Every year the same questions: Did you already know the most important books of the season? For children's books, the person to be gifted is already too old? A comic should not be this time? Also no games or board games? Then take a look and see if the book recommendations from the cultural editorial offices of SPIEGEL and SPIEGEL ONLINE are the perfect gift idea.
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20 book shop tips
For those whose family is a bit dysfunctional
At Christmas there are rituals in all families. Maruan, the first-person narrator in Marwan Paschen's second novel, tells his therapist, Dr. Ing. Gänsehaupt, of the Christmas celebrations with his uncles Tarzan, Berti, Art and Otto and his mother. There is always fondue, meat fondue with lots of meat, and it is a ritual to eat the food in handcuffs. What? Can not be? Well, who knows, because the unreliability of the narrator Maruan becomes more apparent from chapter to chapter - and the enjoyment of his stories increases, even as the family secrets become increasingly gloomy. A game about identity, about belonging, about the fact that it can arise through storytelling, inventing. This is not only important at Christmas, but the party can be a reason to think about it - and to give this book away. Felix Bayer
MessageMaruan Paschen: Christmas
Matthes & Seitz; 196 pages; bound; 20.00 euros
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For drinking romantics
To give away a book about alcohol withdrawal: you have to dare. It could be misunderstood or just right, as the case may be. In both cases, the house blessing on Christmas Eve may still hang slater than the star on top of the Nordmann fir. So what do you do if you rightly consider the book in question to be one of the best non-fiction books of the year - and therefore others want to share the enjoyment of reading? Option one: to put a bottle of wine. Possibility two: in a companion card indicate that Leslie Jamison's "The Clarity" is also a great love story. The US author not only writes about the myth of the drinking writer, the dysfunctional, gloomy genius who stands in the way of the recovery of an alcoholic writer like her. At the same time, she writes heartfeltly about herself and Dave, the man at her side. Well, love fails. So don't donate the book to your partner. And if it does, add a bottle of wine. Tobias Becker
Read Leslie Jamison: The Clarity - Alcohol, intoxication and the stories of recovery
Hanser Berlin; 638 pages; bound; 28.00 euros
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For lovers and those who have been hurt by love
The stars of the 19th century are usually forgotten. After all, the singer Pauline Viardot was given a literary monument, by Ivan Turgenev in the form of a flood of love letters. With their help, Ursula Keller and Natalja Sharandak have written a wonderful double biography, or better still: the portrait of a Ménage à trois, because Pauline's husband was one of the party. Turgenev heard the Viardot first in 1843 in St. Petersburg - and instantly fell in love with her. The mezzosoprano of the "crooked-eyed Mongol nightingale," as Alexander von Humboldt had mockingly called it, was simply beautiful to die for. Like a stalker Turgenev pursued her across Europe. "For me, no day goes by without your expensive picture not being remembered a hundred times," wrote the writer. At some point she heard him, but the great, undisturbed happiness was denied the lovers until the last. Martin Doerry
Announcement Ursula Keller, Natalja Sharandak: Ivan Turgenev and Pauline Viardort - An extraordinary love
Island; 278 pages; bound; 25,00 Euro
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For Russian understanding
One of the most beautiful films in competition at this year's Berlinale portrayed the wild Leningrad youth of a writer who is loved in Russia by many readers and is almost unknown in Germany. The movie "Dowlatow" by Alexei German junior will hopefully be released in German cinemas in 2019. The real writer Sergey Donatovich Dovlatov grew up in Leningrad, the son of an Armenian mother and a Jewish father, immigrated to the United States in 1978 at the age of 37, and died at the age of 49 in New York City. In the elegantly pleasing novel "The suitcase", a storyteller describes how, years after arriving in America, he rummaged in the only suitcase he was allowed to take with him from Russia - and found there, for example, the shoes he once had given to the mayor of Leningrad such paint monkey ") stole. Dowlatow's book, with a hymnic preface by Waldimir Kaminer, was published in German in 2008 and depicts the adventures of a drinking-happy, anarchic, wonderfully crazy hero: an eulogy of the concrete years of the Soviet Union, a treasure of lightness and wit. Wolfgang Höbel
AdSergej Dowlatov: The suitcase
Dumont; 160 pages; 8.95 euros
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For fathers (for example). Mothers too.
