The Palace of the Republic, that once housed the East German parliament, is demolished. A grandmother’s laughter passes from life into memory. Furniture that once made a home is taken to the tip. A friendship drops into silence. Old ways are erased by the new.

In this fascinating collection of essays, most of them written for her column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jenny Erpenbeck meditates, with a sense of both deep melancholy and wry humour, on the disappearance and impermanence of things. Whether recalling the shop that used to darn tights in the days before you could just buy a new pair, reflecting on changing social attitudes, or considering the mysterious vanishing of a piece of cheese from her fridge, Jenny Erpenbeck’s sharp intelligence, eye for telling detail, and her nuanced perspective on her country’s past and present imbue these brief pieces with lasting power.