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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Every man dies alone
Fallada, Hans
Paper Book
Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways- the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels...
Evening in the palace of reason : Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment
Gaines, James R.
Paper Book
In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire's heralded 'philosopher-king', the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age. ...
Elective affinities : a novel
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Paper Book
Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors - Eduard's friend the Captain and Charlotte's passionate young ward Ottilie - provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love....
Dear child
Hausmann, Romy
Paper Book
You escaped. But he will never let you go. NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES: A page-turning thriller perfect for fans of Room and Gone Girl A windowless shack in the woods. Lena's life and that of her two children follows the rules...
The shortest history of Germany : from Julius Caesar to Angela Merkel : a retelling for our times
Hawes, J. M.
Paper Book
"The West is in full retreat. The Anglo-Saxon powers, great and small, withdraw into fantasies of lost greatness. Populists all over Europe cry out that immigration and globalisation are the work of a nefarious system, run by unseen masters with no national loyalties. From the Kremlin, Tsar Vladimir...
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 brilliantly evocative, atmospheric novel about the delusion and indecision of a wealthy family in the last days of the Third Reich as the Russians advance from the eastWinter, January 1945. It is cold and dark, and the German army is retreating from the Russian advance. Germans are fleeing the...
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...
Snow White must die
Neuhaus, Nele.
Paper Book
On a wet November day, Detectives Pia Kirchoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to the scene of a mysterious accident. A woman has fallen from a bridge onto the motorway below. It seems that she may have been pushed. The investigation leads them to a small town near Frankfurt, and the home of...
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....
The art of hearing heartbeats : a novel
Sendker, Jan-Philipp.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2013 Indies Choice Honor AwardA poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any...
The end of loneliness
Wells, Benedict
Paper Book
'An exquisitely wrought and utterly absorbing meditation upon life, loss and love' Ian McEwan Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature 'Original and captivating . . . its quiet charm in straightforward prose belies its sharp insight into the...
Stella
Würger, Takis
Paper Book
From the internationally bestselling author of The Club comes a new novel of love and betrayal, set in Berlin in 1942.

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