In August 1791 Maria von Herbert from Klagenfurt writes a letter to Immanuel Kant in Königsberg. She is asking the ageing celibate for comfort and advice – because Maria von Herbert is lovesick. This is historical documented. The young and talkative amanuensis of Kant is answering her in the name of his master and he responds to problems, the young woman is not suffering from. This is documented in Brandstetter’s way. Kant’s amanuensis reflects on various peculiarities and strangnesses; f.e. whether one can admire Kant, when one is admiring Goethe as well. And last but not least he reflects on a question, that affects all of us: how to get rid of lovesickness? This one-letter-novel is humorous, witty and smart, full of sarcasm as well as sapiency. Greetings from cant is a book is comfort and advice – but, most of all, it is a pleasurable read.

A load of fun: these stories are dripping with dark humor and morbid wit.

One morning a man happens upon a newspaper ad in which someone – now that the free market has found its way to Bulgaria – offers services as an executioner. The man is curious. After all, 50 USD aren’t that much for a once in a lifetime experience, even if it ends in death. Then there’s Viktorija, who not only loses her heart, but also her head. What starts as an online romance ends up in a box in the fridge. … By the way: what do you do in Bulgaria when the fridge is as empty as your stomach? No problem, as long as Grandpa is still around. … That’s what a large family is for, isn’t it? Don’t be surprised, a lot of things are different in Bulgaria, but not everything is bad. This is what these stories by Alex Popov are about, delightfully told and compiled in this book. Where the fun ends for others, it just gets started for Alex Popov. He is a highly talented satirist, keen-witted and hilarious, a master of slapstick, always dancing on the edge. This is shameless humor: humor for the advanced.

A man and a woman meat each other – let’s call them Georg and Renate – she is a non-smoker, he is a non-alcoholic. Both are searching for … - what ever people are searching for: for themselves, for each other, for work. In an advertising agency, they are searching for somebody, too, because the agency was given the task to develop a marketing strategy for a former extermination camp in order to enlarge attendance. What a nice opportunity for Georg and Renate to run into each other. This is how it could have been. Then, Hans Eichhorn would have written a romance. But he hasn’t, only almost. In fact Hans Eichhorn demonstrates how easy it could be to write a romance, because language and words enable to move and to overcome all kind of distance – there is no means of movement that is more convenient than words. Nevertheless, words are fugitive and make blind for the truth – blind for everything in between Georg and Renate which separates them from each other.

From the calm to the storm: a distraughting novel – diverse and vividly

Actually everything starts quite harmless. Paul Wukitsch, grown up in poor circumstances, is outstandingly intelligent. His mother makes it possible for him to study theology. Nevertheless, Paul is sceptical about church and his scepticism leads to several infringements and finally to his exclusion from the seminary. Alexander Altmann’s career is varied, too. He had married into money, but after the suicide of his wife and the consequential scandal, the tide turns … Their paths of life could not differ more, but as their paths meet, the story takes a sudden course. Peter Rosei draws the bow from the beginning of the 20th to the 21st century. The kaleidoscope of his characters creates a serried tableau full of tension. He describes the impact of a superior system on individuals in his laconic style which still is full of musicality. And he tells from the slow maturation catastrophes.

The story of two women, mother and daughter, who share their past, but who are not able to share their memories.

“Hermann is dead, now I can remember precisely.” The husband of Marianne fell down the stairs and broke his neck – an accident. She knows exactly when it happened: She wrote it down on a piece of paper in order not to forget, not like she uses to forget lunch sometimes or her neighbor’s name or her pills. Marianne suffers from Alzheimer; she is losing her memories, now she has lost her husband, too. “She’s crying ‘cause she knows that it’s too late, although he’s dead.” An accident? Friederike, Marianne’s daughter, has her doubts. Did her mother have to become a murderer to break free? While Friederike finds herself forced by her father’s death to take care for her mother, the latter withdraws herself bit by bit: she withdraws into her past, into a time when she was only a child, when she did not need bags and notes to prevent herself from forgetting. “Unraveled Days” is Gudrun Seidenauer’s second novel: cautious, touching and full of empathy, nevertheless not at the expense of the author’s linguistic accuracy.

