This post was originally published on Lizzy’s Literary Life (Volume 1) on 30 November 2021 and has been transferred to Volume 2 because I still have plenty of reading to do! Links to reviews in this list may be on either blog.

With the world beginning to shut down again, armchair travelling will once more be the order of the day.

The idea for this post came from Scott Pack and Judith Robinson’s Around the World in 10 books event at the London Library earlier this year, which left me wondering if I could create a similar tour from the translated German literature on my shelves. Of course I can! Only not in 10. Will 25 do? 😂

Neither are we travelling in a circle. We’re really snaking from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again. Links to my reviews. Favourites are asterisked.

Feel free to add more destinations in comments. Here we go.

Norwegian Arctic – A Woman in the Polar Night – Christiane Ritter *

Russia The Last Summer – Richarda Huch

Scotland The Peacock – Isabel Bogdan *

Czechia The Last Resort – Johannes Urzidil (TBR)

Hungary Summer Resort – Esther Kinsky (TBR)

Romania The Last World – Christoph Ransmayr (TBR)

Turkey The Blacksmith’s Daughter – Selim Ozdogan *

Georgia The Eighth Life – Nino Haratischvili *

Iraq The Village Indian – Abbas Khider (TBR)

Lebanon The Storyteller – Pierre Jarawan *

Spain (Lanzarote) New Year – Juli Zeh (TBR)

Portugal Night Train to Lisbon – Pascal Mercier (TBR)

Western Sahara Sand – Wolfgang Herrndorf

Rwanda One Hundred Days – Lukas Bärfuss

South Africa The Wall – Max Annas

Antarctica The Ice-Cold Heaven – Mirko Bonné (TBR)

Indonesia Love and Death in Bali – Vicki Baum

Papua New Guinea Imperium – Christian Kracht *

South Korea – The Great Homecoming – Anna Kim (TBR)

Japan I Called Him Necktie – Milena Michiko Flašar *

Argentina/Brazil South American Letters – Stefan and Lotte Zweig (TBR)

Venezuela/Cuba/Peru/Ecuador/Mexico Measuring The World – Daniel Kehlmann *

USA The Perfect American – Peter Stephan Jungk (TBR)

Canadian Arctic The Discovery of Slowness – Sten Nadolny (TBR)

Greenland All The Land – Jo Lendle

Now if you’re brave enough to sail eastwards across the Arctic Ocean, to Svalbard, you’ll disembark at the original embarkation point. Gute Reise!