Endpapers is an invaluable gift to literature, mainly but not only for the quotations, details, and beguilingly written scenes of publisher Kurt Wolff’s life scattered throughout
Kai Maristed
Arts Feature: Recommended Books, 2020
An eclectic round-up of the favorite books of the year from our critics.
Book Review: “Kraft” — A Pitch Perfect Satire of Neoliberal Dreamin’
A powerful allegory for our techno-crazed, consumption-addicted, soul-crushing times.
Book Review: “The Turncoat” and “Marrow and Bone” — Two Revealing Looks at World War II
For each of these major, prize-honored writers — Siegfried Lenz and Walter Kempowski– birth = destiny = art.
Book Review: “Tyll” — The Thirty Years War, From a Prankster’s Point of View
Daniel Kehlmann’s narrative gift is so prodigious as to be almost aggravating.
Book Review: “Old Rendering Plant” — Existence on Trial
Hilbig’s prose demands sentence-by sentence commitment. It gravitates to the dark and dense, and occasionally surreal.
Book Review: “To the Back of Beyond” — Extreme Ambiguity
Evidently, plain-spoken language plus doubt and apprehension equate to novels that, once opened, are very hard to put down.
Book Review: “My Marriage” — An Extraordinary Rediscovery
Despite the pain of inhabiting Alexander Herzog’s disintegrating world, I absolutely could not put My Marriage aside.
Book Review: “The Last Weynfeldt” — The Virtues of a Wry, Cosmopolitan Vibe
In this enjoyable novel, Martin Suter has chosen to sidestep depth in favor of colorful characters fine-honing their hopes and dreams..
Book Review: Michel Houellebecq and the Wages of “Submission”
If you’ve recently been mourning the end of the Novel of Ideas—take heart. And dig in, for Submission offers a smorgasbord.