Amazon.Germany

“P.S. Who are some of the most interesting authors writing in Germany today? - J.”

a question that should be easy enough to answer. only that my focus on reading right now is on classics - i started to browse the library shelves letter by letter last year, and have reached “P” now. this brought surprise reads, some of the recent ones being “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, peeks into Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”, plus Vladimir Nabokov’s unbelievable biography.

trying to find an answer nevertheless, i checked out the current german amazon bestseller list. and surprise: the current #1 author is viva-vj Charlotte Roche, with her novella “Feuchtgebiete” – “Wet Zones". and yep, this refers to her body.

second place – is David Safier, who wrote a novel about a tv-moderator who messed up karma and gets reborn as an ant. the books aren’t related, by the way.

here the whole list, which keeps being updated, so there might someone else coming up as #1 and #2 now: amazon.germany-bestseller-books

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an update on this post - i just received this e-mail:

"Recently in the NY Times there was a review of Wet Zones. The thing is, you don't often see a German book reviewed in NY Times, and this one had photos of her and an explanation of what a phenomenal book this is. - S."

i hadn't been aware of this, but that's pretty cool. reading through the review, i now also know the proper english title of Roche's novel: "Wetlands".

here the NY Times link: Germany Abuzz at Racy Novel of Sex and Hygiene.
and here the html-code, as the ending is priceless: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/world/europe/06taboo.html