or a novel that really interests you that's been translated into German, and bring it along to the meeting.

We'll do a "go-around" and introduce our books and share what we thought about them, and then we'll see where the conversation goes from there.

And More Books

We're incorporating a book swap with this meeting, so please feel free to bring along any other German books you think others might like to read and which you'd like to give away. (Whatever doesn't get chosen, though, has to go back home with you.)

Finding German-Language Books

If you're up to reading something in German, you have a few options:

The Kitchener Public Library has some German books you can borrow.
Many titles are also available on Kobo (Chapters) and Kindle (Amazon).
The UW Book Store may have a few in stock.
The Goethe-Institut has an e-book lending service called Onleihe. You must subscribe to participate, and the process takes about one business day.

Registration

To keep the evening on track and the discussion focused, participation is limited to 10 people. So please register by emailing us your name and confirming that you can attend. (And please email us if you aren't able to make it, so we can make room for someone else.)

Reading Group: Daniel Kehlmann's "Die Vermessung der Welt"/"Measuring the World"

Lori Straus — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 14:09:07 +0000

Reading Group: Daniel Kehlmann's "Die Vermessung der Welt"/"Measuring the World" Lori Straus Thu, 03/23/2017 - 10:09

The ��ݮ��Ƶ Centre for German Studies is once again offering a reading group. This term, we'll be reading Daniel Kehlmann's Die Vermessung der Welt/Measuring the World. Knowledge of German isn't necessary - English copies of the book are available - and we speak whatever language the participants wish to converse in.

Please note, all available spots are taken for this evening. If you'd like to be on a dedicated list for the reading group, you can sign up here. This list is separate from our general mailing list, so you'll only get updates about the reading group.

Book Summary

Measuring the World marks the debut of a glorious new talent on the international scene. Young Austrian writer Daniel Kehlmann’s brilliant comic novel revolves around the meeting of two colossal geniuses of the Enlightenment.
Late in the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the aristocratic naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, negotiates jungles, voyages down the Orinoco River, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores and measures every cave and hill he comes across. The other, the reclusive and barely socialized mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, can prove that space is curved without leaving his home. Terrifyingly famous and wildly eccentric, these two polar opposites finally meet in Berlin in 1828, and are immediately embroiled in the turmoil of the post-Napolean world.

Reading Group for Christopher Kloeble's "Almost Everything Very Fast"

Lori Straus — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 17:22:32 +0000

Reading Group for Christopher Kloeble's "Almost Everything Very Fast" Lori Straus Mon, 09/19/2016 - 13:22

Join us for a reading group and then meet the author afterwards! Almost Everything Very Fast is German award-winning author Christopher Kloeble's 3rd book and his North American debut. (His 4th book, Die Unsterbliche Familie Salz, just came out in August.)

The book is in English, so knowledge of German isn't necessary. We'll chat about the book over supper and then walk over to the reading. Afterwards, Christopher will answer yours and audience members' questions and sign books.

Read on for more details!

Synopsis of Almost Everything Very Fast

A charming and suspenseful novel with a dark secret at its heart, set in an insular Bavarian village

Albert is nineteen, grew up in an orphanage, and never knew his mother. All his life Albert had to be a father to his father: Fred is a child trapped in the body of an old man. He spends his time reading encyclopedias, waves at green cars, and is known as the hero of a tragic bus accident. Albert senses that Fred, who has just been given five months left to live, is the only one who can help him learn more about his background.

With time working against them, Albert and Fred set out on an adventurous voyage of discovery that leads them via the underground sewers into the distant past—all the way back to a night in August 1912, and to the story of a forbidden love.

Almost Everything Very Fast, Christopher Kloeble's 3rd novel and North American debut, is a sensitive and dramatic family saga and page-turning road novel all in one.

What To Do

First, email us to register for the group.

If you're 1 of the first 5 to join, you'll receive a copy of Christopher's book for free!

If you don't get a chance to win one of the free five books, the English translation is easily available through Amazon.ca, chapters.ca, and WordsWorth Books (��ݮ��Ƶ).

The group will then meet at 5:30 to discuss the book over a quick supper. We'll talk about our impressions of the book, what we thought about the plot, the characters, the language...basically wherever the discussion leads.

At 6:30/6:45, we'll walk over to the KPL for Christopher's reading. There'll be a Q&A session with him after he's finished reading, and you can even get your copy signed if you'd like. Christopher is appearing as a guest of the Goethe-Institut in Toronto.

Supper details: The Three Kretans in downtown Kitchener, but away from LRT construction, at 5:30 p.m. (The Centre can't pay for the meal, but prices range from $13-$20 for most dishes.)