The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch is the most-requested book at BookLending.com (formerly Kindle Lending Club) for the second week in a row. Here’s what Booklist has to say about the book:

This novel has been popular in Germany since its 2008 publication there, and it’s easy to see why. Set in the mid-1600s in the Bavarian town of Schongau, it features a hangman, Jakob Kuisl, who is asked to find out whether an ominous tattoo found on a dying boy means that witchcraft has come to town. This is no idle fiction. The German rulers were, at the time, heavily involved in the detection, prosecution, and execution of suspect witches. Pötzsch, who is descended from the real-life Kuisl family, does an excellent job of telling the story and supplying the historical backdrop. And his characters—Jakob, the hangman; his daughter, Magdalena; and Simon, the physician’s son—are extremely well drawn and believable. Kudos, too, to translator Chadeayne, who retains the story’s German flavor while rendering the text in smooth and highly readable English. Readers of historical fiction should find this very much to their liking. –David Pitt

There’s an interesting back story behind The Hangman’s Daughter and its publisher, AmazonCrossing. AmazonCrossing, a publishing imprint of Amazon itself, uses Amazon’s international book sales data to identify popular books that were not originally published in English. It then acquires the English publishing rights for these books and leverages the huge bookselling reach of Amazon.com to market AmazonCrossing titles, in paperback and Kindle format, to English-speaking readers. In the case of The Hangman’s Daughter, this approach has been a phenomenal Kindle-format success for AmazonCrossing and its Bavarian author, Oliver Pötzsch; the book is currently #11 in the Kindle Bestsellers list, although it is only at #184 in the regular Amazon bestsellers list.

Are Kindle readers more open to trying new authors, and do you think The Hangman’s Daughter‘s popularity will cross over into paperback?

BookLending.com 25 Most Wanted

Week of February 6, 2011

1. The Hangman’s Daughter, by Oliver Pötzsch

2. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

3. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games), by Suzanne Collins

4. Water for Elephants: A Novel, by Sara Gruen

5. Freedom: A Novel (Oprah’s Book Club), by Jonathan Franzen

6. Switched (Trylle Trilogy, #1), by Amanda Hocking

7. My Horizontal Life, by Chelsea Handler

8. Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater

9. Sizzling Sixteen, by Janet Evanovich

10. Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games), by Suzanne Collins

11. House and Philosophy: Everybody Lies, by William Irwin, Henry Jacoby

12. Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke

13. My Blood Approves, by Amanda Hocking

14. Favorite, by Karen McQuestion

15. Wicked Appetite, by Janet Evanovich

16. A Scattered Life, by Karen McQuestion

17. The Inconvenient Corpse: A Grace Cassidy Mystery, by Jackie King

18. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert Summary & Study Guide, by BookRags.com

19. The Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan

20. Get It Together Girl!: A 28-Day Guide to Practical NOT Perfect Home Organization, by Karyn L. Beach

21. Rebecca’s Promise, by Jerry S. Eicher

22. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card

23. Calling Home, by Janna McMahan

24. No and Me, by Delphine de Vigan

25. We Interrupt This Date, by L.C. Evans