If, unlike me, you have a working television set right now and can pick up German channels, you could tune in to the latest effort to bring literature to the small screen on ZDF tonight.
Blatantly cashing in on Schlink's bestseller, the show is called "Die Vorleser" and features a new team: sexy but arrogant Ijoma Mangold from Die Zeit - touted as "young" and "wild" but looking good in a well-cut suit nevertheless - and Amelie Fried, an experienced presenter and writer who I don't actually know, but who looks very mumsy and should therefore appeal to the book-buying Brigitte-reading demographic.
ZDF had to rethink its literature programming after kicking out Elke Heidenreich for being rude about the channel. She now does her show on the lovely litcolony website.
The programme pledges to inject some debate into the "books on TV" format, and it seems the two presenters do get into a bit of banter over books on the show. Which is a slightly less authoritarian approach than the "presenter holds book up to camera and orders viewers to read it" scheme adopted in the past. It remains to be seen whether Ijoma and Amelie will become Germany's Richard and Judy though...
1 comment:
I watched it and it was pretty good (on ZDF Mediathek). Mangold knows his stuff and Fried comes across as your "average" reader that most in the audience can identify with. Together, they clicked. And to have Kaestner presented in the first show was a bonus.
BTW, I had never heard of Joey Goebel, which shows how out of touch I am with American writers.
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