Book tips

Here you can find up-to-date book tips from Lothar Ruske, one of the organisers of the literary salon:

Christian Mørk
“Darling Jim”
Piper Verlag € 19.95

A solitary Irish house, three mysterious female corpses and an unscrupulous storyteller.
The residents of the small Irish village of Malahide still avoided the house for a long time after it was disinfected and made liveable again. Three dead women were found in that house, Moira Walsh and her two nieces Fiona and Róisín. They died in a horrible, unexplainable manner. The corpses were discovered by Desmond, the postman. Desmond felt something was wrong with the house. Recently it seemed to him as if he heard noises, even voices, a kind of whimpering coming from the house. When he opened the mail slot in the door and wanted to toss the mail in, he looked through the slot into the house and he first discovered Mrs. Walsh's hand, then her arm and a part of her body. Everything was black and blue and terribly bloated.

Lena Gorelik
“In Love in Saint Petersburg. My Russian Trip”
SchirmerGraf Publishing € 17.80

It's not with Peter, her boyfriend, but instead with Jost, her best friend, with whom Lena Gorelik travels to Saint Petersburg. She was born there and came to Germany with her Russian-Jewish family in 1992 as a "quota refugee". And because she is travelling with Jost, the first family problems occur. She wants to show him her city, she tells her relatives. But they react hysterically and ask who this man is and if she has broken up with Peter. Typically Russian, typically Jewish, constantly worried - a combination that turns everything upside down here.
The novel is an impressive homage to the author's city of birth. In it she conjures up the beautiful city on the Neva beyond the Hermitage and White Nights, with a mischievous look behind the scenes and into everyday life.