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| photo: Christian Faustus | |
Melanie Raabe grew up in Thuringia, Germany, and attended the Ruhr University Bochum, where she specialized in media studies and literature. After graduating, she moved to Cologne to work as a journalist by day and secretly write books by night. The Trap (Grand Central, July 5, 2016) is her debut novel.
On your nightstand now:
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, poetry by Warsan Shire, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I was an avid reader when I was a child, and I really loved Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. It is a novel about a kid being sucked into a mysterious book, and it had everything I ever dreamed of: adventure, mystery, bravery--and a dragon.
Your top five authors:
I admire Franz Kafka. He was a dark magician, I will never completely understand him, but I try to over and over again. He was a true genius. I absolutely love Jonathan Safran Foer. Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close still are among my favorite novels of all time. Haruki Murakami is amazing, and I have always had a soft spot for Stephen King. And then there is this incredible Austrian writer I am deeply fascinated by right now. The last five books I have read have all been by him. His name is Thomas Glavinic, and a couple of his books have been translated into English. Night Work, for example. That book will blow your mind.
Book you've faked reading:
Everything Proust. I just cannot cope with Proust. I should, I have a degree in literary studies! But I just can't. I have a similar problem with Moby-Dick. I try to read Moby-Dick every other year, and I always give up a couple hundred pages in. It is such a classic and I love a good old-fashioned adventure--but I can't get through the beginning. It's crazy!
Book you're an evangelist for:
See Under: Love by Israeli writer David Grossman is an incredibly powerful piece of literature. It is elaborate and raw and poetic, beautiful, sad and haunting. It is a challenge, and I think everybody should read it.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Lori Ostlund's After the Parade. Still need to read that one. But it sure looks good on my shelf!
Book you hid from your parents:
When I was a child, I spent hours and hours in the local library. The librarians knew me well--and they let me take home any book I wanted, age-appropriate or not. Which led to me reading a lot of Stephen King novels when I was still rather small. Nowadays I wish my parents had caught me with them, because I read It far too early, and it traumatized me. I am deeply afraid of clowns to this day. (And I live in the German city of Cologne which is famous for its carnival--with many people dressing up as clowns. So that is a problem.)
Book that changed your life:
Just Kids by Patti Smith. I learned so much about friendship and life and about being an artist--it is one of the best books I have ever read. I had a similar experience when I read The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer a couple of years later. Also an amazing read.
Favorite line from a book:
"If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world, and we will give it walls, and we will furnish it with soft, red interiors, from the inside out, and give it a knocker that resonates like a diamond falling to a jeweller's felt so that we should never hear it. Love me, because love doesn't exist, and I have tried everything that does." --Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Five books you'll never part with:
I would never part with the book of fairytales by the Brothers Grimm that my parents and my grandmother read to me when I was little. Also very special to me is the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, the books by Goethe that my grandfather gave me, On Beauty by Zadie Smith and The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Harry Potter books. They provided me with that rare experience I last had as a child: total immersion. I love them so much.