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

Joy Williams – Stories

How casual it all is, how cool – and yet with a feeling for the shabby, the excluded, the wrecked and the rotting. “The beloved” is driving around in a white convertible, he is apparently wealthy, with a stable network of friends and relationships, she is young, inexperienced and with a little daughter, whom he calls “easy-care” to friends: “Her would do unspeakable things for him, unforgivable things, anything.” Joy Williams stories are archaic constellations of a threatened world, in a certain way they all seem timeless. The strength of her characters and the certainty with which she steers towards mostly unedifying core sentences show this imprint. Morbidly alluring and with a cool, gruff clarity, these “Stories” are excellent bait to draw attention to the extraordinary writer. Meike Fessman

Tove Ditlevsen – Bad Luck

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Femininity was never easy, not even in Denmark and certainly not in the 1950s. Tove Ditlevsen dismantles her heroine Helga with dry words and subtle mockery: neither her background nor her talent nor her appearance bear any relation to Helga’s exaggerated hopes. Nevertheless, the simple-minded housemaid sticks to her ideas, waits first for the right man, then for marital bliss and finally, after a certain disillusionment, shifts to the desire for an umbrella. “Bad Luck” is the title of the cleverly composed volume, in which, in fifteen stories, one gets to know the specific aesthetics of the scarcity of the authoress, who was born in 1917. In a very small space, often in just a few lines, Ditlevsen conveys milieu, ideals of life, shattered dreams and is brilliant at describing aggression and its destructive power. Maike Albath

Michael Wolffsohn – Eternal Guilt?

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This month, Israel celebrated 75 years since its founding as a state. A good reason for the historian and publicist Michael Wolffsohn, 35 years after the first publication of “Eternal Guilt?” to present a new edition of his essay. The procedure is unusual, because Wolffsohn’s additions on the German-Jewish-Israeli relationship are different from the original text in terms of typography and color. The result is an open reflection on the sense and nonsense of the analyzes from 1988. It is not without reason that the text is now twice as long as before, because the relationship between Germans and Israelis has become more complicated. But the reading also shows what could help with a “relaxation” beyond lip service. Ludger Heid

Serhii Plokhy – The Attack

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Even after more than a year of war, the desire for explanations for the Russian attack on Ukraine is still immense. Eastern Europe expert Serhii Plokhy never tires of satisfying him. He has recently published several books on the history of Ukraine in quick succession, and now another lucid non-fiction book, “The Attack,” follows. Here again, a knowledgeable historical and geopolitical arc from the 15th century to the present day is drawn. What is new is that Plokhy is also trying to sketch a possible post-war order. What he writes about a new “era of great power rivalries” doesn’t sound very hopeful, but it’s definitely worth reading. Viola Schenz

Dipo Faloyin – Africa is not a country

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Dipo Faloyin’s book title is his thesis: Africa is not a monolithic place, but a continent with 54 nations, two thousand languages ​​and many thousands of peoples who differ enormously from each other. He dissects the images of Africa in the minds of the descendants of colonialism until all the hypocrisy and the humanity of goodwill is exposed. He does this not only with historical knowledge, but also with humor and a good feeling for literary levels. Faloyin has mastered laconicism like few others: he restrains himself from anger and morality, works with an irony that never slips into cynicism. This leads to an enormous reading speed. The very best prerequisites for 300 pages, at the end of which even the last one will understand why a bronze from Benin is more than just booty with art-historical significance. Andrian Kreye

Martin Schulze Wessels – Curse of the Empire

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The writing of history must always look to the past for answers to the questions and challenges of the present. Currently, it is primarily Russia’s aggression against Ukraine that is forcing us to reexamine our established paradigms – a difficult, arduous process that is far from over. The new book by the Eastern Europe historian Martin Schulze Wessel aims at the core questions. His claim is to explain “what are the deeper condition factors that led to the Russian war against Ukraine”. One of his central concerns is to finally make Ukraine visible in Germany “as an independent historical subject”. Martin Schulze Wessel’s book is an event for the urgently desired turning point in German historiography. An event that one can only hope will be the beginning of a meaningful scholarly discussion about the established framework of Eastern European history. Andrii Portnov

Saralisa Volm – The Eternal Inadequate

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While a woman is shaving her legs, she cannot overthrow systems. This is a realization that the actress Saralisa Volm found quite early on in her book. During that time, women can’t earn money, pursue a hobby, and most likely won’t make any scientific discoveries. That was definitely “intended”, writes Volm. Because if you are busy fighting supposed deficits, you can be guided. In her autobiographical non-fiction book “The Eternal Insufficiency”, Saralisa Volm addresses the feeling of female physical inadequacy. It has become an angry dirge, a sweeping critique of a society that demands women to be eternally youthful and desirable. Of course, the argumentation loops of female heteronomy in capitalism are now well known. So far it’s only of little use. And maybe that’s why it’s not wrong to get a little angry and ask: “How much hyaluron fits in an intelligent woman’s face?” And: “How much Botox can I expect of my political stance?” Christian Lutz