Book recommendations in June: What should I read? – Culture

Spellcasting with shards

Gabriel Breeding Riegel is not an academic archaeologist who quietly digs, but someone who thinks differently than most of his colleagues: “If we as a society invest in monument protection and research, what can monument protection and research give back to society?” He doesn’t write that as a rhetorical question, he lives it. Since 2021, Gabriel Basel has been in charge of the Archaeological Park of the ancient city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius. The 42-year-old is considered a phenomenon, an “archaeologist with a list”, he is a social worker, marketing genius, troublemaker, high-flyer, activist. This book, which is as unusual as it is grandiose, also fits in with this. It comes as a multiply broken justification and double biography, because the history of Pompeii, buried during the legendary Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD and excavated again from 1748, is interwoven with the life story of its chief archaeologist. The personality of a researcher, his education, religious affiliation, preferences shape his findings, that is what the Upper Swabian Catholic divorced child, breeding bar, read as a student from the discourse analysis pioneer Michel Foucault. Reinhard Brembeck

intoxication and rituals

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Youtube, hip-hop and Marina Abramović’s art performances do not necessarily come to mind when dealing with the search for spirituality in ecstasy. Rock music more. The wave of neo-psychedelic with their self-awareness accelerators like magic mushrooms, ayahuasca ceremonies and shamans anyway. But precisely this horizon is the strength of the book “Ecstases of the Present”, which places the longing for salvation in intoxication in an astonishingly deep historical context. Because there is precisely this basic human need for the dissolution of boundaries, which they are currently looking for in countless subcultures and practices. Yoga is just as much a part of the gentle forms as the search for the “flow” state at work. And YouTube and social media also use these mechanisms when they pull the mind into the depths of a so-called “rabbit hole”. All this is not easy to read, the density with which the two authors impart their knowledge is enormous. This is also the reason why “Ecstasies of the Present” is not just a book on a debate that is just beginning. Hanske and Sarreiter do not provide arguments, but rather a knowledge base on which one can build one’s own arguments. Because how all this will turn out is by no means foreseeable. Andrian Kreye

Nothing but ghosts

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Anne only remembers the postcard thing when she is pregnant, ten years after her arrival. In January 2003, Anne’s mother, Lélia, gathered the family around the table and showed them all. There are four names on the back, no sender, the card is addressed to Anne’s deceased grandmother. Ephraim likes it, Emma, ​​Noémie, Jacques. They are names that Anne knows, but they belong to people who are never spoken of: those of her great-grandparents and her grandmother’s siblings, all murdered in Auschwitz in 1942. “The Postcard” by Anne Berest bridges the anti-Semitism of the past with that which many French Jews describe today. The book is not a masterpiece of finely chiseled language or poetic tricks; but Anne Berest plays a wonderful game with time. Berest tells what she learns about her family history in the present tense; she describes the research and her search for herself in the past. The levels of time mingle until everyone is always everywhere and you can hear Noémie laughing in the corridors of the girls’ high school that Anne also attended, without realizing that the rooms are already part of the family history. Susan Vahabzadeh

suspicion and betrayal

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It’s the mid-1930s, and the barbaric 20th century is reaching its climax. Hitler rules in Germany, the Duce in Italy, in Spain Franco’s fascists fight against the republic. Stalin is raging in the Soviet Union, where the revolution is eating its own children with ravenous hunger – it’s “The Beginning of the End,” as Aldanov’s novel is titled. His tone is ironic, partly sarcastic, partly melancholic, with a remarkable elegance that reads wonderfully in Andreas Weihe’s German translation. The inner monologues, which are carried by psychological ordeals and philosophical considerations, are brilliant, the sharp splinters of thoughts that Aldanow gives his characters in dialogues. There is something masterly about the way he intertwines the individual strands and jumps back and forth between different perspectives. “The Beginning of the End” moves somewhere between contemporary politics and social psychology, between the artist and the courtroom novel, and despite its decidedly anti-Bolshevik thrust it has nothing in common with a pamphlet. Now the masterpiece is appearing in German for the first time. Ulrich Ruedenauer

Alone against Hitler. Life and deeds of Johann Georg Elser

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Despite many efforts, Hitler’s assassin Georg Elser is still one of the lesser-known resistance figures. Now the historian Wolfang Benz, like Elser himself from the Ostalb, has erected a worthy monument to his Swabian compatriot. Sensitively and with the best knowledge of the people on the Alb, Benz describes the life of the carpenter, who followed his conscience without much education and without a political agenda and took action in 1939 – at a time when other opponents of Hitler were still hesitating and hesitating. The way Benz sheds light on the aftermath of the assassination in the Federal Republic is particularly valuable. Here you can also find out why Elser was wrongly forced to take a backseat to the military resistance for so long. Cord ash burner

seeing eye. Courage to strategically change course

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For a year and a half – since Russia’s attack on Ukraine – NATO has been at the center of public interest. What’s going on in the alliance? Is it well prepared for all eventualities? Stefanie Babst can provide answers. The political scientist worked for NATO for 22 years, most recently as head of the strategic planning staff at the defense alliance’s headquarters. What she has to report in her analysis is sobering and enlightening at the same time. One was not well prepared for Russia’s aggression, especially not in Germany. Babst explains clearly and objectively what needs to be done now and how NATO should be reformed internally. Required reading for friends of western security. Matthew Kolb