New Gert Hofmann paperback

It still hasn't been published in the UK, but later this month New Directions is already issuing a paperback of Gert Hofmann's sublime Lichtenberg & the Little Flower Girl. If - like at least one journalist - you thought Kehlmann's Measuring the World was an outbreak of Germanic lightness and storytelling, then this should help open new literary vistas. As the translator says: It's probably the zaniest, gloomiest, and funniest thing you've read in a long time, if not ever. Do yourself and literature in general a favour and read it.