I haven’t read the work of recent Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller, a Romanian-German novelist, poet, and essayist who’s married to a guy named, no lie, “Richard Wagner.” And yet, skimming Müller’s Wikipedia entry, I am tickled various shades of light red by her titles. I’m a big fan of mysterious and engaging titles, and now I’d like to read a few of these books. Perhaps others share my epiphilia*.

A selection of Müller’s titles, courtesy Wikipedia:

• Drückender Tango (”Oppressive Tango”), stories, Bucharest 1984
• Wie Wahrnehmung sich erfindet (”How Perception Invents Itself”), Paderborn 1990
• Der Teufel sitzt im Spiegel (”The Devil is Sitting in the Mirror”), Berlin 1991
• Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger (”Even Back Then, the Fox Was the Hunter), Reinbek by Hamburg 1992
• Eine warme Kartoffel ist ein warmes Bett (“A Warm Potato Is a Warm Bed”), Hamburg 1992
• Der Wächter nimmt seinen Kamm (”The Guard Takes His Comb”), Reinbek by Hamburg 1993
• Angekommen wie nicht da (”Arrived As If Not There”), Lichtenfels 1994
• Hunger und Seide (”Hunger and Silk”), essays, Reinbek by Hamburg 1995
• Der fremde Blick oder das Leben ist ein Furz in der Laterne (“The Foreign View, or Life Is a Fart in a Lantern”), Göttingen 1999
• Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame (”A Lady Lives in the Hair Knot”), poetry, Reinbek by Hamburg 2000
• Heimat ist das, was gesprochen wird (”Home Is What Is Spoken There”), Blieskastel 2001
• Der König verneigt sich und tötet (”The King Bows and Kills), essays, Munich (and elsewhere) 2003
• Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen (“The Pale Gentlemen with their Espresso Cups”), Munich (and elsewhere) 2005

*I think this technically means “love of surfaces,” but since we often use epi- to indicate “something to do with titles,” I’m sticking with it for now. Suggestions as to a better title-lurvin word = welcome.