Wolf Wondratschek painstakingly wrote down the stereotype, which now clings to him like a tarred feather. Whores poet. Boxer poet. Asshole poet. Well. And then that. Then this comprehensive collection of his poems now at the Ullstein publishing house. And what damn well comes together, of tenderness and silence and beauty and small sentences and images that suddenly and briefly bring the heart out of rhythm! Such a great art, with hints of syllable whirling a feeling in the air, so that we can all see it and empathize, with compassion. And it works again and again. Here, for his little son Raoulito ("he's seven and knows his way around"), for example (and all of us): "He does not like girls / Yet sometimes he thinks of one / lives in the mouth of a hippopotamus / He does not believe that with the hippopotamus, but in the evening, when he falls asleep, he hears them playing. "
And finally, for us online addicts, Christmas tormented, this "little Christmas poem": "Whoever comes to rest, / makes the life of everyone / the most beautiful gift!" Volker Weidermann
Advertisement Wolf Wondratschek: Collected Poems
Ullstein; bound; 58.00 euros
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For untouchables and pliable
Fitness centers, cosmetic purchases, massage appointments, pornography on the net, diets and #MeToo: What we carry out in and with our body, we feel every day (or work, just not to feel it). When we talk about it, we talk about ourselves, and it feels purely subjective. In her short, smart, highly vivid essay, Elisabeth von Thadden explores the questions of who we touch, how bodily invulnerability (including women and children) became a political issue, how prosperity and loneliness are related. How our culture of controlled touch is different from others. And why the sense of touch is the only meaning without which we can not live. Attention: The instinct and the mental activity are inexorably increasing with the reading! Elke Schmitter
Advertisement Elisabeth von Thadden: The non-contact society
CH Beck; 205 pages; 16,95 Euro
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For those who have a weakness for decadence
She was 17 years old when she first met her grandfather in 1978. She knew he was gay, her mother did not think much of him, and he lived in a huge, beautiful house. He had inherited that from his former lover, who was 30 years older than him. This is the beginning of the book by Briton Sofka Zinovieff, who tells her complicated family story in a highly entertaining manner, showing many pictures from her private album and at the same time drawing a portrait of the English upper class in the first half of the 20th century. The relationship of her grandfather Robert Heber-Percy, with good reason called "Mad Boy", and Lord Gerald Berners, a "jesting and humoristic" composer, author, painter, patron and esthete, was an open secret. When her grandmother married Jennifer and Mad Boy in 1942 to live in Faringdon House with the Lord, the scandal was perfect. Pigeons in rainbow colors, wild parties with illustrious guests like Evelyn Waugh, Cecil Beaton, Elsa Schiaparelli - Lord Berners made it possible. With Sofka Zinovieff you dive into this exotic, decadent world and get to know the protagonists of their very human side. Katharina Stegelmann
AnnouncementSofka Zinovieff: Mad Boy, Lord Berners, my grandmother and me
dtv; 480 pages; bound; 28.00 euros
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For hipsters who sense that their future is long gone
Oh Brazil! With what hopes we looked at you at the beginning of the millennium, and what a horror fills us now at your sight. Daniel Galera's furious social panorama "So we end up" traces the country's path from the joy of the future to democracy twilight on the basis of young hipsters. Galeras Millennials are inspired by the possibilities of the Internet in the Nineties; new art forms, direct communication, rigorous participation, these are their dreams. But then they fall into the clutches of digital capitalism, which puts progress at the service of an unbounded consumerism and an unleashed conflict of opinion. Although the novel was published in Galera's home two years ago, it casts a spotlight on contemporary Brazil. A pleasurable, poetic, sometimes pungent, comical obituary to Brazil's digital bohemians who have long since lost their brave new world to the three scourges of the Internet: porn, hate and Bolsonaro. Christian Buß
AdvertisementDaniel Galera: That's how we end
Suhrkamp; 231 pages; bound; 22,00 Euro
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For all who meet their family with mixed feelings at Christmas
On the last pages of her book, Lisa Brennan-Jobs worries about how her father's genius and vulgarity were interlinked. She must have been in her late 30s when she came to these lines. An almost four-decade confrontation with a father who denied her when she was little; who later let her in for a few moments, but then reacted dismissively again, the 14-year-old did not want to say "good night".
