Adriana Altaras: Besser allein als in schlechter Gesellschaft, Meine eigensinnige Tante, KiWi 9783462007022, Taschenbuch

Ich habe dieses wunderbar witzige, vergnüglich weise und mit viel jüdischer Chupze geschriebene Buch mit grossem Vergnügen gelesen. Adriana's geliebte Tanta Jele nähert sich ihrem 100 Geburtstag und der zweigleisig verlaufende Erinnerungsstrang der beiden und die Telefonate lassen Jele's Leben Revue passieren, die stets eine quasi Ersatzmutter für Adriana war. Schöne Kleidung wie Einrichtungen waren ihr Lebenselexier, ebenso wie ein Liebhaber, der in ihr Leben die vermisste Würze zurückbringt. 

Jele überlebte das KZ, ihre italienische Schwiegermutter und der Satz "Ein Leben lang mittags Pasta und man überlebt alles" ist mein neues Mantra. Unbedingt lesen. 

 Sarah Hilary: The drowning place, Vintage/Penguin Random House, hardback, pub date 16. April 2026

Set in the Peak District, detective Joseph Ashe, is the only survivor of a bus crash as a 10 year old,  sending everyone else to their chilly grave drowning in a reservoir. 

17 years later Joe is joined by DI Laurie Bower who has moved from Manchester for family reasons,  to investigate the brutal killing of a local couple and their baby son in the village of Edenscar where everyone seems to know the other persons business. 

It is a dark, haunting new crime series with a terrific team of characters, detectives and a plot that unfolds slowly. If you like Broadchurch or Vera, this is for you. I really liked that Joe sees the ghost of his childhood friend and talks to him during his investigations. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

j.Parris: The Midwinter Martyr, a Giordano Bruno Novella, Harper Collins UK,9780007481286, ebook

This historical mystery set in Venice of 1576, featuring former Dominican monk Giordano Bruno, who is on the run from the inquisition, has a great plot around intriges, power and the dangers of living in Renaissance Venice. 

Bruno gets embroiled in resolving the murder of a Venetian aristocrat and the false accusations and impending excecution of his secretary and his wife. 

Midwinter Martyr is a  thrilling, short and atmospheric historical crime novella you can read quickly during a weekend break. 

 Craig Johnson: Return to Sender, Viking US, ebook

Most of the thrillers around sheriff Walt Longmire are usually a perfect escape read for me. But Return to Sender really disappointed me. I found the case around the disappearance of mail person Blair McGowan and the investigation into a cult living in the Red Desert in Wyoming lame and uninspiring. Sorry, this novel did nothing for me.

I read a lot of books in 2025, very different genres, some more demanding, some providing sheer entertainment, with my weakness for mysteries and family sagas, et voila, here are the 12 books that gave me the greatest reading joy: My absolute favorite is Kiran Desai's masterpiece "The loneliness of Sonia and Sunny" , followed by Patrick Ryan "Buckeye" and the equally brilliant Virginia Evans" The Correspondent".

I loved all of the 12 books for very different reasons but they have one thing in common. Great stories.

 

 Gish Jen: Bad bad girl, 9781803513249, hardback, Granta Books,

Gish Jen's "Bad bad Girl" is definitly on my shelf of best books of the year!

Part memoir, part fictive,  she describes her troubled, almost abusive relationship with her mother  Loo Shu-hsin who came from a wealthy Shanghai banking family to study in the US for a PhD which was exceptional for women in the 1930-40. Instead, short of her degree, she marries a promising Chinese engineering student Chao-Pei, becomes a nationalized American and has five children, whom she all treats differently. Physical beatings are part of Chinese upbringing according to her parents  but her mother has it in for Gish who is smart, talks back and only gets criticism from her mother. "Bad, bad girl, you don't know how to talk" is her mothers standard phrase.  This remains the basis for their relationship until her mothers death during Covid, no matter how successful Gish becomes as an author or a loving mother of two children herself. 

It is a brilliant memoir, particularly since Gish chose a fictive conversation with her dead mother when looking back at her and her family's life going back to China up until her mother's death. My heart went out to her when she never gives up seeking approval or love from her mother only receiving glimps of it. Gish's life story will stay with me for a while, her honesty was heartwrenching to read when she recounts her troubled mother-daughter relationship. 5 stars from me. 

 Kiran Desai: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Hamish Hamilton, 9780241770848, C format

Rarely do I feel the way I did when I finished Kiran Desai's masterpiece " The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny". It left me stunned, I felt this way the last time when I read "Love in the time of Cholera" by Marquez and in my view she is the Indian equivalent. 

 My book of the year without a doubt, such beautifully crafted sentences and an absolutely magnificant story . 688 pages  took me away into a world of magic, Indian family madness, each a cosmos of their own, overbearing mothers and fathers, with Sonia and Sunny trying to fork out a life of their own,  both sharing the experience of feeling alien in the USA and India, their love for each other doomed or suffocated by family expectations or their secret past relationships.  Mystical experiences give the narration a surreal, magical edge. I could go on and on singing praises for this absolutely gem of a novel but buy a copy and find out for yourself.  

I hope Kiran Desai wins the Booker prize on Monday. She has my vote, 5 stars plus!