Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample.

That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lange Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Slammin’ Poetry website and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week. Word lovers who don’t want to miss a trick can subscribe to the Literary List, a monthly roundup of events, by writing to fiona_mclellan@yahoo.com.

Bookshops with Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cave-like feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days through 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesebühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of St. Gaudy Cafe, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land 

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the Internationales Literatur Fest and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample.

That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land 

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample.

That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

 

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

 

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land 

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample.

That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing.

The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

 

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

 

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land 

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample. That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website  and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land 

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample. That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website  and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit in Berlin? Marian Ryan profiles the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample. That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website  and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit in Berlin? Marian Ryan profiles the best of the city’s regular shindigs, salons and slams…

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample. That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website  and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country, Riemannstraße 7, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69401160, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. To read an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books, Schönleinstraße 31, 10967 Berlin, T: 030 6273 5111, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space, Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2, 10178 Berlin, T: 030 20215821, Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s, Wörther Straße 27, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 81798333, Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room, Potsdamerstraße 98, 10785 Berlin, T: 030 69549695, Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland, Bergmannstraße 25, 10961 Berlin, T: 030 69505117, Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung, Friesenstraaße 27, 10965 Berlin, T: 030 6915834 Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

Café Hilde, Metzer Straße 22, 10405 Berlin, T: 030 40504172, Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar, Schönhauser Allee 157, 10435 Berlin, T: 030 93028597, Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

Kaffee Burger

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

Kaffee Burger, Torstraße 58-60, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28046495, Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

King Kong Klub

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

King Kong Klub, Brunnenstraaße 173, 10119 Berlin, T: 030 28598538, Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club. To read a full profile of Cafe Hilde, click here.

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudy Straße 1, 10437 Berlin, T: 030 92107446, Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press, Büro BDP, Emserstrasse 43, 12051 Berlin, Open: During exhibitions

No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

www.no-mans-land.org

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year. To read an interview with Sand Journal, click here.

SAND Journal

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

 

 

Looking for lit in Berlin? Marian Ryan profiles the best of the city’s regular shindigs, schmoozes and slams.

For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample. That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary bent, from the Internationales Literatur Fest to the newly launched Lang Nacht der Bibliotheken. And of course, Berlin has a vital and diverse poetry scene, from slams to quiet café evenings.

The slam and Lesebühnen (reading-stages) scene, mostly in German, welcomes English performers. The Poetry Slammin’ website  and MySlam.net list slams from well-known events like ManoSlam! to niche obscurities and one-offs. English-language poetry mixed with music, comedy or performance art is offered up at regular gigs like BeatStreet and Poetic Groove.

Shut Up and Speak! mixes German, English and German sign language and features lesbian and trans performers, deaf and hearing. The annual Anti-Slam, long run by gadabout poet and Glastonbury performer Paula Varjack, invites poets to write and recite their very worst. And several venues host regular open mic nights featuring poetry mixed with comedy and music in a mix of languages, like Lagari in Kreuzkölln and Max Fish in Mitte.

When it comes to literary happenings a clear East-West split persists, with events in western districts often centered around libraries, such as the stellar Ingeborg-Drewitz-Bibliothek in Steglitz. In the east, events for the bookish can be found at cafés, bars, small stages and bookshops just about any night of the week.

Bookshops w/ Events 

Another Country

Come here on a Friday evening and you may feel you’ve entered a Tennessee Williams play set in The Old Curiosity Shop, with the requisite bickering and drama, layers of dust and ash and taxidermied birds. But appearances can deceive: this is probably Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salon for the English-speaking crowd. A family-style dinner is on offer among the cellar stacks and on the ground floor regulars settle in the back room as if it’s their local boîte (it is). Browse the shelves and debate whether Murakami is overhyped, discourse on the War Poets, or eavesdrop on discussions on Pynchon and Ulysses. Responding to demand, the shop will again host writing groups in 2012. For a full profile of this bookshop, click here.

Another Country
Riemannstraße 7
10961 Berlin
T: 030 69401160
Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-4pm Sat.

Dialogue Books

Dialogue offers a range of events for literary lovers, both in the snug Gräfekiez shop and at the decorous Library lounge at Soho House on Torstraße. Transplanted London bookseller and charmer Sharmaine Lovegrove curates an exceptional mix of intimate readings, interviews and salons where authors and readers meet and share ideas. The intelligent programming combines Berlin-centric fiction and cultural history with broader explorations of world fiction and contemporary issues such as the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the impact of the Internet on the culture industries. Dialogue also offers a monthly reading group. For an interview with Dialogue/Sharmaine Lovegrove, click here.

