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Wer bin ich und wenn ja, wie viele? (2008)
Precht, Richard D.

Richard David Precht, Philosoph, Publizist und Autor, wurde 1964 in Solingen geboren. Er promovierte 1994 an der Universität Köln und arbeitet seitdem für nahezu alle großen deutschen Zeitungen und Sendeanstalten. Precht war Fellow bei der Chicago Tribune . Im Jahr 2000 wurde er mit dem Publizistikpreis für Biomedizin ausgezeichnet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was ist Wahrheit? Woher weiß ich, wer ich bin? Warum soll ich gut sein?
Bücher über Philosophie gibt es viele. Doch Richard David Prechts Buch "Wer bin ich?" ist anders als alle anderen Einführungen. Niemand zuvor hat den Leser so kenntnisreich und kompetent und zugleich so spielerisch und elegant an die großen philosophischen Fragen des Lebens herangeführt. Ein einzigartiger Pfad durch die schier unüberschaubare Fülle unseres Wissens über den Menschen. Von der Hirnforschung über die Psychologie zur Philosophie bringt Precht uns dabei auf den allerneusten Stand. Wie ein Puzzle setzt sich das erstaunliche Bild zusammen, das die Wissenschaften heute vom Menschen zeichnen. Eine aufregende Entdeckungsreise zu uns selbst: Klug, humorvoll und unterhaltsam!

 

Ein gutes Buch: angetrieben von unbändiger Erkenntnislust und ansteckendem Wissensdurst unternimmt Richard David Precht eine Rundreise ins Reich der Philosophie und Hirnforschung, verzichtet dabei wohltuend auf Originalität um der Orginalität willen und hat gerade deshalb etwas sehr seltenes geschaffen: einen kompetenter Ratgeber, der seine Leser nicht für dümmer verkauft, als sie sind.
"Druckfrisch - Neue Bücher mit Denis Scheck" vom 2. 3. 2008

 

"Wenn Sie dieses Buch lesen, haben Sie den ersten Schritt auf dem Weg zum Glück schon getan. [...] Dieses Buch ist unverzichtbar."

Elke Heidenreich (25.01.2008)

Fragen zu stellen ist eine Fähigkeit, die man nie verlernen sollte.“ (Richard David Precht)

Eine faszinierende Reise in die Welt der PhilosophieRichard David Prechts Buch bietet Antworten auf die großen Fragen des Lebens

Was ist Wahrheit? Woher weiß ich, wer ich bin? Warum soll ich gut sein?
Bücher über Philosophie gibt es viele. Doch Richard David Prechts BuchWer bin ich?“ ist anders als alle anderen Einführungen. Niemand zuvor hat den Leser so kenntnisreich und kompetent und zugleich so spielerisch und elegant an die großen philosophischen Fragen des Lebens herangeführt. Ein einzigartiger Pfad durch die schier unüberschaubare Fülle unseres Wissens über den Menschen. Von der Hirnforschung über die Psychologie zur Philosophie bringt Precht uns dabei auf den allerneusten Stand. Wie ein Puzzle setzt sich das erstaunliche Bild zusammen, das die Wissenschaften heute vom Menschen zeichnen. Eine aufregende Entdeckungsreise zu uns selbst: Klug, humorvoll und unterhaltsam!


Eine ebenso kompetente wie spielerische Annäherung an die großen philosophischen Fragen
Ein Buch, das die Lust am Denken weckt!

 

 

 

RICHARD DAVID PRECHT (2009)

Liebe

Ein unordentliches Gefühl

Das unverzichtbare Buch für alle, die Ratgebern misstrauen, aber trotzdem endlich wissen wollen, was es mit der Liebe auf sich hat!

Unzählige Ratgeber sind über die Liebe geschrieben worden, in allen Facetten wurde das unordentliche Gefühl, das wir Liebe nennen, beleuchtet. Wir haben erfahren, wie wir unsere Liebe jung halten, wie wir feurige Liebhaber werden und warum Männer nicht zuhören können. Hat es uns weitergeholfen? Nicht wirklich, denn in der Tat ist es nicht damit getan, das richtige Buch zu lesen, und alles wird gut. Warum dies so ist, erklärt Richard David Precht in seinem neuen Buch auf ebenso fundierte wie anschauliche Weise: Wie bereits in „Wer bin ichunternimmt er eine abenteuerliche Reise in die unterschiedlichsten Disziplinen der Wissenschaft und lotst den Leser dabei heiter und augenzwinkernd durch den Parcours der Liebean deren Unordentlichkeit wir uns am Ende wohl gewöhnen müssen!

Heiter und augenzwinkernd führt Precht den Leser durch den Parcours der Liebe.

