• The Best Goethe Books - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe by Jeremy Adler
  • The Best Goethe Books - Italian Journey by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The Best Goethe Books - Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The Best Goethe Books - Faust I & II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • The Best Goethe Books - Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante, and Goethe by George Santayana

The Best Goethe Books, recommended by David E. Wellbery

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) has been described as ‘the last true polymath to walk the earth’. A defining figure in German literature, Goethe coined the concept of world literature. And his literary and dramatic achievements are matched by his scientific work. David E. Wellbery, Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of Chicago and recipient of the Golden Goethe Medal, introduces us to the life and work of Goethe. He explores why figures such as Beethoven and Napoleon were magnetised to him, how Rousseau influenced Faust, and why Goethe’s Faust does not sell his soul to the devil.

  • The Best Franz Kafka Books - The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (ed. and translated by Stanley Corngold)
  • The Best Franz Kafka Books - The Trial by Franz Kafka
  • The Best Franz Kafka Books - Franz Kafka: The Office Writings by Franz Kafka (ed. Stanley Corngold, Jack Greenberg, and Benno Wagner)
  • The Best Franz Kafka Books - Kafka's Selected Stories by Franz Kafka
  • The Best Franz Kafka Books - Kafka: The Early Years by Reiner Stach & Shelley Frisch (trans.)

The Best Franz Kafka Books, recommended by Stanley Corngold

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin”—Kafka, The Metamorphosis. This is one of the most famous opening lines in all of world literature, but how ‘Kafkaesque’ was Franz Kafka? What are our misconceptions about his life and work? Professor Stanley Corngold, one of the most influential Kafka scholars, introduces us to an “athlete of anguish”.

  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Lectures on Dostoevsky by Joseph Frank
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Memoirs from the House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Jessie Coulson
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Dostoevsky: Reminiscences by Anna Dostoevsky
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - The Master of Petersburg: A Novel by J M Coetzee
  • The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books - Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books, recommended by Alex Christofi

His father had clawed his way up into the minor aristocracy, but Fyodor Dostoevsky chose to live the life of an impecunious author. He was sentenced to death, but his execution was stayed and he spent years in a Siberian labour camp instead. His books are about human compassion, but he was a difficult man who had trouble with his own personal relationships. Alex Christofi, author of a brilliant new biography of Dostoevsky, one of Russia’s greatest novelists, recommends five books to learn more about the man and his work—including the novel of which Tolstoy said he ‘didn’t know a better book in all our literature’.

  • The Best Iris Murdoch Books - The Bell by Iris Murdoch
  • The Best Iris Murdoch Books - The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
  • The Best Iris Murdoch Books - A Word Child by Iris Murdoch
  • The Best Iris Murdoch Books - Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on Philosophy and Literature by Iris Murdoch
  • The Best Iris Murdoch Books - The Philosopher's Pupil by Iris Murdoch

The Best Iris Murdoch Books, recommended by Miles Leeson

Iris Murdoch gained fame as a novelist, a philosopher and, perhaps most prominently of all, for her public and rapid decline (and posthumous immortalization by her husband John Bayley) after an early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. But now, a hundred years on from her birth, the attention is returning back to her work: Miles Leeson, Director of the Iris Murdoch Centre at the University of Chichester, recommends what books to read from her canon of 27 novels.

  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - Letters to a Young Painter by Rainer Maria Rilke
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - The Death and Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence by Alice James
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - Letters to Felice by Franz Kafka
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - Letters: 1925-1975 by Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger
  • The Best Literary Letter Collections - Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence by Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell

The Best Literary Letter Collections, recommended by Lucas Zwirner

The next release in the ekphrasis series from David Zwirner Books is Oscar Wilde’s The Critic as Artist, including an introduction by Michael Bracewell and a colour portrait of Wilde by Marlene Dumas. Head of Content Lucas Zwirner talks to Five Books about the inspiration he’s drawn from literary letters and how they inform the editorial direction of the publishing house.