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Elke Heidenreich, author and book critic
America has a lot of great middle-aged writers.
One of my favorites is Stewart O'Nan.
He once got the Faulkner Prize for »Angels in the Snow«.
My favorite book of his is and always has been »The Happiness of Others«.
It's about a sheriff, Jacob Hansen, who tries to do everything right in a small town where a plague breaks out and ends up doing everything wrong.
It is a parable about what is more important and how one behaves, one's own happiness or the happiness of others.
And now there's a new book by Stewart O'Nan called Ocean State.
This is this one.
»Ocean State« is a novel about a run-down small town in Rhode Island.
And what is seen and told is above all from the eyes and perspectives of women and girls.
It's about Angel and her sister Marie.
Angel is a teenager, Marie is a little younger.
And Marie is above all the observer of this whole story.
Their mother Carol brings the two girls through alone.
The men in this story are either dead, gone with other women, or drinking themselves to death.
Then there's Birdie, who also works tons of jobs with her mom to keep afloat.
And Angel and Birdie are in love with the same boy.
His name is Miles.
Miles comes from better conditions,
is a very handsome boy and he has a great car and both girls are in love with him and he sleeps with both of them and keeps them both warm.
And that leads to tragedy, and tragedy at that, which is explained right in the first sentence, so that the crime character is already gone.
The first sentence, Marie says.
And she says, "When I was in eighth grade, my sister helped kill another girl."
So we already know what it's about.
It's about a murder.
And now Stewart O'Nan tells with incredible virtuosity and adept and sensitive how this murder came about.
And what happens when such a disappointed teenager freaks out when his dream falls apart?
These are ticking time bombs, these disappointed people, in these terrible small towns where there is no hope at all.
A highly exciting, small, slim book, brilliantly written and definitely already on the SPIEGEL bestseller list.
We will see.
And now there's a birthday to celebrate for someone I've always treasured and loved.
The publishers Kein und Aber published his entire work.
It's about Gerhard Polt, who will be 80 these days.
My favorite book is Circus Maximus, a large volume that collects many of Polt's wonderful works.
I remember a story about child labor.
I have to read it to you straight away, I always have these little bookmarks in there, so he says: »The Asians are much more free, a child can work from the age of seven, for 14 hours and if they want, even without vacation .
Yes, that gives the Asians a head start that cannot be overtaken«.
Gerhard Polt has always been subversive.
A cabaret artist who took the stage in 1976.
Television, stage – above all a philosopher.
And one who does not want to teach us, but who roams about in the undergrowth of banalities and philistinism.
And who gave us such unforgettable classic figures as Mai Ling "Hols a mol, the cigarettes, right Mai Ling, good, are they trained?" or "Nikolausi, Easter bunny, if you explain it with the Orli." Well, Polt is unforgotten, unforgettable.
And for his birthday, he brought out a volume of interviews spanning the decades.
And then you can see that Polt is brilliant at saying everything and saying nothing and skilfully subverting the questions with “yes, mei”, as only Harald Schmidt can do apart from him.
And he wrote a novel, and that novel is called Dr.
Arnulf Schmidts-Zceiscyk« somehow that sounds like shit too.
Look, can you read what his name is, "Zceiscyk."
Who can say something like that?
And this dr.
Arnulf Zceiscyk, he's a real puke, is an oligarch.
He becomes a billionaire within the book.
»Yes, I just made it.« And he buys a nice second, third or fourth house on Lake Tegernsee.
But he hates these common people, doesn't he?
And they also have chickens, and that's not possible, he complains about that.
So a puke, as he is in the book.
And that's how Polt shows, as brilliantly as only he can, what actually happens to people who think they're better and how stupid they are.
And of course he, well, this Dr.
Zceiscyk,
has a wife named Annerose.
She sometimes gets a say: »Well, Frau Orloff, my bridge partner, she went to the make-up artist because she had a neck like a turkey.
Then she went to this Dr.
Metticz, he's a make-up artist you know, but I'm afraid I have to say that the neck, well, it probably didn't turn out like Nefertiti's.« Neither did mine.
But we would like to congratulate Polt on his birthday.
I've known him for many years.
I like him very much.
And I say: »Gerhard, respect!«.
And now we look at the SPIEGEL bestseller list.
the neck, well, it probably didn't turn out like that of Nefertiti.« Neither did mine.
But we would like to congratulate Polt on his birthday.
I've known him for many years.
I like him very much.
And I say: »Gerhard, respect!«.
And now we look at the SPIEGEL bestseller list.
the neck, well, it probably didn't turn out like that of Nefertiti.« Neither did mine.
But we would like to congratulate Polt on his birthday.
I've known him for many years.
I like him very much.
And I say: »Gerhard, respect!«.
And now we look at the SPIEGEL bestseller list.
He stays with us on this list: Edgar Selge, an actor by trade and now a bestselling author: his autofictional novel »Have you finally found us« remains stubbornly in the top ten.
The story of the 12-year-old, whose fate it is to be the son of a prison warden, is always popular with readers.
On the ten.
What Selge can do, Schlink can also do: both authors have been on the list since October of last year.
»The Granddaughter« by the Hollywood-honored lawyer and writer Bernhard Schlink takes the reader through various family secrets and into the middle of the right-wing milieu in East Germany - and ranks ninth.
Up from number 20 to number eight this week: »The Lack of Light« by Nino Haratishwili.
A book that makes it easier to understand the warlike present, from the perspective of Georgia.
The Tbilisi-born playwright and writer tells the story of three former friends who visit a photo exhibition - and tell each other stories of post-Soviet independence, coups, violence and civil war.
Unchanged on the seven: the »Book Walker« by Carsten Henn.
The feel-good novel about the love of books seems to function as a contrast to the rough world – it has been on the bestseller list for 69 weeks, otherwise only Juli Zeh can do that.
Nothing is moving on the six this week either: we can still find Jan Weiler's father-daughter story »The Marquee Man« there.
Teenage Kim's life changes dramatically after she meets her birth father, unsuccessful awning salesman Ronald.
A coming-of-age novel, and at the same time a homage to the Ruhrpott.
In fifth place there is still a déjà vu: Again we meet Carsten Henn here.
With his new novel »The Story Baker«, the prolific writer once again delivers something to make you feel good.
This time it's about the art of baking bread - and the happiness of the little things.
Also unchanged, on the four: the American crime writer Elizabeth George and the 21st case of her investigator Thomas Lynley.
The story is set in the Nigerian community of North London.
Here Inspector Lynley encounters murder, human rights violations and a wall of silence.
The bestselling author Ildikó von Kürthy slipped from the two to the three this week.
Her novels have sold more than six million copies so far - and with "Tomorrow May Come" there will certainly be a few more.
All in pink: the women's novel about the courage to change, departure and new beginnings.
Last week's one is now two: Micky Beisenherz and Sebastian Fitzek have teamed up, one writes thrillers, the other moderates all sorts of things on radio and television.
As a team, they have now created a calculated bestseller about a psychiatric patient, a literary agent and a kidnapping.
And the new number one is called: "A Matter of Chemistry" by Bonnie Garmus.
Elke Heidenreich presented and celebrated the novel in the last episode of »Read more!«: »I have rarely read such an entertaining, intelligent book about how women have to assert themselves in a man's world«, was her conclusion.
You can also find out what this has to do with chemistry and a TV cooking show.