"Ein Buch, das sich an alle richtet, die Liebes-Ratgebern nicht trauen, aber trotzdem wissen wollen, was es mit der Liebe auf sich hat!"

Richard David Precht

 

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon (2008)

Synopsis by Waterstone's

George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. 'The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.' Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her family is not pleased - as her brother Jamie observes, Ray has 'strangler's hands'. Katie can't decide if she loves Ray, or loves the wonderful way he has with her son Jacob, and her mother Jean is a bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former colleagues. And the tidy and pleasant life Jamie has created crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony, to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. The way these damaged people fall apart - and come together - as a family is the true subject of Mark Haddons’ disturbing yet very funny portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

Customer review

Lance Mitchell

This is the story of Kate's wedding. That seems straightforward enough, but she has a mother who is having an affair with her father's ex work colleague. Her father believes that he has cancer and cracks up with near disastrous consequences. Her brother is homosexual and worried about inviting his partner to the wedding. Actually, her brother is probably the most sane character in the whole book; or maybe his partner is. With all of these nutters around, the wedding may never happen. And if it does, there are bound to be ructions.
This book is just hilarious, Despite seeming to be very far-fetched, there are parts of the lives of each of the characters with which I am sure any of us can identify.
Once again, Mark Haddon succeeds in writing in a style that imitates him sitting in your front room telling you the story.
Just a very pleasant and easy read.

 

 

 

   DOUBLE FAULT (1997)  by  Lionel Shriver

 

A cautionary tale of passion and rivalry. Double fault is also a love story set in the high pressure world of professional tennis. With the unerring scrutiny that is her trademark. Shriver examines a modern marriage – not a pretty sight.

 

“her exploration of her characters is so fearless that although readers may not sympathise with her, they’ll understand why she is driven to destroy what she loves”  metro

 

Synopsis

'Love me, love my game', says twenty-three year-old Willy Novinsky. Ever since she picked up a racquet at the age of four, tennis has been Willy's one love, until the day she meets Eric Oberdorf. She's a middle-ranked professional tennis player and he's a Princeton graduate who took up playing tennis at the age of eighteen. Low-ranked but untested, Eric, too, aims to make his mark on the international tennis circuit. Willy beholds compatibility spiced with friendly rivalry, and discovers her first passion outside a tennis court. They marry. Married life starts well, but animated shop talk and blissful love-making soon give way to full-tilt competition over who can rise to the top first. Driven and gifted, Willy maintains the lead until she severs her knee ligaments in a devastating spill. As Willy recuperates, her ranking plummets whilst her husband's climbs, until he is eventually playing in the US Open. Anguished at falling short of her lifelong dream and resentful of her husband's success, Willy slides irresistibly toward the first quiet tragedy of her young life.

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

"'An awesomely smart, stylish and pitiless achievement' Independent '

Taps into unspoken fears of maternal ambivalence that are not easily acknowledged and do not fit neatly into glossy magazine notions of female empowerment' Guardian Unlimited

'Harrowing, tense and thought-provoking, this is a vocal challenge to every accepted parenting manual you've ever read' Daily Mail '

An elegant psychological and philosophical investigation of culpability with a brilliant denouement' Observer"

 

 

Embers (1942) BY Sándor Márai (1900-1989)

 

Embers is the story of two very old men, both formed by a world that had long disappeared by the time he wrote it. The General and his long-absent and estranged old army friend are products of the Austro-Hungarian Empire so marvellously chronicled by Joseph Roth, Robert Musil and others. Márai was six years younger then Roth. His view was decidedly retrospective and elegiac. It was less the losing of a world, more its loss that concerned him. The two old men of the story live by a fiercely held code of honour that determines the complex relationship between them and the woman they had both loved when young, the General’s by now long-dead wife Kristina, who did not speak a word to her husband in the last eight years of her life and love of whom had broken up their friendship.

Márai was intensely interested in psychology, in the unwrapping of human fears, desires and motives. He also had a dramatist’s instinct for the timing of confessions and revelations. Above all he had the poet’s feeling for language and imagery, the way word pictures build expectations, strip them down and open up the hidden corridors of consciousness. When the young wife-to-be tells the Emperor Franz-Joseph of her impending marriage to the then young Hungarian Officer of the Guards the emperor smiles and tells her to beware: “ In the forest where he is taking you there are bears. He is a bear too.” By the beginning of the book the old bear is alone in his hunting lodge with only his ninety-one year old wet-nurse from childhood as his companion.

Then, suddenly, the old friend announces his return. Everything must be perfect. There are so many questions the General wants to ask. What happened on that July day in 1899 when they went hunting together? What had been the relationship between his much awaited guest and his wife? Small but vital items of evidence are tucked away in the house. The guest arrives half way through the book and the curious conversation begins. ©George Szirtes