by André Klein March 25, 2014

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5 German Novels For Beginners and Intermediate German Learners

Some rights reserved (CC) by cafemama via flickr

Learning German with textbooks and worksheets only gets you so far. After a while, you need to start putting the pieces together by speaking to people, watching German movies, reading blogs and newspapers or German short stories. Once you feel comfortable reading shorter pieces, it’s time to progress to book-length reading materials. Today, I’d like to present five German novels and novellas which are both great stories and relatively easy to read for beginners and intermediate German learners.

As a bonus, many of these classic German novels are available as audiobooks and partly available on Youtube, so you can get a first impression of the stories by listening to the narrated editions embedded below.

Note: While none of these novels are specifically designed for learners, they are still among the more accessible (modern) literary classics. If you’re looking for German stories that include vocabulary and are written with the learner in mind, take a look at our German learning library.

Die Verwandlung – “Metamorphosis”, by Franz Kafka

First published in 1915 and considered one of the most important 20th century works of fiction, this German novella by Franz Kafka is still studied in schools and universities worldwide. Contrary to many older German literary classics, Kafka’s prose is relatively simple and easy to read for German learners due to its clear (i.e. relatively short) sentences and lack of overly complicated vocabulary.

Kindle: via gutenberg.org

ePub: via gutenberg.org

HTML: via gutenberg.org

PDF: via freilesen.de

vocabulary: 1, 2, 3 via Quizlet

Homo Faber. Ein Bericht, by Max Frisch

Published in 1959, this German novel by Swiss author Max Frisch is about a successful engineer called Walter Faber, who prefers facts to feelings, logic to love and empirical data to emotions. He fares quite well with this rational approach to life until he’s faced with a chain of stupefying coincidences that force him to reevaluate his entire worldview.

Written in modern German from a first-person perspective, this novel is a great way to start can be a good starting point for German students interested in full-length reading material which is neither too challenging nor too shallow. Homo Faber is considered a modern German classic and was also made into a movie by German director Volker Schlöndorff starring Sam Shepard.

Kindle: via Amazon

ePub: via bücher.de

HTML: via gabrieleweis.de

PDF: Google

vocabulary: reading comprehension quiz, flashcards via Quizlet

Die Schachnovelle – “The Royal Game”, by Stefan Zweig

This novella, written between 1938 and 1941 in Brazilian exile, is Stefan Zweig’s last and most famous work. At its heart is the confrontation of a Gestapo prisoner with the psychological ramifications of his situation on the background of a passenger steamer full of affluent travelers and their superficial attitude.

The protagonist, Dr B, put in solitary confinement by the Nazis obsesses about chess in order to maintain his sanity. He plays against himself and is developing a split personality which leads to a breakdown. Now officially declared “insane”, he’s released, but when he finds himself travelling on a passenger steamer together with the world chess champion Czentovic, he’s forced to stare into the abyss once again.

This novella is suitable for German learners due to its brevity, basic vocabulary and sentence structures.

Kindle: via feedbooks

ePub: via feedbooks

PDF: via feedbooks

vocabulary: text comprehension quiz

Der Richter und sein Henker – “The Judge and His Hangman”, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Originally published in a Swiss weekly journal as a serial novel between 1950 and 1951, this mystery novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt is a classical detective story with a crime at its center and a search for the perpetrator.

This German novel is required reading in many German schools, and it’s also appropriate for intermediate German learners looking for suitable reading material, due to its relatively straightforward plot and plain language.

Kindle: via Amazon

ePub: via bücher.de

PDF: Google

vocabulary: text comprehension quiz

Das Parfum. Die Geschichte eines Mörders – “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”, by Patrick Süskind

This 1985 historical/mystery/coming-of-age novel by German author Patrick Süskind is about a murderer with a supernatural sense of smell. Born with no body scent in 18th-century Paris, protagonist Baptiste Grenouille is stalking and killing virgins, hunting for the “perfect scent”.

