Now in paperback, Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos is a dramatic love story that unfolds as the GDR implodes ― “an intimate account of obsessive, transgressive passion” (Claire Messud, Harper’s ) WINNER OF THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL TRANSLATION AWARD IN PROSE An epic storyteller with the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature, Jenny Erpenbeck has created an unforgettably compelling masterpiece with Kairos . The story of a romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s: the passionate yet difficult long-running affair of Katharina and Hans hits the rocks as a whole world―the socialist GDR―melts away. As the Times Literary Supplement writes: “The weight of history, the particular experiences of East and West, and the ways in which cultural and subjective memory shape individual identity has always been present in Erpenbeck’s work. She knows that no one is all bad, no state all rotten, and she masterfully captures the existential bewilderment of his period between states and ideologies.” In the opinion of her superbly gifted translator Michael Hofmann, Kairos is the great post-Unification novel.

Recommended on 1 episode:

Why Does My Mind Keep Thinking That?

I have had a meditation practice for about 15 years now. I started hoping it would calm me down, and it has. But it’s also made me more aware of the strangeness of my mind. Certain thoughts emerge seemingly out of nowhere. Many of them return again and again. Why? And what relationship should you have to your thoughts when you realize you’re not the one controlling them? Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist and also a Buddhist. He’s spent decades observing the mind through those two distinct traditions, and has written many books that helped build a bridge between them, from his 1995 landmark book, “Thoughts Without a Thinker,” to his latest work, “The Zen of Therapy.” So I thought it would be interesting to talk to him about what he’s learned about the mind after all these decades of observing it.

Books recommended:

• 📕  John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie
• 📘  Essays After Eighty by Donald Hall
• 📗  Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, Michael Hofmann

Mark Epstein July 11, 2025 3 books recommended

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