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Ranging from the Romantics of the early nineteenth century to works of contemporary fiction, it includes Hoffmann's hallucinatory portrait of terror and insanity 'The Sandman'; Chamisso's influential black masterpiece 'Peter Schlemiel', where a man barters his own shadow; Kafka's chilling, disturbing satire 'In the Penal Colony'; the Dadaist surrealism of Kurt Schwitters' 'The Onion'; and Bachmann's modern fairy tale 'The Secrets of the Princess of Kagran'. Macabre, dreamlike and expressing deep unconscious fears, these stories are also spiked with unsettling humour, showing stylistic daring as well as giving insight into the darkest recesses of the human condition.  Peter Wortsman's powerful translations are accompanied by brief overviews of the lives of each author, and an introduction discussing the notion of 'angst' and the stories' place in the context of German history.  Translated, selected and edited with an introduction by Peter Wortsman","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50042278674705,"sku":"GOR005064698","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50711072932113,"sku":"GOR008173798","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52110634680593,"sku":"NGR9780141198804","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53136021618961,"sku":"GOR006176827","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53445530943761,"sku":"CIN014119880XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/014119880X.jpg?v=1750737648"},{"product_id":"ghost-dance-in-berlin-book-peter-wortsman-9781609520786","title":"Ghost Dance in Berlin","description":"Every great city is a restless work in progress, but nowhere is the urban impulse more in flux than in Berlin, that sprawling metropolis located on the fault line of history. A short-lived fever-dream of modernity in the Roaring Twenties, redubbed Germania and primped up into the megalomaniac fantasy of a Thousand-Year Reichstadt in the Thirties, reduced in 1945 to a divided rubble heap, subsequently revived in a schizoid state of post-World War II duality, and reunited in 1989 when the wall came tumbling down -- Berlin has since been reborn yet again as the hipster hub of the 21st century. This book is a hopscotch tour in time and space.  Part memoir, part travelogue, Ghost Dance in Berlin is an unlikely declaration of love, as much to a place as to a state of mind, by the American-born son of German-speaking Jewish refugees. Peter Wortsman imagines the parallel celebratory haunting of two sets of ghosts, those of the exiled erstwhile owners, a Jewish banker and his family, and those of the Fuhrer's Minister of Finance and his entourage, who took over title, while in another villa across the lake another gaggle of ghosts is busy planning the Final Solution.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50175950455057,"sku":"CIN1609520785G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52672214860049,"sku":"NLS9781609520786","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53004253430033,"sku":"CIN1609520785VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1609520785.jpg?v=1751310021"},{"product_id":"travel-pictures-book-peter-wortsman-9780979333033","title":"Travel Pictures","description":"One of Germany's most illustrious poets, Heinrich Heine is also celebrated for his idiosyncratic and vibrant prose. Heine's lyrical, humorous, and revealing vision in these four accounts of his voyages in Italy and Germany raises Travel Pictures into the transcendent realm of great journey literature. Over one hundred poems pepper the text.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50185738092817,"sku":"CIN0979333032G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51735987552529,"sku":"CIN0979333032VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52932782752017,"sku":"GOR014659522","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52959853969681,"sku":"GOR010305892","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0979333032.jpg?v=1750749235"},{"product_id":"modern-way-to-die-small-stories-and-microtales-book-peter-wortsman-9780880641456","title":"A Modern Way to Die; Small Stories and Microtales","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50365042360593,"sku":"CIN0880641452G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0880641452.jpg?v=1750787953"},{"product_id":"cold-earth-wanderers-book-peter-wortsman-9781938349171","title":"Cold Earth Wanderers","description":"A science fiction novel set in a completely built up world where vertical values are prized while all horizontal tendencies are suspect. An illicit underground group is hoping to break through to the elusive outside but special agents of the IVT (Institute for Vertical Thinking) are hot on the trail.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51054964375825,"sku":"NIN9781938349171","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52679532118289,"sku":"NLS9781938349171","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1938349172.jpg?v=1751282136"},{"product_id":"footprints-in-wet-cement-book-peter-wortsman-9781938349591","title":"Footprints in Wet Cement","description":"Fiction. These FOTPRINTS IN WET CEMENT are just that: stories--some experienced, some homespun, some dredged from the fertile detritus of dreams; impressions gathered and ruminations fermented over the past decade or so--the fleeting imprint of a life left to harden in the ephemeral mold of language. Straddling the tenuous borderline between the narrative and the poetic, they are all the product of a pressed aesthetic. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In these delicious short (often very short) stories, Peter Wortsman crosses Kafkaesque absurdity with Chekhovian realism, fairy-tale and fable with everyday journal entry. A master of the telling detail, Wortsman is one of those rare writers upon whom nothing, as Henry James put it, is ever lost. The slightest incident can be seen to contain magic, an absurd TV commercial can prompt the most erotic of fantasies: it's all in a day's (or rather a night's) work and usually momentary. FOTPRINTS IN WET CEMENT is a book to be kept on the bedside table: open anywhere at any time and you will be completely captivated.--Marjorie Perloff","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51055036367121,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51055038857489,"sku":"NIN9781938349591","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52402000068881,"sku":"NLS9781938349591","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1938349598.jpg?v=1751028961"},{"product_id":"odd-birds-fat-cats-an-urban-bestiary-book-peter-wortsman-9781885983596","title":"Odd Birds \u0026 Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary)","description":"ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARD CATEGORY FINALIST  Ravens in Berlin . . . Parakeets in Brooklyn . . . Chickens in Tel Aviv . . . Spiders in Cognac. City creatures spark the imagination and intellect in words and art by this father-daughter team.     