Translated into 48 languages and sold more than 20 million times, Das Parfum is one of the most sucessfull German novels of the 20th century.

While Süskinds narrative style may sometimes be a bit ornate, this novel can be a good way for German learners to expand their vocabulary without sentence structure and plot being too difficult too follow.

Kindle: via Amazon

ePub: via bücher.de

PDF: Google

vocabulary: flashcards via Quizlet

How To Get Free German Novels

All of the above suggestions are considered literary classics. If you’re looking for more contemporary German novels, take a look at this article and find out how to download tons of German novels for free onto your tablet, ereader, smartphone or desktop.

Combine these free German ebooks with interactive dictionaries on Android or iOS and you’ll learn tons of new words in no time! Who needs textbooks, anyway?

–

Anna Breslavskaya
Thank you for these recommendations, Andre. Reading your article made me miss our classes when we discussed some german short stories. I keep looking for some kind of online german literature hangouts where german learners may gather and discuss a book or a short story. Have you heard of anything like that?
- André Klein
  Hi, Anna! Glad you liked the article. Your question got me thinking. I’m not aware at the moment of any such venue. Perhaps you might find a group on Goodreads; while it’s not popular in Germany there are probably some Germanophile reading groups. And if everything else fails, why not create something yourself? 😉
Sean Knight
Thanks for the suggestions Andre!
- André Klein
  Viel Spaß beim Lesen/Hören!
curveball7
Randomly searched the web for good books to read for a not so great German learner and came across your page. These look like great suggestions. Thanks a lot!
GeneralMurat
By a weird coincidence, Scachnovelle and Homo Faber really were two of the first German novels I read. I stuck with them, even though I found them hard, just because they were such fine books. Der Leser was the first German novel I ever read – again a great book so even if it’s tough in a foreign language, you stick with it.
Alex Andra
Normally I’m not a negative-nancy commenter, but I feel the need to be this time.
Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Mörders is a REALLY disturbing story, if it is anything like the movie adaptation done in the 2000s. Like, SERIOUSLY disturbing… I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s up there with “Die Blechtrommel” for most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. They may be German classics, but they were disturbing and awful. Just thought I’d throw that disclaimer out there.
Additionally, as an *advanced* German reader I tried to read Die Verwandlung and had a really hard time… I would DEFINITELY start elsewhere.
- Alain Bruguieres
  I totally agree with you. Besides, Das Parfum and Die Blechtrommen are written in a very intricate style, not at all to be recommended for a first book in German, in my opinion.
liam
Walk into a German bookshop and you’ll notice that there are many books which are actually translations of English ‘pulp fiction’ crime thrillers – the type that are often on sale at railway stations and airport lounges. Admittedly, these aren’t high literature; ideally a learner of German may yearn to read classic German authors such as Goethe and Hoffmann. But for those at an intermediate stage there are several advantages to reading these rather cheap thrillers:
– the English originals are written in fairly simple, repetitive language, rather than highly descriptive flowery prose – the German translations mirror this;
– the vocabulary relating to crime, policing, detectives, murders and so on is fairly limited, so once you have read the first couple of chapters you’ll find yourself resorting to a dictionary less often – the words you don’t know you’ll be able to guess by context;
– the style of German usually shows clear signs of being translated from English (metaphors, idioms, grammar, cultural references, the shorter sentences). Although this may make the reader feel as though they are not reading fully ‘authentic’ German, it makes everything much easier for the non-advanced reader who struggles with complicated German.
On the downside, English novels tend to be much longer than a traditional German novel (which are usually much more ‘novella’ sized), and it can take an Intermediate learner weeks to complete 350 pages of German.
Some recommendations of books I have recently read:
Judas, Elise Title (translated from English, 380 pages, very easy to read, especially after you’ve absorbed the vocab in the first few chapters)
Unter der Sonne, Daniel Kehlmann (a collection of short stories, some difficult language but still worthwhile)
