Literatur-Blog für alle, die keine Angst vor heftigen Mischungen haben. Paul Auster, Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf treffen auf Simone de Beauvoir, Star Trek, Philosophie, Science und mehr
In this classic 1905 Christmas story, one of O. Henry's most famous, we meet Della and Jim, a young married couple who are as poor as church mice. "The Gift of the Magi" is a short story, written by O. Henry (a pen name for William Sydney Porter), about a young married couple and how... Continue Reading →
Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Far too many memories are haunting her of the beautiful farm where so many terrible things happened. Her new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with... Continue Reading →
For the longest time I somehow merged Richard Brautigan and Kurt Vonnegut into one person. Even after reading "Slaughterhouse Five" I could never really make two different people out of them in my mind. They were somehow located in the somehow 1960s department of may brain that also occupied Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, Betty Friedan... Continue Reading →
Especially in times of the pursuance and killing of people of a different faith or of different ideas by fanatic Islamists on the one side and equally fanatic fascists on the other side Voltaire’s text is more important than ever. No philosopher has fought for this ideal more than the French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire. His... Continue Reading →
OK it looks to me as if Sorokin is the illegitimate brainchild of David Lynch, Dostojewski and Shirley Jackson. It all starts idyllic enough with a country doctor named Garin being stuck in a snowstorm in a little village without any horses for his vehicle. He is on his way to a remote village with... Continue Reading →
Today I would like to enthuse you for one of my favorite books "Orlando" - the longest love letter and the history of literature. It's difficult to imagine who forward thinking Virginia Woolf was to come up with this gender-society-time-bending story of the young Duke Orlando who is Vita Sackville-Wests alter ego. Orlando tells... Continue Reading →
Another gem of the "Naturkunden" series by Matthes & Seitz Verlag. At some stage I think I really want them all. I was never particularly interested in snails but that certainly changed after reading this funny, insightful and beautiful little book. There is so much more to these fascinating creatures than their chalky little shells... Continue Reading →
Diesen Roman hatte mir meine sehr belesene Chefin schon vor Ewigkeiten empfohlen und ich habe nicht die leiseste Ahnung, warum es derart lange gedauert hat, bis ich ihn endlich in Angriff nahm. Die Anthropologin Margaret Mead stand Patin für diesen Roman, der auf ihren Erlebnissen am Sepik Fluß in Neu Guinea basiert, wo sie mit... Continue Reading →
Lord of the Flies is one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. It was certainly disturbing when I read it the first time and it still is. With a group of innocent schoolboys who are stranded on an island, the author portrays very realistically human behavior in an environment where civilization no longer... Continue Reading →
This groundbreaking essay was hard work for me and it took me a while and a second and third reading to be able to somewhat summarize my takeaways. It explores how in the age of mass media audiences can see a work of art or listen to music repeatedly and what the social implications of... Continue Reading →
Binge Reading & More 