They meet on a beach in Mexico: Alice, a somewhat confused young German woman on holiday with her married lover. And an American woman thirty years her senior, who Alice secretly calls ›the master‹. Because she’s everything that Alice wants to be. Elegant. Confident. Commanding in her relationships with men. And above all – she’s a writer. In order to get ›the master‹ to notice her, Alice has to think of something. A story, for example. And it works – but in a completely different way to how Alice had imagined. And yet, ›the master‹ herself had even warned her: writers suck you dry, they’re nothing but thieves and vampires.

This extraordinary book, a blend between a writing companion and an autobiography, is penned by the great author and director Doris Dörrie; an invitation to write daily, intertwined with personal memories.

For Doris Dörrie to write is to consciously perceive one’s own life, to really see what lies before our eyes. And to rediscover what we have lost or forgotten. Writing is comfort, self-assurance, accusation, and a celebration of life. In this unique book, Doris Dörrie ponders autobiographical writing and gives tips and creative guidance. And she takes her own advice, telling stories from her life with enchanting honesty.

Everyone can write. You just have to get started. 

They consult I Ging, dabble in Buddhism, have their homes Chi'is tested and go in search of happiness at Sushi dinners or in Hollywood. The generation of today's mid-forties who set out to manage love, their families and their professions with so much more tolerance and coolness and so much better than their parents had done are now confronted by questions which cannot be answered simply by »positive thinking«. A young woman travels to Japan alone, hoping to instil new élan into her business. Luck is not on her side, however, and her contact man leaves her in the lurch. But her despair is caused not so much by her professional debacle as by her failing relationship with her husband: I even began reading the Dalai Lama and meditating in an attempt to save my marriage. Samsara: life is suffering. That did not exactly cheer me up. Following a road accident, Achim's wife Eva is in a coma. Achim visits her every day, reads to her and hopes for a reaction, but the doctors are at their wits' end. In an attempt to take his mind off the desperate situation, Achim gets swept along in the subway with a crowd of people on their way to a concert by the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger has hardly taken hold of the microphone when Achim sees in his mind's eye Eva on their first journey together, and he hears them both join in singing with the band: satisfaction! This memory of the early days of their love gives him the strength to carry on. The fifteen-year-old Anna, whose mother is a food photographer, refuses to eat. She has to be artificially fed. Completely bewildered, her parents stand by her bed in hospital where Anna is being intravenously fed. If my jeans don't fit me any more I shall kill myself, thinks Anna in Germany in 1992. My mother doesn't understand that one's soul grows thin when one's body is fat, thinks the fifteen-year-old Anna in Italy in 1570 and decides to stop eating and become a martyr... In the alternation between the narrations, the alien and the all too familiar draw close together. Fifteen tragic and comic stories about yesterday and today which are not as far removed from one another as we sometimes think.

Leopold and his young wife want to be different from their bourgeois neighbours in Lower Bavaria. They invite the Vietnamese refugee family Hung to tea and meals at their house, give them warm winter clothing and a pair of new shoes for Mrs Hung. Only a few days later, however, they are obliged to capitulate in the face of the cultural differences which appear to be insuperable despite all good intentions. He is newly divorced and is trying to work through the pain of being separated from his children at a course of therapy in Tuscany. She is there to moan about her children getting on her nerves and her longing to return to her career as a civil engineer. Together, they abandon the therapy-zoo for a few hours... Charlotte wants to start working again and tries to find a nanny to look after her small daughter. Not, of course, just any nanny, but »a babysitter who respects me, leaves me in peace and is always available«. Naturally, she will also have to learn quickly about »healthy feeding« and »fear-free education«, and she must also have a good karma. Anita, a young girl from Eastern Germany who only came to the West two weeks previously, gets the job: Good karma from Zschopau – and its consequences...

The four stories of »Love, Pain, and the Whole Damn Thing« comprise a modern survival manual on mating, marriage, and money, answering some of life's most urgent questions: how to find a man, how to dump him; how to protect your position as a mistress, or as a cuckold; how to maintain your dignity when spying on a lover; or how to salvage your credit rating when your husband loses his job. The result - wickedly funny and utterly fresh - heralds the emergence of a major international writer.

In his mid-forties, Fred Kaufmann has become what he never wanted to be: instead of being in films, he now manages the German branch of an American fast-food chain, instead of jeans, leather jacket and El Fatah scarves, he now wears Calvin Klein underwear and Boss suits, and the cowboy boots were first changed for Nike sports shoes and finally for hand-sewn English lace-ups. He is professionally successful, has at last enough money – but he is not happy. He is afraid of losing his family. He and his wife have been in a marital crisis for some time, which Claudia has tried to heal by turning to Buddhism – while he has tried it with an extra-marital affair. His seventeen year-old daughter Franka has fallen in love with a Tibetan lama, and wants to emigrate to India with him. As modern parents, Claudia and Fred cannot forbid it, but have decided to let Franka spend a few weeks in a Buddhist monastery in Southern France together with the man she worships. They trust – from their own experience – more in the disillusioning effect of everyday life rather than prohibition. Fred travels together with Franka accompanied by the worst possible feelings. The trip and the stay in the monastery, however, brings father and daughter closer together than ever before. For Fred, this journey on which he started so unwillingly becomes above all a journey to himself.

