By Siobhan O’Leary

With the Frankfurt Book Fair just around the corner, the jury for the German Book Prize has announced its shortlist of six titles from the original longlist of 154. The six novels still in the running as reported in the Boersenblatt are Rainer Merkel’s Lichtjahre entfernt, Herta Müller’s Atemschaukel, Überm Rauschen by Norbert Scheuer, Du stirbst nicht by Kathrin Schmidt, Clemens J. Setz’s Die Frequenzen, and Stephan Thome’s Grenzgang. The winner will be announced on October 12th in Frankfurt.

In May, children’s publisher Ravensburger founded a startup for creating digital products, including programs for game consoles and mobile apps. In an interview about the new venture — Ravensburger Digital — with Buchreport, spokesperson Karsten Schmidt points out that Ravensburger did not start the new venture to make up for any gap in their traditional markets, which saw a modest sales bump of 0.7% in 2008. He added that Ravensburger’s “Think” game series for Nintendo DS has been especially popular, with the most successful title in the series — Logiktrainer — selling 140,000 copies.

Last Christmas, partners of the Berlin-based educational media publisher Cornelsen Verlag donated their Christmas bonuses — worth a total of 80,000 Euros — to the ARCHE children’s center in Potsdam. The center opened its doors this week, reports the Boersenblatt. The center’s primary goal is to provide shelter to young people living on the streets, and to offer counseling, education and employment opportunities.