Michael Hofmann

"On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey moves to the Claremont Hotel in South Kensington. "If it's not nice, I needn't stay," she promises herself, as she settles into this haven for the genteel and the decayed. "Three elderly widows and one old man who seemed to dislike female company and seldom got any other kind" serve for her fellow residents, and there is the staff, too, and they are one and all lonely. What...

"Werner Herzog, one of the most revered filmmakers of all time, in his first book in many years, tells the story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who continued to defend a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War Two In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts there asked, whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former solider famous for having quixotically...

Hans Fallada wrote this stunning novel in only 24 days-just after being released from a Nazi insane asylum. Based on a true story, Every Man Dies Alone tells of a German couple who try to start an uprising by distributing anti-fascist postcards during WWII. But their dream ultimately proves perilous under the tyranny that dominates every corner of Hitler's Germany.

"Jenny Erpenbeck (the author of Go, Went, Gone and Visitation) is an epic storyteller and arguably the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature. Erpenbeck's new novel Kairos-an unforgettably compelling masterpiece tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes...

Storm of Steel is a gripping memoir of World War I, written by Ernst Jünger, a German officer who served on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918. Jünger recounts his experiences in vivid and unflinching detail, from the horrors of trench warfare and gas attacks, to the camaraderie and courage of his fellow soldiers. Jünger does not shy away from the brutality and ugliness of war, but he also reveals its moments of beauty and heroism. Storm of Steel...

"Andreas Pum, having lost his leg in the war, is rewarded with a permit to support himself by playing a barrel organ in the streets. At first the simple-minded veteran is entirely satisfied with his lot, and he even finds a widow to marry. But then a qurrel on a tram turns Andreas's life onto a rapid downward trajectory. As he loses first his beggar's permit, then his new wife, and even his freedom, he is finally provoked into rejecting his blind...

"Given a second chance with an old love, a coolly detached archivist questions the life he could have had, and whether it's not too late to live it. A poignant, ingeniously constructed new novel from "one of Europe's most exciting writers" (New York Times Book Review). Forty years ago-almost a lifetime-he confessed his love to a classmate and close friend, Franziska. Now, living in his late mother's house with the obsolete archive of the newspaper...

Happily married with two children and a comfortable home in a Swiss town, Thomas and Astrid enjoy a glass of wine in their garden on a night like any other. Called back to the house by their son's cries, Astrid goes inside, expecting her husband to join her in a bit. But Thomas gets up and, after a brief moment of hesitation, opens the gate and walks out. No longer bound by the ties of his everyday life--family, friends, work--Thomas begins a winding...