book trends
Reading tips for autumn 2022: Other worlds to dream about
© tomertu / Adobe Stock
No matter where the temperatures are heading – a good book warms the soul. Here are our favorite books that take us to other worlds.
Lauren Groff—Matrix
Marie de France was 17 and devastated when in 1158 she was deported to a destitute convent “in the mud of England”. But instead of embroidering everything that doesn’t move as lady-in-waiting Eleanor of Aquitaine to the end of her days, Lauren Groff (“Light and Fury”) gives her her own realm behind monastery walls. As a prioress, this makes her a self-determined and safe paradise for her nuns. A figure of light whose verses and visions would have done the world good.
Ü: Stefanie Jacobs, 320 p., 24 eurosClaassen
Maggie O’Farrel – Portrait of a Marriage
Whenever a Maggie O’Farrell book comes out, I’m blown away. She received the Women’s Prize for Fiction for “Judith and Hamnet”, which was actually about Shakespeare’s wife. Now she is posting the next historical novel, another portrait of a marriage, this time that of Lucrezia de’ Medici. In 1560 the 15-year-old left Florence to be the wife of the Duke of Ferrara. Less than a year later she was dead. Official cause of death: putrid fever. “But there were rumors that her husband had murdered her.” No spoilers, just the “Historical Note” at the beginning of the book, which is as amazing as its heroine’s painting skills.
Ü: T. Bodmer, 464 p., 24 eurosPiper, from 27.10.
Monique Roffey – The Mermaid of Black Conch
She owes her inspiration to Pablo Neruda’s poem “Fable of the Siren and the Drunkards” and “countless dreams, including nightmares, of mermaids being pulled out of the water,” says the author. This misfortune befalls Aycayia at a fishing competition in the Caribbean – after being cursed by jealous wives centuries ago. Old myth told in a modern way.
Ü: Gesine Schröder, 240 p., 22 eurostropics
Theresia Enzensberger – At Sea
This journey through time leads into the future, and it doesn’t look good: Yada sneaks onto the roof of the “Seestatt” that her father, a wealthy tech entrepreneur, was able to build when chaos broke out on land. But even this sanctuary is overgrown with seaweed and moss, and the young woman gazes out at the Baltic Sea and contemplates the future – “or, rather, the likelihood of her not coming”. Melancholic and yet not without hope that our earth deserves.
272 p., 24 eurosHanser
Rebecca Gablé – Dragon Banner
Here comes an anniversary volume: For 25 years, the German bestseller queen Rebecca Gablé has been telling about the fortunes of those from Waringham. “The Smile of Fortune” was the first, and “Dragon Banner” is now volume 7 of the Waringham saga, which leads expertly through the English Middle Ages. And so convincingly that I really miss the traces of the (fictitious) Waringhams in real history – this time it’s about the time after 1238 and the Magna Carta.
928 p., 29.90 eurosLubbe