SHORTLIST Deutscher Buchpreis 2009 Bremer Literaturpreis 2009 Walter and Alexander used to be friends when they were only children – now their ways meet again.

This is the story of Walter, the son of an influential architect. He wants to become an actor – or is that what his father wants? Walter is given a chance when Valerie, an exhausted psychiatrist, askes him to play the parts of fictitious patients’ roles in group therapy sessions. Only he is too much absorbed in his part. This is the story of Alexander. He is a nurse, a young man of spreading imagination, which developed in the shadows of his lonely childhood. Alexander quits his job and tries to get rid of his girlfriend in order to be with Valerie. But one day she is found being beaten up brutally… After his debut “Sons and Planets”, for which he received nothing but approval from the critics, Clemens J. Setz presents a piece of work which exceeds all expectations: breathtakingly vigorous, colourful, of powerful expressions and yet gentle.

She’s forever searching, lands everywhere but never really gets anywhere. She lives in Boboville.

She is one of those people her parents always warned her about. One of those first-person narrators who suffer from a crave for stories, a crave for thingy-stories, idea-stories. Completely bonkers. She hangs around bars, flows through lounges, shakes on dance floors. And, like everybody else in Boboville, she’s always searching – for the Explorer guitar, for the pasty-faced guy with love handles, for the story of Hiram Abiff, that special Zappa bootleg. She is searching for Anouk Aimée in 8 ½, the Freitag bag with the B in chartreuse, Coop’s devil’s face, the four daiquiris at Floridita’s, burning Elmar. Like all the others, she lives in the town of towns. She lives in Boboville. In this postmodern city novel, we accompany the protagonist on her daily odyssey. The author recounts the ludicrous episodes in the lives of the bobo (bourgeouis bohemian) people. Meet the hippie baker with LSD-coloured hair, the poet with the sharp knife, the chancelor, and the climber. They all land everywhere, but never get anywhere. They are already there. In Boboville.

Motherhood’s hell, love’s death: a requiem for those who have grazed their knees due to euphoria.

She came because of Ivan, it is him she is here for. Ivan is her home, the place of her wishes and all her longings, the place where true love is to be found.However, when she gets pregnant, one baby, then the third one, it is Ivan who traits their idea. Love turns into obsession, drowning in excesses of violence. This betrayal breathes vengeance, as passionate as love, as brutal as desire. “I am their mother. I gave birth to them. I can do whatever I like to do with them.” Michaela Falkner tells the story about a love dying, dramatic like a Greek Tragedy. At the same time she reveals the horror and cruelty of a daily life ruled by domestic violence. The author bears a lot of courage in order to write with the icy pathos of fragility and cruelty.

Being on the way – the ultimate litany

"I am an explorer without mission, withous specialty and without destination." Two month, which Blixa Bargeld predominantly spends in a bus - from Lisbon to Moscow, Oslo to Naples, crisscrossing Europe. Free day on a tour means a day for travelling. And what does Blixa Bargeld do? He visits a museum, buys shoes and wines and dines alone (mostly), but not only this ... A tournee, a litany and a declaration of love to Europe.

Thomas Bernhard's memoirs of his youth - consisting of five volumes "Die Ursache" (1975), "Der Keller" (1976)," Der Atem" (1978), "Die Kälte" (1981), "Ein Kind" (1982) - contain central motifs of his novels, as well as the origins of the hurts he endured. His childhood, his schooldays as a boarder in Salzburg, his apprenticeship and student days, and his isolation at the age of eighteen in a sanatorium. Anyone wishing to understand Bernhard's world will find the key here. The sister comes in, grabs the washing, and throws it onto a chair beside the bath. Then she lifts my hand. All night she calls at various rooms, lifting people’s hands and feeling their pulses. She starts stripping the bed, the bed in which someone has just died. She throws the covers on the floor and then lifts my hand again, as though waiting for me to die. Then she bends down, gathers up other covers, and goes out with them. Now I want to live. (From: In the Cold) The autobiography is Thomas Bernhard's richest and most mature work. It is one of the great literary documents of our '70s. (Marcel Reich-Ranicki, FAZ)