Recommend exciting stories, simply written
October 3, 2013 11:53 AM   Subscribe

I'm an intermediate ~ advanced German student, and my instructor recommended native language-to-German translations for extracurricular reading. Her idea is to make it easy to find stories/authors/genres you already know you like, and just get you reading in German. I really like crime thrillers - serial killers, gruesome murders, etc. I'm looking for recommendations for authors and novels that have good, engaging stories, but aren't written in especially sophisticated English. I remember quite liking Cody McFadyen's stories, but being very underwhelmed with his use of language. This is perfect. I'm lucky as a native English speaker, as it's pretty likely that anything written in English that was even slightly popular has been translated into German. So, any recommendations? Vielen Dank!
posted by dmvs to Writing & Language (5 answers total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hier gibt's viele bei Amazon.de.

Obviously, that just the American books page, (here's Cody)--I'd think pretty much any mass market author is going to be written simply. God, Dan Brown is like reading a YA novel, and he's on the first link... You're not really going to go wrong.

(It is a fun way to learn--I've ready Harry Potter books in Italian and Swedish, and you definitely pick up some interesting words...)
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:02 PM on October 3, 2013


I understand that Pillars of the Earth and its counterparts have been translated into German.
posted by tilde at 12:12 PM on October 3, 2013


I would recommend Henning Mankell -- originally in Swedish, but translated into German, English, and who knows how many other languages. His style is simple and direct, but still elegant and engaging, and there's no lack of excitement. It seems that all his novels are "Look Inside!" enabled on both amazon.com and amazon.de so you can sample before you buy. For example: Faceless Killers / Mörder ohne Gesicht.
posted by pont at 12:22 PM on October 3, 2013




Consider reading B. Traven's Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It was actually first published in German as Der Schatz der Sierra Madre, but it should still work for your purpose I think and there are lots of copies around.
posted by gudrun at 10:54 PM on October 3, 2013


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