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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The neverending story
Ende, Michael.
Audiobook
In this classic fantasy novel from author Michael Ende, small and insignificant Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. Then, through the pages of an ancient, mysterious book, he discovers the enchanted world of Fantastica, and only Bastian himself can save the fairy...
Every man dies alone
Fallada, Hans
Ebook
Based on a true story, this never-before-translated masterpiece was overlooked for years after its author--a bestselling writer before World War II who found himself in a Nazi insane asylum at war's end--died just before it was published. In a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin...
The Oppermanns
Feuchtwanger, Lion
Paper Book
Written in real time, as the Nazis consolidated their power over the winter of 1933, The Oppermanns captures the fall of Weimar Germany through the eyes of one bourgeois Jewish family, shocked and paralyzed by an ideology they cannot comprehend. In the foment of...
The Thief Lord
Funke, Cornelia Caroline.
Ebook
The enchanting international bestseller with bonus back matter and a beautiful new cover!Two orphaned brothers, Prosper and Bo, have run away to Venice, where crumbling canals and misty alleyways shelter a secret community of street urchins. Leader of this motley crew of lost children is a clever,...
The book jumper
Gla ser, Mechthild
Ebook
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 : from Julius Caesar to Angela Merkel : a retelling for our times
Hawes, J. M.
Audiobook
2,000 YEARS OF HISTORY IN ONE RIVETING AFTERNOONA country both admired and feared, Germany has been the epicenter of world events time and again: the Reformation, both World Wars, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It did not emerge as a modern nation until 1871-yet today, Germany is the world's fourth...
The glass bead game : (Magister Ludi)
Hesse, Hermann
Paper Book
When Hitler stole pink rabbit
Kerr, Judith.
Ebook
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...
The storyteller
Michaelis, Antonia.
Ebook
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...
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...
The most dazzling girl in Berlin
Wilson, Kip
Paper Book
A fascinating historical novel about Hilde, an orphan who experiences Berlin on the cusp of World War II as she discovers her own voice and sexuality, ultimately finding a family when she gets a job at a gay cabaret, by award-winning author Kip Wilson. On her eighteenth birthday, Hilde...

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