21 books were added to my reading list in week 42 (October 12, 2026 to October 18, 2026). Here they are at a glance; the full review is on each book’s own page.
12 Oct 2026 – The Day the World Came to Town
Some days, you start to lose faith in humanity. On days like that, I’d recommend this book. It tells the story of how a small Canadian town opened its doors to the people stranded there when all flights were grounded.
12 Oct 2026 – Der Computer - Mein Lebenswerk: 100 Jahre Zuse
Konrad Zuse is one of the many giants on whose shoulders my industry stands. I still remember being a know-it-all teenager and pointing out to my English teacher, Mrs. W. (yes, the ex-wife of my German teacher, Mr. W.), that the computer …
12 Oct 2026 – The life of Chuck
A few days ago, I watched The Life of Chuck. It’s a truly unusual film, especially considering it’s based on a Stephen King story. Tom Hiddleston’s dance scene may be what sticks with you, but Mark Hamill as the grandfather is every bit as …
12 Oct 2026 – Large Language Kabbala
I don’t think many people really understand how LLMs work. Why they manage to come across as if they “know” things, even though they’re “just” a model of language, not of knowledge (though this book also raises the question of whether the …
13 Oct 2026 – Jagd auf Roter Oktober
As a teenager and young adult, I loved reading Tom Clancy. I lost interest at some point, but I really enjoyed his early books. Yes, his writing was very pro-American, to put it mildly. Still, he was the master of the techno-thriller. And …
13 Oct 2026 – Red Storm Rising
It was the first book I ever read in English, out of necessity: for a long time, it simply wasn’t available in German (the translation, “Im Sturm,” only came out much later). A classmate lent it to me. The pro-American slant was even more …
13 Oct 2026 – Der dicke fette Pfannkuchen
At some point, I was standing in a bookshop looking for a present for my niece. And then I found it: a story I’ve known since childhood. It was in my reader back in primary school. My parents tell me that at some point they knew it almost …
13 Oct 2026 – Das Echo aller Furcht
This book was another Christmas present – though one I picked out myself. I think it was 1993, though it may have been a year earlier. I was out Christmas shopping with my parents. Since they weren’t quite sure which book to get me this …
13 Oct 2026 – Project Hail Mary
It was one of the books I took with me to hospital last year. I didn’t actually get round to reading it until after rehab, though: Project Hail Mary. The film does the book justice in many respects. It shows that a five-armed (or …
13 Oct 2026 – Smart Home mit openHAB 2
At some point, you burn your last CD without knowing it’s the last time. At some point, you buy your last DVD without knowing your collection will never grow again. I bought this book in 2023. It probably has the dubious honour of being …
13 Oct 2026 – The Stand - Das letzte Gefecht
You’re up to your neck in it! In myth? No – in religion. That was the first thing that struck me when I held this book in my hands. The battle of good versus evil, built on a massive biblical and religious foundation. I found that pretty …
14 Oct 2026 – Das Foucaultsche Pendel
Well, what can I say? No – strictly speaking, the question should be: what should I say? And to that, there’s a clear answer: nothing, really. This book is my final boss. I’ve owned it for more than 30 years and still haven’t managed to …
14 Oct 2026 – Unser Kosmos
As a fourth-grader, staying up late isn’t exactly easy. I had to promise not to be grumpy the next morning, however tired I was. I kept that promise, and so I was actually allowed to stay up, for weeks on end. What for? In 1983, Cosmos was …
16 Oct 2026 – Die Faust Gottes
I still remember exactly where I bought this book: Münster. In a bookshop in town. The Bundeswehr had sent me there, and the barracks were fairly close to the city centre. So, plenty of opportunities to buy books. It must have been winter, …
16 Oct 2026 – Der Junge, der Maulwurf, der Fuchs und das Pferd
In 2023 I gave away this book-shaped blend of candy floss, halva and the entire display case of a Turkish bakery as a gift. Fortune-cookie wisdom on every page. But sometimes that’s exactly what you need. A boy meets a mole, a fox and a …
16 Oct 2026 – Truth, Lies, and O-Rings
There are images of events that have burned themselves indelibly into my memory: the falling towers on September 11, the crumpled ICE train at Eschede. And that image of the “major malfunction” on January 28, 1986: the Space Shuttle …
17 Oct 2026 – Künstliche Intelligenz und der neue Faschismus
Reclam publishes a small but, in my opinion, very fine series of little books. The series is called “Was bedeutet das alles?” (“What does it all mean?”). The books are roughly the size of the Reclam booklets I knew from school. Only they …
17 Oct 2026 – Über die Dummheit
When you sit in a doctor’s waiting room with a book, you almost feel like a snob already, while everyone around you stares into their phone, completely entangled in the net. If on top of that you’re reading a small Reclam book, it looks …
17 Oct 2026 – Snoopy für alle Lebenslagen
Really, there is only one important question in life for judging people: chocolate scoop or vanilla scoop on top?
18 Oct 2026 – Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes
I’ll admit it right away: I bought this book for one reason only. I had seen the film Arrival and liked it immediately. The film is based on Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life”, which is part of the German collection Die Hölle ist …
18 Oct 2026 – High Fidelity
I can’t say exactly when I bought this book. My edition came out in 1999, and the price on the back is still in Deutschmarks. I think it was 2001. I do remember where I bought it: in a bookshop in Oldenburg. It was a weekend. I’d been out …
