The questions Schlink examines are often provoked by current conflicts: the debate surrounding the Christian crucifix and Muslim headscarves in schools, stem cell and embryonic research, the threat to human dignity posed by the battle against crime and terrorism. Other questions find their roots in literary and Biblical texts: in the poetry of Heinrich Heine, the novels of Hans Fallada, Imre Kertész, Pat Barker and Jeffrey Eugenides, the story of Jacob's struggle on the Jabbok, the narrative of Pentecost. In his treatment of these questions, Schlink verifies his standpoint. Writing as both a novelist and a lawyer, his prose is never legally abstract in discussing the law and justice, all the while retaining its narrative force when dealing with politics, the economy, literature or the Church. His writing is refreshingly clear, accessible and vivid.

›Das Boot ist voll!‹ (›The lifeboat is full!‹), this sentence was mouthed by many Swiss during the Second World War. Rhetorically garnished, it was an expression of the fear prevailing in much of the Swiss population of an over-alienation of the country through Jewish refugees seeking asylum. This asylum essential for their survival was not granted to the lion's share of those who reached the country. The journalist and writer Alfred A. Häsler was one of the first to critically examine Switzerland's asylum policy in 1967, and through this opened the eyes of a broad cross-section of the general population to this dark chapter in Swiss history. Roger de Weck wrote an extensive preface especially for this edition.

The fact that Szczypiorski is not only a great narrator but also a brilliant essayist was already evident in his ›Notes on the State of Things‹. Now all his essays and speeches are united in one volume with which Szczypiorski became a household word in recent years, above all the speech on the anniversary of the reunification of Germany on October 3rd 1994 in Bremen.

The more globalised the world becomes, the more vulnerable we are as human beings. Homo sapiens knows this, and yet still we carry on as always. We eat too much meat, we use pesticides, we drive cars every day. But one day all those cute kitties, good-natured cattle and shy squirrels will launch a counterattack. Things will start happening very fast – and before long it will all be over. No more fun, no more day-to-day craziness, no more human beings.

Matussek made these reportages during a time of radical change - the end of the Reagan/Bush era and Clinton's first year of presidency. The national intoxication with the success of the Gulf War was followed by a hangover in the face of America's home-made problems: the economic crisis, the financial deficit, the street fights in Los Angeles. The stuff of which the American dream is made is worn-out and shabby, but these Stories from America make it clear that it still remains the accepted point of reference. A celebration of the great colonial myth. The basketball-playing ghetto boy who hopes for a big career. The media mogul who conquers continents in the »war of pictures«. And Matussek shows us how the artist and the critic handle this »stuff that dreams are made on«. Cocktail parties and homeless desolation, Broadway fever, the intoxication of consumption and the death sentence of aids – New York, America, has seldom been so intensively experienced as it is here. Linguistic brilliance, wit and an unerring feeling for unexpected details characterise Matussek's impressive and provocative writing.

In Kindling, Meienberg writes of diverse acts of violence, harsh realities and broken dreams. There is the alleged Allied victory in the Gulf War, presented as cleanly fought, and the rise of fundamentalism in Algeria; there is the misery in the Maghreb and the racism in the Paris banlieues; the collapse of Marxist thought and the rapid growth of esotericism; the ethnic cleansing in Karabakh, which we have grown accustomed to; our habituation to the everyday slaughter in Bosnia and the death of his mother. The essay collection also contains a letter to Salman Rushdie, living under the threat of a fatwa, and another to the editor-in-chief of Oslobodenje in Sarajevo, a man producing a newspaper in deadly danger.

On the lives and thoughts of Meister Eckhart, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, Giordano Bruno, Baruch Spinoza, Blaise Pascal, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Leo Tolstoy and many more.

In time for the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses: This book puts the reformer into another perspective – the church and its critics throughout 20 centuries.

A vivid and lively read – packed full of knowledge.

The standard work – now made available again.

The Book of Heretics tells us about ›unsuccessful saints‹, as Walter Nigg calls them. With great empathy, he writes about seekers of the divine and the truth, internally liberated but expelled from the church, or leavers by choice. His subjects include ›witches‹ and Cathars, famous philosophers and theologians, writers and scholars.

»Heretics are often among the greatest pioneers of new ideas. Their contemporaries could often not yet understand them.«
Walter Nigg

English translation available.