Odd Birds \u0026amp; Fat Cats (An Urban Bestiary) is an illustrated collection of brief observations on city creatures. Inspired by the tradition of the medieval bestiary, bestiarum vocabulum, a 12th-century bestselling genre that chronicled animals and beings both real and fantastical, the book features pithy impressions of birds and animals that delight, confound, and edify, written by Peter Wortsman, coupled with detailed naturalist artwork by his daughter, Aurélie Bernard Wortsman.     Featured creatures include:       Pigeons: “When, finally, it takes flight . . . this asphalt-colored bird is like a piece of the pavement which by some fluke of gravity broke loose and is foolishly falling upward by mistake.\"           Seagulls: “Fallen splinters of eternity, they hang overhead with the equanimity and mild disdain of angels in a medieval altarpiece, and unlike pigeons, refuse any direct contact with man.\"    Ants: “Micro-managers in three-piece bodies, ants parody human antics to a tee. Or is it the other way around?\"              Dust mites: “Every time you scratch yourself or comb your hair, you are feeding the tiny intruders with the detritus of self.\"      With four-color images throughout, printed in a beautiful hardbound edition, this one-of-a-kind volume will please the discerning animal lover, traveler, art lover, iconoclast, and literati on your gift list—and, of course, also you!","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51055068807441,"sku":"NIN9781885983596","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51216343269649,"sku":"NGR9781885983596","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52627211911441,"sku":"NLS9781885983596","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53238085812497,"sku":"GOR014821571","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/188598359X.jpg?v=1751250091"},{"product_id":"telegrams-of-the-soul-book-peter-wortsman-9780974968087","title":"Telegrams Of The Soul","description":"'Peter Altenberg is a genius of nullifications, a singular idealist who discovers the splendors of this world like cigarette butts in the ashtrays of coffeehouses.'- Franz Kafka","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51421096214801,"sku":"GOR006794438","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51423087198481,"sku":"CIN0974968080G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51490879963409,"sku":"GOR014301879","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51606453485841,"sku":"GOR014343840","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0974968080.jpg?v=1751424980"},{"product_id":"modern-way-to-die-book-peter-wortsman-9781949790153","title":"A Modern Way to Die","description":"Fiction. First published in 1991, and now issued in a second edition, comprising short short fictions most written in the Eighties, A MODERN WAY TO DIE by Peter Wortsman, predates the in-vogue term flash fiction, but it's surely one of the cornerstones of the tradition, (according to short-form pioneer Peter Cherches). As Wortsman notes in the book's original foreword, these texts appeared in the absence of big things to say. guided only by the precarious optimism of the pen. Conceived as a disjointed compendium of narrative treatments of life's common denominator, death, the book's spare hit and run aesthetic gravitates from enhanced neon hyperrealist reportage to nightmare parable to plummet the surreal substrata of the American Dream.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52148759724305,"sku":"NLS9781949790153","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53493886288145,"sku":"NIN9781949790153","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781949790153.jpg?v=1757604553"},{"product_id":"borrowed-words-book-peter-wortsman-9781947240575","title":"Borrowed Words","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52406871032081,"sku":"NLS9781947240575","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52757361033489,"sku":"NIN9781947240575","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781947240575.jpg?v=1758770651"},{"product_id":"driftwood-at-the-river-s-edge-book-peter-wortsman-9781947240896","title":"Driftwood at the River's Edge","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52450828484881,"sku":"NLS9781947240896","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52756694696209,"sku":"NIN9781947240896","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781947240896.jpg?v=1759359773"},{"product_id":"epiphany-of-a-middle-aged-pilgrim-book-peter-wortsman-9781949790474","title":"Epiphany of a Middle-Aged Pilgrim","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePeter Wortsman, best known for his prose fiction and plays, takes stock of life in late middle age.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the short personal essays that comprise Epiphany of a Middle-Aged Pilgrim, Essays in lieu of a Memoir, author Peter Wortsman, best known for his original prose fiction and stage plays, and his translations from the German, follows in the footsteps of French essayist Michel de Montaigne, taking stock of life in middle age. His perspectives, including childhood fear, chronic insomnia, ironing a shirt, getting a haircut, having a skin cancer removed, travel at home and abroad, a consciousness of getting older, et al, and concluding with a reflection of life in lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, make for a rich mosaic of memories meant to spur readers to seek out their own epiphanies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLiterary Nonfiction. Memoir.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52485631475985,"sku":"NLS9781949790474","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52757532737809,"sku":"NIN9781949790474","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781949790474.jpg?v=1759857981"},{"product_id":"laboratory-of-time-book-peter-wortsman-9781962316057","title":"The Laboratory of Time","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52657786093841,"sku":"NLS9781962316057","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52744933212433,"sku":"NIN9781962316057","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781962316057.jpg?v=1762230415"},{"product_id":"what-we-leave-behind-book-peter-wortsman-9781962316217","title":"What We Leave Behind","description":"In What We Leave Behind, Peter Wortsman's fourth book of cut-ups, he lets the words run wild, in some cases, as in French poet Guillaume Apollinaire's Calligrames (1918), letting words break ranks and dance on the page; in other cases, coupling word and image; and finally, succumbing to the lure of the visual in collages in which words play a subordinate role or disappear altogether. If, as this book's first poem maintains, \"we know each other from what we leave behind,\" Wortsman writes, \"I will hope these cut-up words and images bestir a smile or two on the face of the reader and perhaps a knowing nod.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52660012482833,"sku":"NLS9781962316217","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53037129761041,"sku":"NIN9781962316217","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781962316217.jpg?v=1762340567"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-peter-wortsman.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}