Ms von Lange, who has been dubbed literature's answer to the Spice Girls, saves her novel from sounding too condescending and portentous by injecting a heavy element of comedy into a book intended to upset the grown-ups.

ECONOMIST: Post-wall German fiction

Barash muses, at the end of his book, on the fact that our minds have a stubborn fondness for simple-sounding explanations that may be false.

NEWYORKER: It Ain��t Necessarily So