100 neue Traumgärten

This book ist about one hundred beautiful gardens.
About the planning and the constructing, as well as the special and recreational atmosphere which can be created by a fine and harmonic garden. It offers lots of great pictures and detailed descriptions (including maps and plans), which really encourage you to immediatly start to improve and rearrange your green space, no matter if it's huge or rather small. As the book is divided in four sections - "Design", "Pleasure", "Nature" and "Aesthetics", it is very likely that all the different demands will be met.

You will already start to relax when running over the pages.

It has been written by a federation of ambitious german gardeners, which are already well known for the high quality of their work.

255 pages

author: die gärtner von eden
publisher: callwey (german)

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Nicht so schlimm

Nicolas Fargues tells in his work "j’étais terrière toi" (I was behind you), as he affirms, autobiographical and truely honest the story of his divorce with all it’s power games, crookedness, aggression and guilt, which this one includes. The narrator finds himself again, someone who was already lost, when he recovers that he is still a man, adored by other women inspite of his wife. Still he is beaten by the knowledge that also his wife is not that innocent, as he’d wish her to be. But with all his sense of indeptness he stays a faint for a long time until he recognizes that neither his wife nor himself will be happy together again.

Even when I got unhappy and cutty while reading the book, looking at this crap relationship, it showed me again, that every change needs time and that there are no guarantees for a steady life at all – and would’nt that be boring?

author: nicolas fargues
publisher: rowohlt (german)
r
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Fairy Tales

There are three beautiful books about fairy tales published by "Edition Axel Menges". The first one (which I discovered by incident and which led to further investigations on that topic) is a collection of Fairy Tales written by Oscar Wilde. The illustrations are very nice and also the stories are interesting - the fairy tales belong more to the genre "literary fairy tales" than to the anonymously passed down folktales. Overall a good idea, which has been realised very well!!

Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, the son of a physician and writer who, among other things, left a book about Jonathan Swift; his mother wrote poems and was an authority on Celtic folklore. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and later at Magdalen College, Oxford. As a student, already an enthusiastic follower of Walter Pater, he began to lead a life completely shaped by aesthetic premises. Typical of this attitude is Pater's statement: To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.

author: oscar wilde
publisher: edition axel menges


Edition Axel Menges also offers two other books on Fairy Tales, in this case more traditional. The first one is a collection of Fairy Tales written by Hans Christian Andersen (including also some of his famous stories), and the other book is full of stories by the Brothers Grimm. The illustrations are also well done, especially the book with the fairy tales by H.C. Andersen.

So, if you like Fairy Tales at all, you should really give the one or the other of these books a try!

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lunar park.

The latest book of the author of "American Psycho" is really different to the ones written before. Bret Easton Ellis becomes a character in his own novel - and the boundaries between reality and fiction begin to blur more and more as the story proceeds. In this family drama Ellis raises questions of success and happiness - and what to strive for, as well as he thinks about the relationship between being a writer (or an artist in general) and a caring dad - of course all of this embedded in a horror plot. So, the outcome is an entertaining horror novel - not more, but also not less.

Imagine becoming a bestselling novelist, and almost immediately famous and wealthy, while still in college, and before long seeing your insufferable father reduced to a bag of ashes in a safety-deposit box, while after American Psycho your celebrity drowns in a sea of vilification, booze, and drugs.

Then imagine having a second chance ten years later, as the Bret Easton Ellis of this remarkable novel is given, with a wife, children, and suburban sobriety--only to watch this new life shatter beyond recognition in a matter of days. At a fateful Halloween party he glimpses a disturbing (fictional) character driving a car identical to his late father's, his stepdaughter's doll violently "malfunctions," and their house undergoes bizarre transformations both within and without. Connecting these aberrations to graver events--a series of grotesque murders that no longer seem random and the epidemic disappearance of boys his son’s age--Ellis struggles to defend his family against this escalating menace even as his wife, their therapists, and the police insist that his apprehensions are rooted instead in substance abuse and egomania.

Lunar Park confounds one expectation after another, passing through comedy and mounting horror, both psychological and supernatural, toward an astonishing resolution--about love and loss, fathers and sons--in what is surely the most powerfully original and deeply moving novel of an extraordinary career.


author: bret easton ellis
publisher: heyne (german), macmillan (us)
r
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das bin doch ich.

