"Three-Minute Novel" by Heinrich Mann

Well, three minutes to read on the page, perhaps, but three times that to read aloud. Here we have a complete bildungsroman in just a few pages, with the requisite gambling and fatal romance. Translated by Victor Lange. Read by Jonathan Strong. Time 9:46.

Overshadowed by his much more famous brother Thomas, Heinrich Mann nevertheless had a substantial literary career of his own. Like his younger brother, he ended up in Los Angeles because of the Nazis and continued to write novels which dealt with German society and class differences there. His dates are 1871 to 1950. We wish we could think of something more exciting to say about him here, but we can't. Maybe there was a reason he was the less successful brother.