Maria has time to spare. So she often spends it sitting on a bench on the church square, watching people come and go, people with big goals on their minds but little time on their hands. Maria, an unemployed fabric saleswoman, knows about fabrics, knows what goes well together, knows what’s concealing weaknesses and what’s highlighting strengths. In her own case it’s more tricky: Which strength will help conceal her age on a market that doesn’t need her anymore? She isn’t old; still, her life is played in rewind, passing its chances, dreams and mischances: Otto, whom she forgets in the crisper; Walter, the Elvis Impersonator of the Mournful Countenance who widowed her; Eduard, who returned from town with another woman; her little sister who became so much of a mother that she even treats Maria like a child. By telling the stories of such quirky, eccentric, yet lovely people, Anna Weidenholzer draws the picture of a woman on the fringe of society. Which is still in the midst of life...

Apprentice Georg Rohrs isn't the sharpest tool in the box. But he has a dream: he wants to be the elevator boy in a seaside hotel, wants to escape on the night train with his first love Marlies and escape the confinement of his life at home. When Georg happens upon a dead body and accidentally steals his boss's suitcase full of dirty cash, his life begins to unravel: within a single weekend Georg loses his job, his apartment, his parents, his friends, his money, his love and maybe a piece of his sanity – and yet, at the end of this neck-breaking tour-de-force, an unknown sense of freedom awaits him... Martin Lechner's fast-paced debut novel is a whirlwind adventure where provincial comedy meets literary genius. Nominated for the German Book Prize 2014 (Longlist)

“Bad people are always fine.” With this mantra and other cynical remarks, the narrator has made himself the revered as well as hated focal point of a bored upper class clique. What nobody knows is that he lives off badly paid mini jobs and a very unusual gift: alcohol turns him into a mind reader. He’s a fraud who exploits the stupidity of the shallow hipster gang, but he’s also a charming improvisation artist who finds true love in the glamorous Tarán. Driven by necessity, he entangles himself in an increasingly absurd web of lies, in which tattooed Mafia bosses and wild car chases are part of everyday life. But this balancing act only succeeds until Mr Neubauer turns up...