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What Germans Are Reading

the-american-interest.com

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Re: What Germans Are Reading

#31

Post by tatami »

thecleaner wrote: post #22
WA wrote: post #5

There has been at least one book about how "Germany/Germans are getting dumber", "The Big Crash is Coming" or something similar on the Spiegel Bestseller list at all times. So far, the big crash didn't come yet. These books don't talk about a market correction or a financial crisis like in 2008, but a total economic crash, because "a finite world can't have unlimited growth", because "capitalism", because "climate ch…

I read somewhere that the German billionaire class controls 1T dollars. Why do people earn only 5k after tax ? There seem to be very little opportunities for investment in stock market. Real estate prices too seem insane.

You and we say "after tax", but actually it's after tax, health insurance, unemployment insurance, pension fund and few more peanuts.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#32

Post by s9w »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #12

As far as I know the Spiegel list, which has a lot of media and book shop presence does not count Amazon. The GfK in German has an exklusive deal with Amazon for data, and they do not deliver the Spiegel list data. The Spiegel list also uses an additional voting scheme among their journalists. I have found the Spiegel list a bit weird for years, it contains a lot of highly light reading or polemic stuff like that guy…

Also the Spiegel list removes books it doesn't like.

https://www.welt.de/kultur/article167043384/Spiegel-verteidi...

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#33

Post by tatami »

WA wrote: post #5

There has been at least one book about how "Germany/Germans are getting dumber", "The Big Crash is Coming" or something similar on the Spiegel Bestseller list at all times. So far, the big crash didn't come yet. These books don't talk about a market correction or a financial crisis like in 2008, but a total economic crash, because "a finite world can't have unlimited growth", because "capitalism", because "climate ch…

> According to [2], 23% of Germans own stocks (although I remember that this number used to be around 15% a few years ago)

I too had a lower number in memory (~11%), and the first result I looked up [1] showed 16%, sourced from [2].

[1]: https://orange.handelsblatt.com/artikel/62761 [2]: https://www.dai.de/files/dai_usercontent/dokumente/studien/2...

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#34

Post by mxfh »

There are books and there are objects to back up your established beliefs in exchange for some cash without exposing you to any self-critical thoughts.

Of course that is a long etablished genre, but lately it gets a bit too obvious regarding any socio-political sentiment, relationship, diet or parenting style[1].

Germany's book and magazine market is also drifting into that category a lot, as basic information gathering shits more and more towards "free" online sources.

[1] as stated in the OP, Winterhoff is contrarian to most current research and just peddles his own theories for some decades now, as well as being a well booked pundit in talk shows.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#35

Post by petre »

thecleaner wrote: post #22
WA wrote: post #5

There has been at least one book about how "Germany/Germans are getting dumber", "The Big Crash is Coming" or something similar on the Spiegel Bestseller list at all times. So far, the big crash didn't come yet. These books don't talk about a market correction or a financial crisis like in 2008, but a total economic crash, because "a finite world can't have unlimited growth", because "capitalism", because "climate ch…

I read somewhere that the German billionaire class controls 1T dollars. Why do people earn only 5k after tax ? There seem to be very little opportunities for investment in stock market. Real estate prices too seem insane.

Real estate prices are insane probably partly due to ECB negative interest rates which make buying on credit very attractive. I read an article on HN last week about zero interest 20y loans in Denmark. The DKK is pegged to the Euro.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20647651

Add to that all time lows (zero and below) for German bond yields which has bleak consequences for long time savers (future pensioners). Germany is a nation of savers.

Swiss 10y bonds are at -1%.

We are living in interesting times.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#36

Post by chalst »

bhaak wrote: post #8
maze-le wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This trope never gets old it seems... >> “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyranniz…

It also gets never old to tell that this quote is most likely not from Socrates. But you know that already, don't you? What we know from Socrates, this doesn't sound like something he would have said. Although, having done no writings of his own, we have two main sources for his life. But then again, Plato often put his own words into Socrates' mouth and this is something Plato could have said. :-)

Cf. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehave/

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#37

Post by ekianjo »

My German is rusty but:

> Toleranz: Einfach Schwer (Tolerance Isn’t Easy)

is an improper translation. That's "Tolerance: Simply Difficult" and that translates fine in English too since you can keep the same style while being accurate.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#38

Post by mxfh »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #12

As far as I know the Spiegel list, which has a lot of media and book shop presence does not count Amazon. The GfK in German has an exklusive deal with Amazon for data, and they do not deliver the Spiegel list data. The Spiegel list also uses an additional voting scheme among their journalists. I have found the Spiegel list a bit weird for years, it contains a lot of highly light reading or polemic stuff like that guy…

There is not a single authorative list of bestsellers. Also note that most of those list are supposed to be marketing tools, that can't afford to be too boring or predictable, not a reflections of "raw" sales data.

A list of German Language Bestseller lists: https://www.boersenverein.de/de/158283

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#39

Post by martin_a »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #12

As far as I know the Spiegel list, which has a lot of media and book shop presence does not count Amazon. The GfK in German has an exklusive deal with Amazon for data, and they do not deliver the Spiegel list data. The Spiegel list also uses an additional voting scheme among their journalists. I have found the Spiegel list a bit weird for years, it contains a lot of highly light reading or polemic stuff like that guy…

I think the Spiegel list also does not count total sales but relative sales over a time span, so you can become a "best seller author" with rather low sales numbers, when everybody has sold only few books. Strange system.

Re: What Germans Are Reading

#40

Post by ekianjo »

Besides the obvious sampling issue (The Spiegel as a reference), not sure there anything interesting in that list, because it's a reflection of:

- What is published in the German language (much smaller than in the English corpus)

- What is published at all (choices from local publishers)

- What matches the political/media agenda of the day/year: people are well known to read about the topics that is being talked about thru the numerous media channels they consume.

What is published and what sells is not always a reflection of the actual interests of the population at large - an easy proof is to show that it changes drastically from one year to another, akin to fashion more than anything else.

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