“The sea in summer is always the same, but the people who come to see it change.” Chapter 1: Arrival in the Seaside Town The narrator, Maria, returns […]
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
“Time waits for no one… but what if you could make it wait?” Chapter 1: The Strange Discovery Kazuko Yoshiyama, a high school student, stumbles upon a peculiar […]
Norwegian Wood
“I was thirty-seven then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to the Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched the […]
A Gushing Fountain
“Memory is a gushing fountain.” Part One: Childhood in Wasserburg The novel opens in the fictional village of Wasserburg, a small German town on Lake Constance, during the […]
While We Were Dreaming
“We were young, we were wild, and we thought we’d live forever.” While We Were Dreaming follows a group of friends in Leipzig during the tumultuous years before […]
What’s to Become of the Boy?
“What was to become of the boy? What was to become of me?” — Heinrich Böll What’s to Become of the Boy? is a semi-autobiographical novel by Heinrich […]
Young Törless
“For the sake of completeness, one must also mention the torment of the soul.” Chapter 1: Arrival at the Boarding School The novel opens with Törless, a sensitive […]
Cat and Mouse
“And so it began, with the cat and the mouse, and with the boy who couldn’t keep his hands off his Adam’s apple.” Chapter 1: The Incident at […]
Sincerely Yours, Shurik
“Every family has its own mythology, its own legends, and its own secrets.” Chapter 1: Childhood in Post-War Moscow The novel opens with young Shurik growing up in […]
My Apprenticeship
“Life is always surprising us—not by its rich, seething complexity, which is inexhaustible, but because, in spite of all its squalor and monotony, it sometimes throws up something […]