Erzählungen, Heinrich Böll (a huge collection of very short stories – many are just a few pages long, which can be really useful for someone who reads German slowly. Some difficult language but the short length makes most stories easily manageable. This book is also very cheap, despite its huge size)
Der Hund der Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle – Zweisprachige Ausgabe (dual language, German and English. The level of German is quite simple)
Sherlock Holmes’ Buch der Fälle (German only. The language is noticably more advanced than ‘Baskervilles’, but each story is only around 30 pages long. Also, the familiarity of English speakers with Holmes makes the book an easy-going experience).
Having worked my way through the bulk of these five books I am now reading German much more confidently and fluently (although I still have some way to go). I would also advise a look at the “Es geschah in Berlin” series of detective novels, set in Berlin at various times of the 20th century (1910s, Nazi era, post-war era in the BRD and GDR). I haven’t yet read one of these but the language looks quite manageable and most of them come in at under 200 pages. The various historical contexts may also serve to maintain motivation if the reader has an interest in these various eras.
schalt
I have Andre’s books. They are absolutely amazing. I wish there were more though.
- André Klein
  Thanks! 🙂 More Dino stories are already in the making…
Michael Wallace Ellwood
With all due respect, “Die Verwandlung” is a horrible book for learners, at least I found it so (and so did most of the people in my evening class at the time).
I’m with you on the Durrenmatt though! (And its “prequel”, whose title I forget for the moment).
Similar to the comment of another person, the novels of the Danish krimi author Jussi Adler-Olsen seem to be popular in Germany, and are available in German and English, e.g. “Erbarmung” (“Mercy”). (The Danish titles are quite different, interestingly, and do not translate to the German & English titles).
Mayur
I am pleased to get this novels. As I am the beginner of Deutsche Language, I find it very interesting .
Love form INdia
Danke
Rebecka
How about books written by women? Could someone who reads books by women perhaps recommend some?
- Alexander Craig
  Marlen Haushofer – Die Wand, was also made into a movie.
- Alain Bruguieres
  All of Cornelia Funke’s books.
Alain Bruguieres
I find this selection very surprizing. But I find all such selections very surprizing so it’s not really a surprize. I started learning German four years ago, and after 4 months, I started reading my first book: Glennkill, by Leonie Swann (a German author with an English penname). Since then I have read Die Schachnovelle, Das Parfüm und Die Verwandlung (among others which are not in this list). I would certainly not recommend a single one of them as a first book or an ‘early’ book. Die Schachnovelle is written in a very intricate style, with lots of Schachtelsätze (sehr intricate periods). It is very hard to read and nobody writes in that way nowadays. So ok, you acquire a certain dexterity when it comes to analyzing sentences forwards, backwards, sometimes you have to read the same sentence 4 or 5 times to figure out how it works, but as like as not you will give up and loose much of your motivation. Das Parfüm is full of antiquated words which hardly anybody knows, let alone uses. I have a notebook with more than a thousand words from that book, most of them totally useless for me. I don’t want to express myself like a parody of 18th century novel. Die Verwandlung is very beautifully written, but it is not very easy to read, and it is very hard to appreciate the style if you’re a beginner. I don’t think such lists help at all. In the beginning, you need to read books which are beautifully written, but in a German which you can actually assimilate and use in everyday life. Beautiful doesn’t necessarily mean virtuosic or erudite. When you start to acquire a good feeling for the language, and lean to appreciate the rhythm, the beauty of a sentence… then you can start reading whatever you feel like. I started to read Die Blechtrommel, but I stopped when I realized that, although I could decipher it and understand more or less the content, I was not yet ready to fully appreciate it. I’ll come back to it later. I think the best criterion is: choose a book you’ve already read in your mother tongue, and which you love. I recommend Herman Hesse, his style is rather simple, his language elevated indeed, but without pyrotechnics, and the content is deep and motivating. Many german friends tell me that he is or has been at one point their favorite author. But as a first book, I’d pick a book by a contemporary author who writes beautifully, such as Cornelia Funke. Or Leonie Swann: Glennkill was for me the perfect starting point.

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