Category Archives: Intro

Ich bin sehr oft an diesem Haus vorbeigefahren, als ich noch im Prenzlauer Berg wohnte und in die Mitte Berlins zur Arbeit fuhr. Mit der Tram oder mit dem Auto. Oder mit dem Fahrrad. Und fast jedes Mal dachte ich, man müsse aus diesem Haus etwas Außergewöhnliches machen. Und dann ist es passiert – 12 Jahre später. Nein, ich meine nicht den Club, der in diesem Haus entstanden ist, sondern das Buch, das darüber geschrieben wurde. Torstraße 1 ist ein Buch für alle, die an die Verbindungen zwischen Menschen glauben –  diese Fäden, die nie ganz abreißen. Und an magische Orte, die stumm bleiben. Aber jemanden finden, der ihre Geschichte erzählt. Und Geschichten zu diesen Orten erfindet. Ich habe die Lektüre diese Buches von Sybil Volks sehr genossen und wünsche ihm sehr viele Leserinnen & Leser. Nicht nur in Berlin.

I just finished reading Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. It’s an unusual candidate for an unputdownable book. The medical details are sometimes not just a little unpalatable, yet they firmly belong into the wider story that is life. In the beginning I thought: „Ah well, he’s coming up with the same answers how to change things – idealising large family units, etc.“ How wrong I was. Atul Gawande masterfully reveals his own ambiguities as a doctor and ultimately, as a son who is confronted with the painful loss of his father. His inquisitive mind guides his explorations and he continuously stops in his tracks to check what he’s doing in his work. My own experience is that it must be very hard as a medical professional to flip the switch from being a life saver to somebody who has to admit that human power has its limits. Not to be afraid to confront this conflict is one of the great achievements of this book. And the ending, which made me roll my eyes once more – just to be proven wrong again. Now I would like to know what others think about this book ….

I wanted to read so many books over the Christmas season – but then one kept me busy for quite a long time, so I ended up reading two. Siri Hustvedt’s The Blazing World needed time and reflection. It’s a brave book, because it imagines the unimaginable – a woman that is not successful simply because she is that – a woman.
So she takes on the (art) world with her metamorphoses. The book has many layers of family life, New York and its art scene, love and spiritualism, attachment and loss and one woman’s rage – culminating in a sad and wonderful ending that leaves a glimpse of hope in a world of misogyny that comes in many disguises.

Brave women seemed to have been a theme for me – next on the list was Kate Adie. Her approach to journalism fascinated me from page 1. She kind of „fell“ into the job and became a truly professional reporter, always challenging the way she told a story. Emotions needed to be kept at bay in the news, yet were omnipresent. Kate Adie’s take on this is very moving, especially when she writes about Tiananmen square or a funeral in Armenia. The autobiography’s title The Kindness of Strangers  is something she encountered in the form of a rose or meals shared or toilet facilities pointed out to her in difficult circumstances. A successful woman in frequently very male environments who has found her very unique way of telling the truth. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her story and getting her take on recent historical events.

Language. There’s so much that a writer can do with it. Eimear McBride took it apart – just like the girl, her protagonist, is taken apart. By men. By her mother. By all those things that happen to her beloved brother. Never to be whole again. The sentences that were complete came almost as a relief when I was reading … and those that were incomplete made sense most of the time. This book is a linguistic revelation-revolution. Emotions lay bare. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is not an easy read – and I already admire the translator who takes on this debut novel!