About Christoph Gondrom

Christoph Gondrom grew up in Bayreuth, Germany. After graduating from university he moved to New York City where he works now at Random House, Inc.

March 25, 2012

Your Post-Hunger Games Dystopia: Welcome to Marie Lu’s Legend

Welcome to Marie Lu's young adult debut, Legend, a story that takes us into the ruins of Los Angeles, its former beauty a distant memory.

February 19, 2012

Experience an Epic Adventure in Stephen King’s The Talisman

When I look back at all the King books I’ve read -- and believe me, I’ve read many -- there is one moment, one scene, if you will, that most strongly stands out in my memory. It is a moment from The Talisman.

February 2, 2012

Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre: The Best of H.P. Lovecraft

"What accounts for the ongoing fascination with Lovecraft’s tales? How is it possible that his stories, although almost a century old, are still as gripping as any modern horror movie with high-tech sound and special effects? To say it with H.P. Lovecraft’s own words, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

January 31, 2012

Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness: Homes That Tell a Story

Where do we feel at home? When does our home make us happy? Isn’t architecture too important to leave to the architects? In his critically acclaimed tour d’horizon The Architecture of Happiness, Swiss writer Alain de Botton takes us from medieval shacks to English mansions, from ancient pantheons to contemporary couches, and from the functionalism of Le Corbusier to the punk-style, irreverent buildings of Frank Gehry.

January 18, 2012

Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes: A Fascinating History of the CIA

Over a period of twenty years, Weiner collected 50,000 documents and conducted hundreds of interviews. The result is this magnificent treatise that covers the CIA’s history from their improvised beginnings to the large and powerful agency that it has since become.

January 12, 2012

Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park: A Surreal Faux Memoir

Lunar Park is a tale that is as ironic as it is gripping, a fun read that makes your blood run cold, and a story that is excessively self-centered yet cathartic to the reader.

December 30, 2011

Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha: A Lighthouse in the Search for Meaning

We are continuously searching for our place in life. And so is Siddhartha, the protagonist of Nobel Prize-winner Hermann Hesse’s book that has delighted, inspired, and influenced generations of readers, writers, and thinkers.

December 22, 2011

Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World: A German Exploration Like No Other

Back in 2005, when Measuring the World was first published in Germany, Daniel Kehlmann was barely thirty-one years old when he found himself instantly catapulted to the Mount Olympus of German literature.

December 6, 2011

Things Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe and a Story of Africa

Chinua Achebe is one of the most distinguished voices in African literature. As Kwame Anthony Appiah, a contemporary philosopher and cultural theorist, states, “For so many readers around the world, it is Chinua Achebe who opened up the magic casements of African fiction.” Moreover, Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart “may well be Africa's best-loved novel.”

November 26, 2011

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Coming-of-Age Mystery Novel

Christopher John Francis Boone is fifteen years old. Fifteen years, three months, and two days, to be exact. Christopher knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. But while he is a genius at physics and maths, the complexity of human emotions confuses him.

November 3, 2011

Who Am I? And If So, How Many? An Entertaining Take on Philosophy

Precht is a gifted writer: He unravels the most complex train of thoughts and makes the reader glide through subjects as challenging and divisive as abortion, cloning, the eating of animals, euthanasia, the ethics of reproductive science, and the very future of humanity.