Happy Holidays and Bye bye 2025!

Dear all,

we hope you’re well!

this year is coming to an end and we are incredibly grateful for it. We were able to share lots of book reviews and a few interviews and essays with you on pocolit.com (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), to record the second season of our (German language) podcast (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), which was fun, and to host several events in Berlin and Potsdam, which allowed us to meet some of you in person. Thank you for following and supporting poco.lit. (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) It means the world to us!

In this newsletter edition, we share some news, tell you a little bit about our favorite books of 2025 and what we plan to read first next year. 

News

We finally moved our newsletter from Mailchimp to Steady. One decisive reason behind this is to grow more independent from US platforms. (Yes, we still use Instagram (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) and LinkedIn (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), but one step at a time…) We’re slowly getting to know this new (to us) newsletter editor and will see where this journey will take us.

We hope this is a change that you’re happy with! We'd love to hear from you, if you want to give us feedback. You can reach us at info@pocolit.com (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).

Favorite books of 2025

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Here are the three novels that we loved the most in 2025:

📚Open Water (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) by Caleb Azumah Nelson

probably the most touching and authentic love story we have read in a long time.

📚Trespasse by Louise Kennedy (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) (Übertretung in German translation by Claudia Glenewinkel and Hans-Christian Oeser)

set in 1975 during the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, where the lives of the opposing sides interweave with each other in their day-to-day existence.

📚Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) (Der brennende Garten in German translation by Sophie Zeitz):

an intimate and unforgettable story of a country and a family coming undone. It’s a novel about the early years of the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Reading plans for early 2026

Here are the 3 novels that we plan to read first in 2026, two of them brand new publications and one from 2022:

📚Weltenwechsel by Marion Kraft (pub date: Jan. 29, Orlanda Verlag)

Julia, daughter of a white German woman and a Black US-American GI, is born shortly after World War II. She grows up at her grandmother’s and, trying to find her place in this world, she has to deal with many adversaties. This novel promises to create a new picture of the turbulent post-war period in West Germany.

📚Kekeli by Jessica Mawuena Lawson (pub date: Feb. 10, Verbrecher Verlag)

Set in a small town in southern Germany, the text is supposed to be a touching novel about an Afro-German family, their daughter Kekeli and their Togolese relatives, but also an immensely beautiful and tender love story. Looking forward to it!

📚The Colony by Audrey Magee (Die Kolonie in German translation by Nicole Seifert)

The novel’s overall subject is, as the title implies, colonisation – and Magee is said to tease out its personal, cultural and political ramifications through a small island colony off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland.

We hope that we can share our reviews of the first two novels in February with you - in time for Black History Month.

Thanks for reading, and for your support!

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Happy holidays and all the best for 2026,
the poco.lit. team

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