Every December, someone from the Cap Times asks UW faculty members about their books of the year. This year, I recommended two books. Only one made it into the article, so here is what I sent them.
My favorite book this year is not out in English yet (but it will be soon): Echtzeitalter (Real Time Age) by Tonio Schachinger, a young Austrian author, is a coming-of-age story set in contemporary Vienna. We follow Till, a student at an elite high school that seems to come straight out of the 1910s. Till has to endure an authoritarian teacher who compensates for his own sense of not belonging with running his classroom on threats and abuse. Nobody knows that in his free time Till is an internationally successful video gamer, admired for his boldness and risk-taking. Till is an astute observer of both of these worlds, but he mostly keeps his thoughts to himself. Until he falls in love. Until COVID hits. You could call this book the European companion piece to last year’s US bestseller Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Another book I recommend is Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter, by journalist John Hendrickson. As a linguist, I am always drawn towards books that examine the role of language in making us who we are. In Life on Delay, Hendrickson shares what it was like for him to grow up with a stutter – the dread of meeting new people, the fear of phone calls, the avoidance of words that are known to cause blocks, the bodily tics that may accompany the stutter, the constant feeling of shame and failure. The book is not just a memoir. Hendrickson weaves in interviews with researchers, therapists, friends, and fellow stutterers. Some wish for the ‘magic pill’ that will relieve them of this neurological condition, others, like Hendrickson, have accepted that the stutter is part of who they are. The book is written so assuredly that it is easy to forget that its author is a person who regularly has to put up with other people finishing his sentences for him. This is a book especially suited to be listened to as an audiobook. The fluent narration in someone else’s voice is a constant reminder of our expectation that speaking comes easily to everyone.
I ‘read’ both books as audiobooks and the narration added a beautiful extra layer in both cases. Echtzeitalter is read by Austrian actor Johannes Nussbaum and the Austrian accent underlines that for this book time and location matter. Life on Delay is read by American actor George Newbern, and, well, the passage above already states why I think this book is a great audiobook choice.