"Bycatch" is the autobiography of Steve Jobs' firstborn daughter. (He later had three more children with another woman). Of course, it does matter that Jobs happened to be the founder of Apple as well. Disembodied genius, billionaire. But above all, this honest, clairvoyant book deals with the question of how to make peace with parents who are not at all fit for parenthood. Brennan Jobs tells of neglect, coldness and excessive demands, and thus finds a way to forgive. Her dad wanted to protect his creative side with his nastiness, the daughter suspects. That may be true. But from this explanation can also read out the urge to finally complete with the absent, sick, deceased Steve Jobs. Claudia Voigt
AnzeigeLisa Brennan Jobs: By- catch - A childhood like a novel
Berlin; 384 pages; bound; 22,00 Euro
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For all who want to fight
The end of democracy is booming, unfortunately, and the book market has taken the issue - 2018 many deeply thought-out and well-founded analyzes of the decay phenomena of a form of government, which until recently was considered as an alternative. What distinguishes the book by Harvard professors Steven Levitzky and Daniel Ziblatt is the simple, clear, bitter message: Democracies are no longer dying in the 21st century from external violence, war or revolution, democracies die from within, they assail Underlying the contradictions that they themselves created in part, with resources that they themselves provided, elections for example, see Hungary, Poland, the USA. One has to understand that first to understand that the means of defending democracy must be different. The fight for survival becomes a daily civic duty. Georg Diez
AdvertisementSteven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die - And What We Can Do About It
DVA; 320 pages; bound; 22,00 Euro
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For those who have a lot of longing and little time
Sadly, the short story as a form never really hit Germany. Luckily, Benedict Wells cut a short story collection this year anyway. "The truth about lying" is the title of the book. Wells shows exactly what to expect as Wells Wells reader: Wells. He writes tender, thoughtful, sometimes sad lyrics that unfold their power in their brief form. The small masterpiece of the booklet is the story "The Muse". It's about how magical it is to be lucky, to be inspired to write, and to show the price writers sometimes pay for it. Taki's strangler
Annotation Wells: The truth about lying - Ten stories
Diogenes; 256 pages; bound; 22,00 Euro
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For art fetishists and comic fans
It's curious that never before had anyone come up with the idea of telling the life and work of Andy Warhol in comic form: the often gaudy sequential art and the striking pop art of the New York avant-gardist have been mutually fruitful. The Dutch writer and draftsman Typex now combines both on 570 opulently designed pages: Meticulously and with changing stylistics, he illustrates Warhol's biography as a portrait of a civilization and popular culture of the 20th century. Right at the beginning, a colorful collage advertises early Warhol fetishes, from cartoon characters like Popeye and Dick Tracy to show stars like Shirley Temple and Marlene Dietrich. Even a tomato soup can of Campbell's is not missing. Color and fantasy, however, disappear as soon as Typex dives into the monochrome childhood and youth of the queer Eastern European migrant child Andrew Warhola - and return in striking swabs, shades and saturations, as commanded by the changing zeitgeist and the high and low points of Warhol's life. A comic, a work of art, a pop kaleidoscope. Andreas Borcholte
AdvertisementTypex: Andy - A Factual Fairytale - Life and Work of Andy Warhol
Carlsen; 568 pages; bound; 48.00 euros
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For Flash Reader (or: Fast Reader, Short Reader, Second Reader)
He just had to write quickly and briefly, he knew that he had not long to live. Since the age of sixteen, the poet Alfred Henschke (1890-1928), who called himself Klabund, suffered from tuberculosis. "The Last Emperor" first appeared in 1923. It is a tale from China about the downfall of the German Empire. Klabund had written during the First World War an open letter to Kaiser Wilhelm, in which he asked him to resign: "Be the first prince who voluntarily renounced his fictional rights!" The Emperor did not resign, Klabund was charged with treason. Volker Weidermann
AnzeigeKlabund: The last emperor
Ivory; 16 pages; 5,00 Euro
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For romantic pessimists and London lovers
A disillusioned beautifier serving the British government and an alcoholic ex-accountant seek their place in life in Moloch London. For a whole day, AL Kennedy sends these two people, threatened by the system and their individual fate, through the British capital. The 59-year-old Jon rushes ahead of schedule and the expectations of others, the 45-year-old Meg longs for the repeatedly postponed meeting with her from old-fashioned letters known Jon. Episodic, jumping between perspectives and times, and in inner monologues, the author walks in the midst of the pain of her characters. And she talks about the tender feelings of two decent people in a broken Britain. "Sweet Seriousness" is an inventory and analysis of society, the London novel of the hour - bitter and cairn-romantic. Britta Schmeis
AnzeigeA.L. Kennedy: Sweet seriousness
Hanser; 400 pages; bound; 28.00 euros
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For all aesthetes
The "List of Losses" by Judith Schalansky is my absolute favorite book from the year 2017. The more I read in it, the better I liked it, after a third I was completely in love. It is not only smart, surprising and unusual, it is also beautiful. The "directory" revolves around things and people that no longer exist, perhaps never existed. It is about the transience in itself - and thus for life itself. Intelligent and humorous, the author of the philosophical question is devoted to what remains in the end. Full of dedication, she tells of Caspian tigers, Greta Garbo, the port of Greifswald. And because Schalansky can not only write very well - elegant, varied, funny - but also uses her skills as a book designer, she has achieved something very special. The special cover and illustrations, the overall design, make the book an optical pleasure, it is an intellectual experience anyway. Digital is all this not to have, so this work is particularly well as a gift under the Christmas tree. It is so beautiful, the packaging is almost superfluous. Katharina Stegelmann
