The Americans might not know who Herta Müller is but they are certainly making a big effort to find out. Yesterday, AbeBooks.com (our site that serves North America) sold out of used copies of the author’s English translations. Oddly, there was much less interest on AbeBooks.co.uk (our site for the UK). Maybe the Nobel was too close to the Booker and the Brits are awarded out? On our German site, AbeBooks.de, Herta Müller was the only author that mattered yesterday.

The funniest thing about Müller’s Nobel award is watching people struggle to type umlauts.