For this year’s culture week, PADERBORN2READ—The English Book Club took a full tour of Howl’s moving castle by discussing Diana Wynne Jones’s 1986 children’s novel and Hayao Miyazaki’s 2004 anime adaptation by the same title. Here are some impressions from an afternoon filled with magical moments and in-depth discussions of […]
Keyword: Novel
30 posts
PADERBORN2READ organizes an afternoon all about Howl’s Moving Castle as a contribution to Paderborn University’s Culture Week. May 28, 2026 2.00–6.00 p.m. J3.213 Diana Wynne Jones’s 1986 children’s novel Howl’s Moving Castle is celebrating its 40-year anniversary. While being a beloved classic to some, it is still a somewhat lesser-known […]
Our reading list for summer term 2026 has been completed and excites us with a mix of fiction and non-fiction, a range from short stories to full-length novels, and a Culture Week special with a novel and film double feature. April 23, 2026: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle […]
Our reading list for winter term 2025/2026 has been completed and promises haunted and weird, tranquil and soothing, as well as decade-spanning stories. October 23, 2025—Feminist sci-fi special: The Female Man by Joanna Russ & Soft Science by Franny Choi Four women living in parallel worlds, each with a different […]
PADERBORN2READ—The English Book Club organizes an afternoon on “dystopia and reality”, based on the modern classic The Hunger Games, as a contribution to Paderborn University’s Culture Week. June 12, 2025 2.00–7.00 p.m. J4.219 & J4.319 Young adult dystopias are becoming modern classics—in times of dystopian fiction turning into dystopian reality. […]
Our reading list for summer term 2025 has been completed and promises psychopathic and dystopian stories, experimental reading experiences, feminist science fiction as well as some classic fantasy. May 8, 2025: Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess. She’ll […]
With more than five million copies sold, Flowers for Algernon is the beloved, classic story of a mentally disabled man whose experimental quest for intelligence mirrors that of Algernon, an extraordinary lab mouse. In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. […]
Our reading list for winter term 2024/2025 has been completed and promises spooky and weird, heart-breaking and heart-warming stories. November 24, 2024—post-Halloween special: Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh If you eat the bread, you’ll die, he said. The statement made no sense, but it filled me with an electric dread. […]
We discussed Timothy Schaffert’s The Titanic Survivors Book Club on June 13, 2024. This 2024 novel follows the curator of the RMS Titanic’s second-class library, who was left stranded at the docks when the catastrophic maiden voyage began. He soon receives an invitation to a secret society of Titanic survivors. […]
We discussed Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden as part of our Secret garden party on May 23, 2024. This 1911 tale of Mary, Dickon, and Colin, the atmospheric Yorkshire Moors, and the titular locked-up garden has been a beloved classic of children’s literature for more than a century. PADERBORN2READ […]
written by PADERBORN2READ member Maty Parzival “‘Oh, Dickon! Dickon! Dickon!’ she said. ‘I’m so happy I can scarcely breathe!’” On a rainy Thursday, in the early hours of a January morning, a group of orphans arrived— Alright, no, actually, on a sunny afternoon where the wind was nice and the […]
We discussed John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids on May 16, 2024. This 1951 novel is sometimes considered the most famous catastrophe novel of the 20th century. When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth’s population blind, Bill Masen finds himself trapped in a London jammed with […]
PADERBORN2READ organizes an afternoon all about the literary and film classic The Secret Garden as a contribution to Paderborn University’s Reading Week. May 23, 2024 2.00–6.00 p.m. J4.319 & campus grounds The 1911 tale of Mary, Dickon, and Colin, the atmospheric Yorkshire Moors, and the titular locked-up garden has been […]
Our book choices for summer term 2024 have been made and we are looking forward to carnivorous plants and lovely flowers, Titanic survivors and Neanderthal recreations, and a mixture of classics and contemporaries. We kick things off on May 16, 2024 with some classic science-fiction: The Day of the Triffids […]
We discussed Alison McGhee’s What I Leave Behind and Lize Meddings’s The Sad Ghost Club I on March 14, 2024. McGhee’s 2019 YA novel tells the story of sixteen-year-old Will, who tries to cope with the misery of his father’s suicide by doing some good in the world and to […]
We discussed Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House on February 8, 2024. Set on the prestigious Yale campus, this 2019 fantasy novel introduces us to an unlikely Yale freshman: Galaxy “Alex” Stern was raised by a hippie mother, dropped out of school, worked shady odd jobs, and solely survived an unsolved multiple […]
We discussed Rebecca F. Kuang’s Yellowface on January 11, 2024. This 2023 novel centers around authors June Hayward and Athena Liu. While June struggles to get her writing career going, Athena becomes a literary success story. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June acts on impulse: she steals not […]
We discussed Kiersten White’s Mister Magic on December 14, 2023. This 2023 novel follows the Circle of Friends, five former cast members of the 90s children’s programme “Mister Magic”, who survived a tragic accident that ended the show’s production. They have spent their lives looking for the special sense of […]