Dialogue Books
Schönleinstraße 31
10967 Berlin
T: 030 6273 5111
Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Sat.

Gestalten Space

This publisher-operated gallery and bookshop tucked away in Sophie-Gips-Höfe holds regular publication parties and presentations. The aesthetic focus attracts a young international, mostly black-clad crowd of students and greybeards with funky glasses who mingle throughout the two rooms over beer and wine. Jazz provides the soundtrack. The smaller room is used for changing exhibitions while beautifully produced books in the fields of art, architecture, typography and graphic design are on displayed in the main room. Recent soirées have celebrated the best self-published photography books and explored the intersections of curating and design. Gestalten Space also offers graphic design and typography workshops.

Gestalten Space
Sophie-Gips-Höfe,
Sophienstraße 2
10178 Berlin
T: 030 20215821
Open: 12pm–7pm Sun–Mon and Wed-Fri; 10am–7pm Sat.

Saint George’s

This much-loved English bookshop in the near-Parisian Kollwitzkiez is home to literary get-togethers about twice a month, when the space is converted to a book-lined lounge with the counter doubling as a bar. The Speak Easy is a regular monthly happening, with anyone welcome to bring along a favourite text to share out loud—or just kick back and listen to a selection of poetry and prose chosen and read by fellow language lovers. Saint George’s also hosts book launches and readings with local writers and collaborates on events with local publishers.

St George’s
Wörther Straße 27
10405 Berlin
T: 030 81798333
Open: 11am-8pm Mon-Fri; 11am-7pm Sat.

Reading Room

In summer 2011, the proprietors of the overstuffed Scheunenviertal magazine shop Do You Read Me?! opened this alluring outpost in the emerging Potsdamer Straße gallery district in Tiergarten. The luminous, uncluttered space offers passersby a quiet spot to pause and reflect. A side room displays select art, design and cultural journals as well as books, but the most unusual treat is the stock of Reading Lists, favorite books and journals recommended by a mix of twenty-six creative personalities in the fields of art, design and culture. The Reading Room hosts lectures, exhibitions and book launches as well as issue launches for diverse but uniformly gorgeous publications such as the UK-based art and literature journal The White Review and the dual-text urban-focus periodical Ein Magazine über Orte.

Reading Room
Potsdamerstraße 98
10785 Berlin
T: 030 69549695
Open: 12pm–6pm Thurs-Sat.

Otherland and Hammett

Genre fans can draw up a seat and enjoy a glass of wine under the gaze of the inflatable dragons gracing the shelves in the backroom of Otherland, named for Tad Williams’s cyberpunk fantasy series. These two shops, just around the corner from each other, collaborate on events: crime and mystery authors, a mainstay of Hammett’s, sometimes read at the larger space at the sci-fi/fantasy-focused Otherland. Both keep a good stock of English books and regularly host readings in English. Recent readers include Stephen King spawn Joe Hill and Tad Williams himself.

Otherland
Bergmannstraße 25
10961 Berlin
T: 030 69505117
Open: 11am-7pm Mon-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat.

Hammett Krimibuchhandlung
Friesenstraaße 27
10965 Berlin
T: 030 6915834
Open: 10am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Sat.

Cafés, Salons & Literary Dive Bars

Café Hilde

Shabby elegance rules the day at this Irish-owned spot in Prenzlauer Berg: mismatched furniture, comfy couches, wall sconces, blazing candelabra and framed photos of sundry famous Hildes set the scene. Café Hilde offers a book trade system: leave one and take one of many pre-owned English and German books lining the shelves and windowsills. The café hosts events about twice a week, serving as a venue for locally produced ex-pat evenings of poetry and prose, as well as the Orson Welles Appreciation Society’s season of Welles’s radio plays. When the Literature Fest rolls into town in September, Hilde often serves as an outpost for readings by Irish authors and playwrights. In addition to hosting the Dialogue Books reading club each month, the café provides a welcoming meeting spot for a number of local creative groups.

 

Café Hilde

Metzer Straße 22

10405 Berlin

T: 030 40504172

Open: 9am-10pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-10pm Sat-Sun.

 

Joe’s Bar

This proud dive kitted out with disco ball and red lampshades is home to open mic night every Tuesday, mixing comedy with music and poetry. In fact, anyone who fancies a go is welcome: singers, dancers, strummers, strippers, slammers or storytellers. Those brave enough to stand up get a free beer on the house. Joe’s also hosts slams as well as editions of the established BeatStreet series combining music and intense spoken-word poetry.

