A language learners’ forum

Hi everyone,

Would anyone be interested in reading something in German together? I started reading Tintenherz last night and came across the thread started way back start of last year. I'm about 150 pages in so I doubt it'll take me long to finish that if anyone is interested in starting a different novel/series?

If you've got ideas for which book(s) you think would be good for a range of German reading capabilities, please leave them below and I'll list them here for everyone to choose.



BOOK SUGGESTIONS

Steinernes Fleisch by Cornelia Funke
Momo or Die unendliche Geschicte by Michael Ende;
Die Rückkehr der Kriegerin by Suzanne Pavlovic
Frostfeuer by Kai Meyer
Der Junge im gestreiften Pyjama by John Boyne
Die Zwerge by Markus Heitz
Der Richter und sein Henker by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
EDIT - added 8 book titles

I am theoretically interested but historically bad at going on with these things. I started the read-along you mentioned and yet have still not finished Tintenherz

As for suggestions of books, I'll go with the things I can remember that are on my shelves: Another book by Cornelia Funke, Steinernes Fleisch; Momo or Die unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende; Die Rückkehr der Kriegerin by Suzanne Pavlovic or Frostfeuer by Kai Meyer.

I know I have a number of other German books, including Walter Moers, Brecht, Giulia Enders and Magda Trott, and also a fair few translated books, but they might not be suitable for a group read.

I’m in, providing I can get the book. I would suggest something YA. I think at that level, most can join in and young adult novels can be fun.

Elenia wrote:As for suggestions of books, I'll go with the things I can remember that are on my shelves: Another book by Cornelia Funke, Steinernes Fleisch; Momo or Die unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende; Die Rückkehr der Kriegerin by Suzanne Pavlovic or Frostfeuer by Kai Meyer.
.

Would be great to have you on board! I'll list the books you mentioned on my first post and if a few more people are interested, we can decide together which one we all want to read.

I read through the Tintenherz thread and I guess one chapter a week (depending on chapter length) is the best way to do a read-along.

Brun Ugle wrote:I’m in, providing I can get the book. I would suggest something YA. I think at that level, most can join in and young adult novels can be fun.

Excellent! The more the merrier

If you have any suggestions for books, let me know and I'll add them to the list. YA is probably the best genre to accommodate different language levels. I'm planning to do my C2 exam sometime in the new year so I'm reading anything and everything just to get tons of input.

I am around a somewhat rusty B1 level so am not the most confident or able reader in german, and similar to Elenia, I do not have a good track record with sticking to a plan. All that being said, I’m very interested! I wanted to suggest the same thing not too long ago when I was at my peak seriousness with german but never got around to it.
A chapter a week sounds like a good pace that I feel I could keep, assuming the book is interesting enough though not too interesting so I’m not tempted to read ahead.
A young adult fiction novel sounds perfect. I don’t have any suggestions I can think of but I’m not too fussed as to what it is anyway.

What everyone else said - I'm sometimes very bad at sticking to a plan (and sometimes very good at it). YA is perfect, and who knows, maybe I can get the book at the library. So, if you decide on a title, I'll see if I'll join or not.

I'm in. Die Zwerge by Markus Heitz is on my reading list but maybe it's too long (600+ pages) for this kind of project.

I enjoyed the previous German reading group with Tintenherz but felt like maybe we didn't make the most of it. As readers fell behind, we went silent and there wasn't a lot of incentive to keep up. Is there anything we could do to improve it in this reading group? Discussions and speculation after each chapter might be overkill but whenever a GoT episode finished, I rushed online to see people speculate about every small clue. The risk of spoilers also made sure that I tried to watch each episode as soon possible.

jeff_lindqvist wrote:What everyone else said - I'm sometimes very bad at sticking to a plan (and sometimes very good at it). YA is perfect, and who knows, maybe I can get the book at the library. So, if you decide on a title, I'll see if I'll join or not.

I've added some titles to the opening post. I think I'll leave it until next week to allow people some time to decide which book is best. Hope you can join in!

Stefan wrote:I'm in. Die Zwerge by Markus Heitz is on my reading list but maybe it's too long (600+ pages) for this kind of project.

I enjoyed the previous German reading group with Tintenherz but felt like maybe we didn't make the most of it. As readers fell behind, we went silent and there wasn't a lot of incentive to keep up. Is there anything we could do to improve it in this reading group? Discussions and speculation after each chapter might be overkill but whenever a GoT episode finished, I rushed online to see people speculate about every small clue. The risk of spoilers also made sure that I tried to watch each episode as soon possible.

Glad to have you on board! I'll add your book suggestion to the list although you may be right; 600+ pages might put some people off (although Tintenherz is not far off 600 pages).

I think the best way forward is to have a strict deadline for finishing a chapter. So maybe it runs Monday-Sunday then we can discuss the chapter we've read from the following Monday?