Balancing the need for closeness with the fear of surveillance, As Far As We Know is a multi-voiced exploration of life today.

"We watch the watchers!" Under cover of darkness, a self-styled group of activists tries to fight back against the omnipresence of surveillance. As yet, they're only armed with spray cans. But how far should civil disobedience go? Mirjam has her doubts, while Agnes attempts to expose her unfaithful boyfriend with an app. Then there's Illir Zerai, a refugee who suffers from a persecution complex following his work for the Albanian secret service, and the student Marek, who falls in love with a stranger at a party. They all live in the same block of flats – and like all neighbours, their relationship is a mixture of need and mistrust, of helping and spying on each other. But there comes a point when you have to let go of fear.

The third volume of Lukas Kummer's highly praised graphic novel series based on Thomas Bernhard's “Autobiographische Schriften”.

“The Breath” forms the core of Bernhard's autobiography. It is where deepest despair and creative force are blended into the potent mix that makes his writing so unique, fascinating and boundary-breaking to this day. Bernhard was in his late teens when severe pleurisy abruptly wrenched him from his apprenticeship. He was hospitalised and considered terminally ill. But the 'room for lost causes' into which he is shunted turns out to be a place of new beginnings. Thomas Bernhard decides to live – and following the death of his grandfather resolves to become a writer himself. Lukas Kummer has found a rich and powerful imagery for this journey from near death to redemptive self-creation.

The first in a twelve-volume edition of Holl's complete works in a special format

Adolf Holl's best-seller “Jesus in schlechter Gesellschaft” / “Jesus in Bad Company” was first published in German and English fifty years ago. The book portrays Jesus as an outsider, a gentle revolutionary and social reformer who questioned dogmas and whose ideas on morality went against rigid power structures. Widely translated, Holl's depiction of Jesus was met with both fierce rejection and exultant approval far beyond Catholic circles and still provides impetus for reflection today. This anniversary issue is the first in a twelve-volume edition of Holl's complete works and includes an editor's introduction and an afterword by Horst Junginger.

A wonderfully wry story about a young woman, an old man and the power of literature.

As a bookseller, elderly Mr Roch has always been surrounded by books. Now he's written his own "novel of the century". It's all about literature, from Musil and Roth through to Bachmann and Handke – stories in which the notion of possibility often overrides reality. Mr Roch asks Lisa, a student and waitress in his favourite café, to type up the manuscript for him. As she can't read his writing, he decides to read it out to her, but his papers are in a dreadful mess. An ambivalent relationship develops between the old man who's brimming with stories and the young woman who doesn't believe everything he says. But Lisa has other worries too – her friend Semira is due to be deported. Can Roch's storehouse provide a refuge for her?

A unique pop-cultural game set in 1990s Belgrade – and a mad race against a time that truly screwed things up for the city's people.

Belgrade, 1995: Marko, his sister Vanja and Kasandra from the Roma settlement live in the "giant psycho-economical disaster" of 1990s Belgrade – a vicious circle of poverty, violence, inflation, drugs and new technologies. Yet in this inspired novel there aren't just gangs and dealers, there's also a crazy scientist and a time machine, there's a Balkan pop icon and kinky sex, there are bombardments and destruction, but also music and friendship. When the three young friends are catapulted into the war year of 1999, they realise that they have to rescue their city from the disastrous 90s. In a headlong race against the ticking clock they try to find the key to the time warp and re-write history.

Best-selling author Erika Pluhar’s new novel centres on a woman at a turning point in her life.

Fifty-one-year-old Hedwig Pflüger returns to the Vienna apartment hat she has inherited from her grandmother. She has kept away from the city and the old woman she grew up with for several decades. Now she faces a turning point in her life. The Viennese apartment is full of memories and in the stillness of the old building Hedwig starts to write about the past. The resulting account tells of a woman who struggled to meet the standardised requirements of her time; a woman who despite all her attempts kept sliding back into isolation and loneliness. But now, as she looks back and puts pen to paper, Hedwig learns to accept the present and open herself up to new challenges.

“Scent of the Soul” is a moving love story set amid the Syrian civil war and an authentic account of repression, revolution and the terror of the IS.

It's 2010 and the vibrant city of Damascus is full of life, but it’s the calm before the storm. Tarek, a Sunni Muslim, falls in love with Sanaa, who is Alevi. Against all odds, the two become a couple. But their secret meetings abruptly end when Tarek is called up. Through the military, he becomes entangled in acts of violence and antiques smuggling. He succeeds in fleeing to Europe, but when Sanaa tries to follow him, she is kidnapped by the IS and locked up. What Sanaa suffers in the IS prisons is based on authentic experiences, as Turjman cleverly weaves together fact and fiction to create a breathtaking novel that is highly relevant to our times.

Ein fundiertes Plädoyer für eine Gesellschaft, die der Verfügbarkeit der Welt Grenzen setzt.

Modernity’s core endeavour is to increase our personal reach, our grasp on the world. However, according to Hartmut Rosa’s controversial theory, this available world is a silent one. There is no longer a dialogue with it. Rosa counters this progressive estrangement between human and world with what he refers to as “resonance”: a reverberating, unquantifiable relationship with an unavailable world. Resonance develops when we engage with something unknown, something irritating, something that lies beyond our controlling reach. The outcome of this process can’t be planned or predicted, thus a moment of unavailability is always inherent to the occurrence of resonance.

The European wildcat population is increasing its spread. Yet most people have never encountered these shy animals, which share few similarities with our domesticated felines. Roaming through the wilderness, from the Scottish Highlands to the Black Sea, they are loved by some and ignored by others. Researchers have been using smart forensic methods to learn more about their secretive life and have discovered that wildcats aren’t as solitary as has long been assumed, nor is their habitat restricted to woodlands. Christine Sonvilla has followed the trails of these striking animals and offers an insight into the hidden lives of Europe’s little tigers.

With “Astray”, Martin Lechner offers us another enigmatic and superbly entertaining game of deception.

Powerfully eloquent, funny and expressive, the novel tells of Lars, a school drop-out who evades military service in favour of community service in the workshops of a psychiatric hospital. There, Lars finds refuge from his mother, whose abusiveness is worse than that of any raging patient. This is also where Lars meets Hanna, a patient who swiftly gets him tangled up in all manner of delightful scuffles, but whose radical attitude soon takes on a threatening scale. Was it her who torched the workshop leader’s car? How long before the flames of their passion also devour Lars’ fragile attempts to find his place in the world? And can those who’ve gone astray ever find their way back to an orderly life?