Originale
Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind
Most history books focus on the ideas of great thinkers, the bravery of warriors, the charity of saints and the creativity of artists. They have much to tell about the weaving and unravelling of social structures, about the rise and fall of empires, about the discovery and spread of technologies....
Anthony Doerr: All the light we cannot see
Werner is succeeding. He is being loyal. He is being what everybody agrees is good. And yet every time he wakes and buttons his tunic, he feels that he is betraying something. Werner Pfennig, ein Waisenkind mit weißem Haar, wächst in den 1930er-Jahren zusammen mit seiner Schwester Jutta in einem...
Craig Johnson: Longmire – Hell is empty
Der Roman des amerikanischen Schriftstellers Craig Johnson folgt vom Erzählstil her dem eines Detektivromans. Protagonist ist Sheriff Walt Longmire vom Absaroka County Sheriff Department, der die Geschichten in der ersten Person erzählt. Sein Amt übt er hier seit dreißig Jahren aus. Absaroka...
Adam Hochschild: King Leopold’s Ghost
These were the years when, to the distress of many a young male European, Europe was at peace. For a young man looking for battle, especially battle against a poorly armed enemy, the Congo was the place to go. For a white man, the Congo was also a place to get rich and to wield power. Im...
T.C. Boyle: Drop City
»No rules,« he shouted, »no zoning laws, no taxes, no county dicks and ordinances. You want to build, you build. You want to take down some trees and put up a cabin by the most righteous far-out turned-on little lake in the world, you go right ahead and do it and you don't have to go groveling for...
Alfred Lansing: Endurance – Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
He now faced an adversary so formidable that his own strength was nothing in comparison, and he did not enjoy being in a position where boldness and determination count for almost nothing, and in which victory is measured only in survival. Die Geschichte klingt wie der Stoff für einen typischen T....
T. C. Boyle: World’s End
»Your mother was a saint, yeah. Selfless. Good. Righteous. Those eyes of her. But maybe too good, too pure, you know what I mean? Maybe she made me feel like shit in comparison, made me feel like hurting her – just a little, maybe. Like your Jessica, right? Am I right? Goody-good?« Walter van...
Joseph McBride: Searching for John Ford
Meine Lieblingsanekdote über John Ford ist folgende: Als ihm die Nachricht vom Tode seines alten Weggefährten Ward Bond erreichte, unterhielt sich der große Regisseur gerade mit dem Schauspieler Andy Devine. Bond und Devine gehörten zu den Schauspielern der sogenannten »Ford Stock Company«, die...
Diana Gabaldon: Outlander
I think it’s as though everyone has a small place inside themselves, maybe, a private bit that they keep to themselves. It’s like a little fortress, where the most private part of you lives – maybe it’s your soul, maybe just that bit that makes you yourself and not anyone else ... You don’t show...
Christian Kiefer: The Infinite Tides
I don't get it. If you can go to Harvard, you go to Harvard. Wie viele kleine Jungs wünscht sich Keith Corcoran, der Protagonist von »The Infinite Tides«, nichts sehnlicher, als Astronaut zu werden. Anders als bei den meisten Kindern verliert sich bei ihm dieser Berufswunsch jedoch nicht mit dem...
Don DeLillo: Point Omega
It takes close attention to see what is happening in front of you. It takes work, pious effort, to see what you are looking at. He was mesmerized by this, the depths that were possible in the slowing of motion, the things to see, the depths of things so easy to miss in the shallow habit of seeing....
Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games
Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness. In »The Hunger Games« (deutsch: »Die Tribute von Panem«) beschwört Suzanne Collins eine post-apokalyptische Welt herauf, die aus 13 Bezirken und einem Regierungsbezirk, dem Capitol, besteht. Der 13. Bezirk wurde rund 75 Jahre zuvor...
E.L. James: Fifty Shades (Trilogy)
I want to hurt you ... I just need it ... I can't tell you ... If I do, you will run screaming from this room, and you'll never want to return. Die meisten Beschreibungen der Fifty Shades-Trilogie der englischen Autorin E. L. James konzentrieren sich auf die Tatsache, dass sich – zumindest im...
Ian McEwan: Solar
And now that he had entered upon the final active stages of his life, he began to understand that, barring accidents, life did not change. He had been deluded. He had always assumed that a time would come in adulthood, a kind of plateau, when he would have learned all the tricks of managing, of...
Jay Dobyns, Nils Johnson-Shelton: No Angel
Whether I agreed with him or not didn't matter. We may have been dedicated to different things, but it was the dedication itself that mattered most. Wenn sich ein Polizist als Undercover-Agent bei den Hells Angels einschleicht, fast zwei Jahre als einer von ihnen lebt und beinahe als vollwertiges...
Daniel Woodrell: Winter’s Bone
She knew few details of the old bitter reckoning that erupted inside those once holy walls, but suddenly understood to her marrow how such angers between blood could come about and last forever. Like most fights that never finished it had to’ve started with a lie. A big man and a lie. Ree Dolly,...
Peter Biskind: Star – The Life and Wild Times of Warren Beatty
Yvette Nabel, eine junge Tontechnikerin, lag während der Nachbearbeitung des Films »Reds« (1981) vor Schmerz auf dem Boden. »Ich hatte eine Gallensteinkolik und ich fragte: Kann ich bitte gehen?« Warren Beattys Antwort lautete: »Nein, wir könnten Dich noch brauchen.« »Star – The Life & Wild Times...
Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Time was passing like a hand waving from a train that I wanted to be on. Sie wünschen sich mehr Zeit und mehr Wörter, mehr gesagt zu haben: Oskar Schell, der seinen Vater in den Anschlägen auf das World Trade Center verloren hat; sein Großvater Thomas, der seine zukünftige Frau Anna im...