Joe’s Bar

Schönhauser Allee 157

10435 Berlin

T: 030 93028597

Open: 8pm-4am Sun-Wed, 8pm-6am Thurs-Sat.

 

 

Kaffee Burger

 

With its cracked leather banquettes, rickety wooden bar, and yellowed walls, this intimate spot has a primal, cavelike feel. Owned by the Burger family from Weimar days though 1979, when it was closed by GDR authorities, the bar has a long tradition as a meeting place for journalists, artists, and intellectuals. Under new ownership but little altered, Kaffee Burger reopened in 1999 and has served as a venue for poetry readings, slams, and Lesenbühnen ever since. Reformbühne Heim & Welt, which calls itself the world’s oldest Lesenbühne, takes place here about twice a month. Other regular events include the Prosa v. Lyrik Slam, pitting stories against poems, and Peace Love and Poetry, a satirical send-up of the modern poetry slam. Kaffee Burger also hosts book premieres and has been home to the annual English-language poetry festival Poetry Hearings. When the spoken-word events wind up for the evening, you can stop in at Kaffee Burger’s compact adjacent dance floor, complete with mirror ball—and twice a month it’s disco Russian-style.

 

Kaffee Burger

Torstraße 58-60

10119 Berlin

T: 030 28046495

Open: Daily from 9 pm; earlier for spoken-word events

 

King Kong Klub

 

With its leopard-mosaic bar and skyscraper frescoes, the urban-jungle wasteland that is the King Kong Klub puts on poetry slams and poetry-themed events a few times a month. Sink into the sofas and judge the slammers going head to head in Couch Poetos or the King Kong Slam, or toss back a few while taking in the musical and lyrical stylings of Poetic Groove. When the poets are undone, get ready to dance.

 

King Kong Klub

Brunnenstraaße 173

10119 Berlin

T: 030 28598538

Open: daily 10pm-late; 9pm for some shows

 

 

St. Gaudy Café

This bright and friendly spot puts on lots of events in its B’hind Room, including the monthly Rage into the Night evening, which spotlights verse and storytelling in English or German by talented Berliners, be they new in town or established habitués such as award-winning slam champion MC Jabber and former Poetry Hearings organiser and Bordercrossing co-editor Alistair Noon. The café also hosts regular language-exchange evenings (German-French and German-English) and a dual-language book club.

St. Gaudy Café

Gaudy Straße 1

10437 Berlin

T: 030 92107446

Open: 8am-8pm or later Mon-Fri, 9am-7pm Sat-Sun.

 

Hot Off The Press

Broken Dimanche Press

The avant-garde international publishing house Broken Dimanche Press produces art and literary books and journals in bespoke editions and creative formats such as foldaway posters and poetry installations. They host book launches and special events at spaces such as Motto Berlin. BDP co-runs the Here! Here! There! reading series at Saint George’s bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg, incorporating Skype readings with writers based abroad. The editors also curate a series combining graphics, art, installation and poetry at Büro BDP in Neukölln, Exhibiting Literature, and participate in Berlin festivals like the international art book festival Miss Read at the Kunst Werke Institute of Contemporary Art.

Broken Dimanche Press

Büro BDP

Emserstrasse 43

12051 Berlin

Open: During exhibitions

 

No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land, an online journal featuring first-ever translations of new German poetry and fiction, runs events throughout the year for language nerds and literary magpies. On the first Tuesday of the month, the collective holds its Translation Lab at Max & Moritz on Oranienstraße, mulling over tricky problems in translating from the German. On the third Tuesday, it’s Übersetzerstudio, where the direction of translation is reversed. Once a year the tempo is ratcheted up and the pressure is on for Translation Idol, as translators compete to provide the best English version of a thorny piece of prose from the German. Creatively programmed readings round out the calendar, along with the yearly launch of the new issue, usually held toward year’s end among the sofas and stacks at Saint George’s bookshop in the Kollwitzkiez.

No Man’s Land

no-mans-land.org

 

SAND Journal

Picking up the baton after the folding of Bordercrossing, SAND has reinvigorated the literary journal for English readers in Berlin, publishing about 100 pages of literature, art and photography twice a year. SAND engages the literary landscape by collaborating with other creative groups and collectives, co-hosting events at the International Literature Festival and the Sofa Sessions at the Wohnzimmer Festival, as well as neighborhood gigs at spots like St. Gaudy Café, the King Kong Klub and Joe’s Bar. SAND staff ran their own debut Art & Literary Fair in 2011 at the Etsy Labs studio space, where they also offer six-week-long writing workshops about twice a year.

SAND journal

sandjournal.com