AdJudith Schalansky: Directory of some losses
Suhrkamp; 252 pages; bound; 24.00 euros
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For all who want to understand America
James Baldwin is the voice of black America, in the fifties, sixties, and today, more than ever; but more than that, he is a prophet of true humanity, in his essays and essays, as well as in his novels, which the publisher dtv is now bringing out little by little. This particular edition performance was begun with Baldwin's first novel, "From This World," which appeared in 1953 and showed such eloquent and angry intellectuals as a master of disunity, as a writer capable of expressing his own pains, his own yearnings to tell a story that combined literary greatness with social relevance. First of all, it is the depiction of the inner fury of 14-year-old John Grimes that makes Baldwin's novel so moving, torn between God and Father, guilt and rebellion, obedience and anger; but beyond that, this book is the document of a very special black experience that has political relevance to this day. Because the wounds are still open, this, among other things, shows this reading. Georg Diez
James Baldwin: From this world
dtv; 320 pages; bound; 22,00 Euro
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For book people and book people fans
Schroeder tells, until today and again and again: From his adventures in the literary business, which he got to know as a recruiter and graphic artist for Kiepenheuer + Witsch in the sixties, but he scared and renewed around 1968 with his March publishing house. Jörg Schröder published porn and revolutionaries, and sometimes, as in Günter Amendt's "Sexfront", both came together. In 1972 Schroeder first told his life story under the title "Siegfried" - and left nothing in it, which brought him temporary injunctions. Now this great Grandmother Confession has been re-released - complemented by a part "The Whole Life", with the Schröders companion Barbara Calendar closes the gaps to the present day. For whom today's literary business has too much to do with target group marketing and expected returns, and too little with riskiness and idiocy, this book should be on the gift table. Felix Bayer
AdvertisementJörg Schröder tells Ernst Herhaus: Siegfried
March at Schöffling & Co; bound; 544 pages; 28.00 euros
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For Cinephile and other know-it-alls
Are you one of those people who lie awake at night because they've just come up with the perfect return coach? The one answer that is so witty and pointed that after that only a nod of agreement is possible? Then "The Earth Dies Streaming" is not for you. The film reviews that Hamrah wrote for some of the best independent US magazines, especially n + 1, from 2002 to 2018, and which this band is now gathering, are like the perfect answer to the question: And how did you the movie liked? Without detouring over plot summaries, previous works, or referrals, Hamrah talks about the essence of a movie, its idiosyncrasies, its cravings - and rarely in more than two paragraphs. Thus the volume reads less like the performance show of a star critic than the diary of a passionate moviegoer. Only just the most witty and pointed, that man could just meet. Hannah Pilarczyk
AnzeigeA.S. Hamrah: The Earth Dies Streaming - Film Writing, 2002-2018
n + 1; English; 452 pages; 13.21 euros
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For bloodthirsty readers
The power of the media and the corruption of US politics are the subject of this bloody thriller, which begins with the overthrow of an obviously corrupt Democratic senator. Many German crime novelists are enthusiastic about the new edition of the books of Ross Thomas, who lived from 1926 to 1995 and was a soldier and political adviser before becoming a writer. The latest re-release "Then be at least cautious" was originally published in 1973. In it, Thomas has his sneaking heroes Decatur Lukas with callous wrath in a terribly complicated case determine in which virtually every woman and every man he is investigating, is forcibly silenced. "He looked like he was still in pain," it says of a murder victim. "So I counted the bullet holes in his chest again, there were still two." The big-mouthedness and callousness of the narrator's voice are sympathetically old-fashioned, but the here described nonsense in the orcus of political crimes is still likely to be topical. Wolfgang Höbel
AnzeigeRoss Thomas: Then at least be careful
Alexander; 288 pages; 16,00 Euro
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For nerve-racking Christmas victims
No, it's not as maudlin as the title sounds. On the contrary. In the Christmas texts of Fontane, one can observe the abysses in the work of the journalist and writer born 199 years ago as if under a burning glass. Already in the autobiographical texts about his childhood, Christmas is the time of greatest loneliness, disappointments, realization of one's own miserableness, suffering under the weak body and this terribly sharp look. The father, who is otherwise this dream-safe storyteller, is paralyzed at Christmas by routine and compulsory stories, the mother gives the son a rough whip as a rough joke. To the shock of the thin-skinned boy. Christmas is tear time. The world is not as it should be and never will be. Effi Briest's Christmas letter from the ice-hells of her marriage home is one of the saddest of German literature. Christmas is something strong. Volker Weidermann
Ad Theodor Fontane: And we already see the star - Christmas with Fontane
Construction; 144 pages; bound; 12,00 Euro
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