Florian wants to organise a fashion show in memory of his lover Alfred who died of cancer a year ago. The idea is to show a particularly fine example from each collection: a tomato-coloured wrap-around dress from 1996, black cashmere trousers from 1998, a cream satin sheathe from 1999 – and naturally the blue dress from spring 2000. During his search for one of the models, Florian comes across Babette who bought the blue dress, a dream made of Mediterranean blue organza. »The dress will change your life!« Alfred had said when he saw Babette stepping gingerly out of the cabin. And he did not promise too much, for a great deal happened since then.

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Whether she writes about men, the father of the bride or the question »Am I beautiful?«, Doris Dörrie takes a close look, surprises us with unexpected twists and very refreshing comedy. Doris Dörrie's best stories in one volume.

When Doris Dörrie writes about food, it reads as though she’s embracing the entire world. She tells of melon moments from her childhood, of pure pasta joy and her love for hearty soups. She encourages us to be grateful for onigiri and ponders cultural tolerance over Valencian paella. She rethinks her consumption of eggs on account of a chicken called Brownie, and we learn how to connect with ourselves in the kitchen while chopping, grating and kneading.

Doris Dörrie’s stories about food stay with us, and give us an appetite — both for food and life itself.

Antonia, Fanny and Charlotte - we seem to know Doris Dörrie's main characters for a long time already. In brief episodes and stories we follow their lives: from teeny romanticism to the first bitter disappointments of their twens to the aberrations of the forties and fifties - Doris Dörrie's stories excel themselves in density and laconic accuracy. Her dry humour, her solid unpretentious way of narrating always concentrates on the development of her characters. She shows us in what funny but bitter ways the ravages of time prey upon us.

In Living, Writing, Breathing, Doris Dörrie tells of the power of autobiographical writing, inspiring countless readers in the process. This book is her personal invitation to every one of us to reach for our own pen and write about our own lives. With inspiration and helpful tips, she encourages us to immerse ourselves in our own stories, to become more mindful of each individual moment and to embrace life’s contradictions.

»I write in order to celebrate and be fully conscious of this unbelievable opportunity: being alive.«
Doris Dörrie

Heroes have to set out into the big wide world and have adventures in order to become heroes – otherwise there’d be no story. But what about heroines? 

Doris Dörrie recounts three journeys, to San Francisco, Japan and Morocco, describing what it’s like to travel the world as a woman. Facing the unknown and dealing with the foreign always means confronting your own fears, privileges and losses. But in the process, you become the heroine of your own tale.

Three friendly couples meet on a Saturday evening. Everything seems as usual – and yet it is not: Emilia and Felix, recently separated, are both suffering financially and psychologically. Charlotte and Dylan have made a lot of money through Dylan's clever speculating, but their relationship is growing more and more miserable despite their wealth. Only Annette and Boris are still happily in love; true, they would like rather more money, but they manage quite well all the same. The six friends meet for dinner in Charlotte and Dylan's smart apartment. But the happy, carefree atmosphere that characterised their previous meetings is lacking. Emilia and Felix feel lonely because they are no longer a couple, and hostile sparks fly between Charlotte and Dylan. Then Emilia tells them that she recently read that couples who have lived together for over twenty years are often unable to identify their partner's hands on a photograph. She said she was willing to bet that most men would not even recognize their own wives with their eyes shut. The others are indignant, they are sure that they would know their partners anywhere. Felix adds fuel to the fire: if they are all so certain, then why not take a bet on it... and an experiment with considerable consequences begins.

It all began in the 1970s, as hopeful young actresses Johanna and Heidi and the inventive director Rainer made it all the way to Hollywood with their very first film. But the illusion factory of Hollywood is always on the lookout for something new, and the three newcomers are soon no longer so refreshing. Johanna returns to Germany to work as a props supervisor, Heidi begins to earn her living as channelling medium – only Rainer cannot seem to say goodbye to the film business. The love of Rainer's life is his teenage daughter, Allegra, who lives with his ex-wife and visits him only once a year. For her sake, he maintains the illusion that he has made it in Hollywood and that every year he moves into a new mansion – which in reality he is only housesitting. And then it happens. The owner of the mansion decides to come home earlier than planned. Rainer hits upon an idea of how he can save the situation. He pretends that he has been called in for a ›highly urgent shoot‹ and asks Johanna to take Allegra to a trendy yoga hotel until he returns. And so begins a rather curious road movie…