Thomas Glavinic’s book „Das bin doch ich“ (Isn’t that me) is a novel about himself, waiting for success, a publisher and money for his book „Die Arbeit der Nacht“ (Night Work).

Glavinic describes himself in his current position disaffected. Still he wants to get on the german short list for the book price, which won’t happen anyway. With a great sense for realism and kind of gallows humor he outlines himself, no hero at all but an egocentric hypochondriac who is slave to his habits. He realises: „Thomas Glavinic is an eight year old boy and I have to live with him.“

In a circle of some austrain pseudo celebrities, he finds himself dispensable and excelled by his colleagues, like his friend and author Daniel Kehlmann, who himself is very successfull with his last book. The fact that he is thronged by his mother too „Wann schreibst denn du mal so was?“ (When comes the time when you will write something like that?) doesn’t make it easier for the sniveling author.

Even if it’s not clear what’s the deeper conclusion of the book, it’s really great amusement to read it.

"Story-tellers tell stories. Great story-tellers like Thomas Glavinic create worlds we lose ourselves in." – Ulrich Weinzierl, Die Welt

Sales to Foreign Countries: "Die Arbeit der Nacht": France (Flammarion), Italy (Longanesi), USA / UK (Canongate), China (Horizon Media Company), Korea (Younglim Cardinal), Netherlands (Contact), Spain (Siruela)

The Author
Thomas Glavinic, born 1972 in Graz, lives in Vienna. A free-lance writer since 1991, he published his first novel, "Carl Haffners Liebe zum Unentschieden", in 1998. His last, critically-acclaimed novel, "Die Arbeit der Nacht", was published in 2006 by Hanser.
(www.signandsight.com)

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author: thomas glavinic
publisher: hanser (german)
r
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gangster

This book is about the life of the mobster bosses in Chicago in the roaring twenties. After World War I the people become more and more fun-loving and the demand for (illegal) alcohol increases in times of prohibition - this fact of course benefits the rise of a lot of gangsters, who cooperate with corrupt politicians and fight against each other to maximize their income.

The presentation of this topic is very entertaining, as beside to a general introduction the life stories of the different gangster bosses are outlined, including statistics of their estimated income, time in prison and number of murders. The artwork is, as the previews show, stunning and makes the experience even more appealing.
The book comes in a special format, is printed on high-quality paper and also contains a poster showing all the bosses on one picture.

If you are only slightly interested in this part of amercian history, this book can be highly recommended.

author: robert nippoldt
publisher: gerstenberg verlag
(unfortunately, as far as i know the book is just available in german at the moment)

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the road

"the road" is about the travel of a father and his little son in a totally wasted land, almost without food and clothes. basically they have just each other. it's a vision of a post-apocalyptic era, everything has been burnt down and destroyed, the sun isn't shining anymore - just ash all over the place. there are nearly no people left anymore and marauding bands of cannibals are moving around. it's very difficult to find something to eat, as flora and fauna is dead and all the houses and supermarkets have been plundered years ago. every meeting with the few other humans might likely to end with violent death. in this environment the father and his son try to survive day by day - moving on towards their goal to reach the sea.

the book is about despair, about the will to live, about the will to die and about the unconditional love of a father for his son. the experiences are described very intense, and the atmosphere is dark and cold. questions about good and bad arise as well as about responsibilities and necessities. does it make sense to survive in a dying world?
you won't regret reading this book.

Best known for his Border Trilogy, hailed in the San Francisco Chronicle as "an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century," Cormac McCarthy has written ten rich and often brutal novels, including the bestselling No Country for Old Men, and The Road. Profoundly dark, told in spare, searing prose, The Road is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece, one of the best books we've read this year. (Daphne Durham)

author: cormac mccarthy
publisher: rowohlt (german), bloomsbury (english)

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restless

exciting spionage story - smartly presented in two devoured plot lines, whereas the inital plot is settled in world war II. it's about a woman working as a spy for britain, basically trying to manipulate the public opinion in the united states concerning the war. the other plot line plays at about thirty years later, when the daughter of the former spy finds out about her mother's history and the still lasting impacts on their lifes.

great turn arounds, exciting and interesting to read about the circumstances as the leading lady becomes and lives as a spy in world war II. also the story is for the most part compelling. truly recommended.

