Short Stories in German: New Penguin Parallel Texts

I have given the addition a 3 star rating on the basis of content. I have the 1964 edition which I prefer as the stories are more to my literary taste and I would have read them in English. This current edition I found a bit dry and stodgy, perhaps highbrow is a better description: more graft than pleasure. Could be perhaps because the 1964 edition had an English editor and this edition a German editor. My literary tastes are more Raymond Chandler than Jane Austen.

It is a long, long time ago since I studied German, nor have I had the opportunity of speaking the language...but I found the book not downright easy, but not difficult either. The parallel definition is good.I am refreshing German mainly as a challenge - using it just like a crossword to stimulate my brain. I am treating the text as I was taught - studying the German concentrating on it , memorizing it as best I can then turning to the English and translating that. It does the trick. If I have a word I just can`t make head nor tail of, I look it up in a dictionary rather than look at the text. That way the word is explained in full. I don`t think it is too difficult for students - I did Buddenbrooks (Thomas Mann) this way - I first read the book in German when I was a student - years later I did it by parallel.. - I couldn`t put it down. Maybe it is better to read something like it, something you like -If this book is too challenging, don`t give up

I gave up reading this book because the level is upper-intermediate and the stories are quite boring.

This book is a collection of short stories in German with the fairly literal English translation on the other page. The main points of this are that you can get a 'dictionary definition' (it is not a complete description, it is often best in the long run to look up words that may not be exactly the same as the English) that does not require putting down the book and much more importantly you can analyze and compare the differences in the way the two languages prefer to communicate the information from the level of the particle (if you are good at grammar) to the sentence, the paragraph and the story as a whole. I feel this is the main strength of a parallel text which the 'quick look-up' only serves to augment.Normally Penguin Parallel texts feature quite dull texts (I should know, I have all of the new series in each available language and the 1st of the old Penguin Parallel series which believe it or not even had a now unavailable 'Soviet Stories') that are as a rule boring. However I found some of the stories in this text genuinely interesting; Lascia for instance features a humorous car journey with a rather crazy Romanian taxi driver around Sicily and the collection is capped off with two simple but involving stories about Communist East Germany. Not much occurs, but the description I found interesting. Personally I found the 48 page long story, which is only second after a truly bizarre first story "The Listener, or a Description of a Route with a Hidden Motive," 'Waiting for Guests' unbearably boring about an anxious woman interminably ruminating over her feelings about her divorce.Still, short of being immersed in oral conversation with Germans, reading is the next best thing and with a parallel translation to look over I find I absorb much more of the important structure of thinking (& grammar). This volume, as with written German in general, is difficult to run through having long sentences only being completed at the end, but it is worth it; especially after time spent investigating the roots of the German language, which then enables one to 'build' the German language yourself.

Good selection of stories. Inspired me to buy more German books.