13 (!) and we have a rebellious teenager on our hands, demanding a few changes and a little extra freedom.

And so this year’s badge features, not a German library, but an Austrian one – the Austrian National Library in Vienna as painted by Balthasar Wiegand in 1835. It’s an indicator of where my main focus will be. I’m still working my way through the TBR that resulted from reading The Austrian Riveter earlier this year and aim to read 50% Austrian this year.

Reading such a high percentage of Austrian literature during GLM is new to me. A poetry week would be also. So let’s do that.

Although German Literature Month has only one rule – i.e to read anything you want in any language you want as long as it was originally written in German – I’m going to dispense with it for one week only (to give our teenager a little extra space). This will also give us a chance to read those authors whose native tongue was/is German, but who chose/choose to write in an adopted language. Germans such as Vicki Baum, Stefan Heym, Katja Hoyer, Philip Oltermann, Zoe Penny, Fred Uhlman, Meike Ziervogel. Austrians such as Ludwig Bemelmans and Swiss authors such as Regi Claire. Of course all of the above wrote/write some, if not all of their work, in English. I’m sure there are others who use(d) other languages. I look forward to you enlightening me.

And so this is the rebellious teenager’s reading schedule for GLM XIII

Nov 1-7 Read as you please

Nov 8-14 Poetry

Nov 15-21 Read as you please

Nov 22-28 Rulebreakers

Nov 29-30 Read as you please

The extension into the first week of December to catchup on reviewing will be maintained. (Some traditions are inviolate after all!)

Of course, you can ignore the rebellious teenager’s whims, and read as you please (according to GLM’s only rule) all month long. As always, the main objective is to have fun.

So will you be joining the rebellious teenager this November?