If an espionage thriller with terror tentacles reaching from pre-World War II to the present can be called a cozy, this is it. Boyd's latest novel moves back and forth from the heart of the British countryside and misty, romantic Edinburgh to prewar Paris and into various capitals during the conflict itself--all with a satisfying, Agatha Christie atmosphere. This is also a mother-daughter story set in 1976, with the daughter of an eccentric mother trying to figure out who wants to kill her mother, Sally Gilmartin. Boyd introduces a rather clunky literary device of having the mother give her daughter a manuscript that details her life as a WWII spy for the British Secret Service. Boyd's focus on Gilmartin's spy training and her behind-the-scenes propaganda work in New York to steer public opinion toward U.S. involvement in the war is fascinating. A somewhat clumsy narrative enlivened by some expertly generated suspense. (Connie Fletcher)


author: william boyd
publisher: berlin verlag (german), bloomsbury (english)

the case of charles dexter ward

Imagination is more powerful than written words. It seems that H.P. Lovecraft did know about this quite well. The story is truly exciting and takes you on a thrilling journey filled with subtle horror and fear - most of the time without being bloody-minded. The fragile psyche of mankind confronted with terror is the basis of Lovecraft's thoughts. One of his best works. Recommended.

The titular character, Charles Dexter Ward, is a young man from a prominent family who (in the story's introduction) is said to have disappeared after a prolonged period of insanity accompanied by minor but unheard-of physiological changes. The bulk of the story concerns the investigation conducted by the Wards' family doctor, Marinus Bicknell Willett, in an attempt to discover the reason for Ward's psychological and physiological changes. When Willett learns that Ward had spent the past several months attempting to discover the grave of his ill-reputed ancestor, Joseph Curwen, Willett slowly begins to unravel the truth behind the legends surrounding Curwen, a shipping entrepreneur rumored to have been an alchemist, but in reality a megalomanical necromancer and mass-murderer. (wikipedia)

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction.
He is notable for blending elements of science fiction and horror; and for popularizing "cosmic horror": the notion that some concepts, entities or experiences are barely comprehensible to human minds, and those who delve into such risk their sanity. Lovecraft has become a cult figure in the horror genre and is noted as creator of the "Cthulhu Mythos," a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a "pantheon" of nonhuman creatures, as well as the famed Necronomicon, a grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works typically had a tone of "cosmic pessimism," regarding mankind as insignificant and powerless in the universe.
Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, and his works, particularly early in his career, have been criticized as occasionally ponderous, and for their uneven quality. Nevertheless, Lovecraft’s reputation has grown tremendously over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most important horror writers of the 20th Century, exerting an influence that is widespread, though often indirect.

h.p. lovecraft archive: http://www.hplovecraft.com/
publisher: suhrkamp (german), ballantine (english)

perdido street station

fantasy-literature at its best. you really feel with the well-elaborated characters living in the dark city of new crobuzon. the main plot is about creatures who basically live of human dreams and their excrements are used as a powerful and very valueable drug. but sometime all of this gets a bit out of control... very exciting and original story.

"The book has a large and interesting cast, many of which die violently (and fantastically) throughout the book. One scene which sticks out more than most is the mayor of the city going to the ambassador of Hell for aid, and the ambassador of Hell (yes, the fiery, demonic place in the afterlife) refusing because he is too afraid to help."

In the Sprawling gothic city of New Crobuzon, a stranger has come to request the services of Isaac, an overweight and slightly eccentric scientist. But it is an impossible request —that of flight—and in the end Isaac's attempts will only succeed in unleashing a dark force upon the city.
Complex, grand, absorbing, and darkly haunting, Perdido Street Station is replete with endless weird and ghoulish places and characters—characters that (apart from human beings) include aliens, hybrids, mythical beings, constructs, and chilling 'Remades'. Merge Dickensian London with the L.A. of Blade Runner, add the characters of Lewis Carroll, and you will begin to get an idea of the hypnotic quality of Perdido Street Station.