I forgot to mention I read the books of Karl May too. He is not so well known in English speaking countries, but in Germany he is a bestseller still more than a hundred years after his death. His novels are adventure novels set in foreign countries, many of them in the Wild West, especially his "Winnetou" and "Old Surehand" trilogies, but there is also his orient hexalogy, "Durch die Wüste" ("Through the Desert"), "Durchs wilde Kurdistan" (Through Wild Kurdistan"), "Von Bagdad nach Stambul" ("From Bagdad to Stambul"),"In den Schluchten des Balkan" ("In the Ravines of Balkan"), "Durch das Land der Skipetaren" ("Through the Land of Shqiptares") and "Der Shut" ("The Shut") and lots of other novels. In many he himself is the main protagonist. May was great at creating comical characters; there is one in almost every novel. But these comical characters sometimes are very brave too, like Hadschi Halef Omar in the orient hexalogy or Hobble-Frank in several of his Wild West novels. His books have been sold over 200 million times. My elder brother had most of them, and I read them all too as a kid (and appropriately wept when Winnetou, the noble Red Indian who appears in many Wild West novels of Karl May as his best friend, died). There even is one novel (out of the "Satan and Iskariot" trilogy) in which Winnetou comes to Germany and visits Karl May while he is at his choral society, and he is very impressed with the singing there. I always found that part very funny, especially when Karl May's alter ego in the book says to Winnetou: "Du sollst jetzt Deutschen Gesang zu hören bekommen" ("You shall experience hearing German singing now").