Open Books 2024: Books by a German author, or that take place in Germany

The Open Books Reading Challenge is a year-long reading challenge for people interested in pushing the boundaries of their reading. For full details of the program, please check-out our page at: https://www.rplmn.org/books-more/discover-more/open-books-reading-challenge

This list is to help you find books that fit the 2024 category of "Books by a German author, or that take place in Germany."

Happy Reading!


Updated December 19, 2023
RPL Staff
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Germany in the world : a global history, 1500-2000
Blackbourn, David
Paper Book
With Germany in the World, award-winning historian David Blackbourn radically revises conventional narratives of German history, demonstrating the existence of a distinctly German presence in the world centuries before its unification--and revealing a national identity far more complicated than...
The neverending story
Ende, Michael.
Paper Book
From award-winning author Michael Ende, The Neverending Story is a classic tale of one boy and the book that magically comes to life Unicorns, dragons, sprites, will-o'-the-wisps- the inhabitants of an enchanted world. And into this world - through the pages of an old book...
Every man dies alone
Fallada, Hans
Paper Book
This novel presents a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis and tells the sweeping saga of one working-class couple who decide to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front.
The thief lord
Funke, Cornelia
Paper Book
Aimed at children aged nine to 12 years, this is a magical thriller set among the crumbling canals of Venice.
Ruby red
Gier, Kerstin.
Paper Book
Gwyneth Shepherd's sophisticated, beautiful cousin Charlotte has been prepared her entire life for traveling through time. But unexpectedly, it is Gwyneth who in the middle of class takes a sudden spin to a different era! Gwyneth must now unearth the mystery of why her mother would...
The book jumper
Gla ser, Mechthild
Paper Book
Amy Lennox doesn't know quite what to expect when she and her mother pick up and leave Germany for Scotland, heading to her mother's childhood home of Lennox House on the island of Stormsay. Amy's grandmother, Lady Mairead, insists that Amy must read while she resides at Lennox House...
Dear child
Hausmann, Romy
Paper Book
NOW A #1 NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES AND #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER "[A] tantalizingly disturbing debut...As enthralling as it is thought-provoking." -New York Times Book Review BookPage's Top 10 Mystery & Suspense of the Year Chicago Public...
The shortest history of Germany
Hawes, J. M.
Paper Book
The glass bead game (Magister Ludi)
Hesse, Hermann
Paper Book
In the remote Kingdom of Castalia, the scholars of the Twenty Third century play the Glass Bead Game. The elaborately coded game is a fusion of all human knowledge - of maths, music, philosophy, science, and art. Intrigued as a school boy, Joseph Knecht becomes consumed with mastering the game as an...
All for nothing
Kempowski, Walter
Paper Book
A wealthy family tries--and fails--to seal themselves off from the chaos of post-World War II life surrounding them in this stunning novel by one of Germany's most important post-war writers. In East Prussia, January 1945, the German forces are in retreat and the Red Army is...
When Hitler stole pink rabbit
Kerr, Judith
Paper Book
This semi-autobiographical classic, written by the beloved Judith Kerr, tells the story of a Jewish family escaping Germany in the days before the Second World War.This beautiful new edition celebrates the fifty year anniversary of an adventure that Michael Morpurgo called "The most life-enhancing...
The storyteller
Michaelis, Antonia.
Paper Book
Anna and Abel couldn't be more different. They are both seventeen and in their last year of school, but while Anna lives in a nice old town house and comes from a well-to-do family, Abel, the school drug dealer, lives in a big, prisonlike tower block at the edge of town. Anna is afraid of him...
Snow White must die
Neuhaus, Nele.
Paper Book
Snow White Must Dieby Nele Neuhaus is a tremendous new contemporary mystery series and huge international bestseller--with more than 3.5 million copies in print! On a rainy November day police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic...
The hangman's daughter
Pötzsch, Oliver.
Paper Book
Taking us back in history to a place where autopsies were blasphemous, coffee was an exotic drink, dried toads were the recommended remedy for the plague, and the devil was as real as anything, New York Times bestselling author Oliver Pötzsch's The Hangman's Daughter is the rollicking start to an...
To die in spring
Rothmann, Ralf
Paper Book
Walter Urban and Friedich 'Fiete' Caroli work side by side as hands on a dairy farm in northern Germany. By 1945, it seems the War's worst atrocities are over. When they are forced to 'volunteer' for the SS, they find themselves embroiled in a conflict which is drawing to a desperate, bloody close....
28 days : a novel of resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto
Safier, David
Paper Book
Inspired by true events, David Safier's 28 Days: A Novel of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto is a harrowing historical YA that chronicles the brutality of the Holocaust. Warsaw, 1942. Sixteen-year old Mira smuggles food into the Ghetto to keep herself and her...
The art of hearing heartbeats : a novel
Sendker, Jan-Philipp.
Paper Book
The first book in the Art of Hearing Heartbeats series, this is a passionate love story, a haunting fable, and an enchanting mystery set in Burma. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he...
Vom Ende der Einsamkeit : Roman
Wells, Benedict
Paper Book
Jules and his two siblings Marty and Liz grow up sheltered until their parents die in an accident. As adults, they believe they have overcome the tragedy, but their past catches up with them anyway. A difficult childhood is like an invisible enemy, the siblings overcome loss and loneliness and...
Stella
Würger, Takis
Paper Book
From the internationally bestselling author of The Club comes a gripping historical novel of love and betrayal, set in wartime Berlin In 1942, Friedrich, an even-keeled but unworldly young man, arrives in Berlin from bucolic Switzerland with dreams of becoming an artist. At a life...

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