Top 10 Books of June: Michel Foucault Tries to Bring Order to the Chaos of Philosophy, Roger Van de Velde Makes Skulls Crack, and David Grann Recreates the Story of a Shipwreck

The ten most important books of June: Michel Foucault tries to bring order to the chaos of philosophy, Roger Van de Velde makes skulls crackle and David Grann reconstructs the story of a shipwreck

Saša Stanišić also talks about feasible utopias, Volker Reinhardt follows in the footsteps of a heretic and George Saunders sees the dark side of the USA.

Saša Stanišić: If the widow wants to be spoken to, she puts the watering can on the grave with the spout forward (*) Saša Stanišić's new book tells of utopias that can be realized and yet are always in danger. When we compare the past and its promises with the present, the times merge into a tangle that is difficult to untangle. The disillusionment does not end there. Where the trap of nostalgia is avoided, great narrative art is created.

In his books, Saša Stanišić reinvented kindness as a human right. (Magnus Terhorst)

Colm Tóibín's new book begins a good twenty years after the stories told in "Brooklyn." Eilis and Tony have two children, and there is no sign that the unlikely Irish-Italian couple will ever separate. Then one morning, a man rings the doorbell and threatens to soon leave a baby Tony has fathered on the doorstep.

The film adaptation of Colm Tóibín's novel "Brooklyn" starring Saoirse Ronan (left) as Eilis. (Everett Collection/Imago)

In his new collection of stories, Saunders shows why a legendary reputation precedes him. The nine stories cannot be reduced to a common denominator and move confidently from realism to magical and dystopian spaces. They mercilessly dismantle our present or boldly extend it into a future of increased desolation.

George Saunders brings his stories to a bitter end with relentless consistency. (Ramin Talaie)

Paula Irmschler: Everything is always due to the time

Two women, mother and daughter, plan a trip that becomes a journey into the past. The mother is a veteran of the GDR, the daughter was born just at the time of reunification. For both of them, the dissolved state is a turning point in their lives. Paula Irmschler, born in Dresden in 1989, gets very close to her characters and brings out the comic in them with a certain tenderness.

Paula Irmschler has shaken up the pop novel genre with her debut novel, “Superbusen.” (Jessica Barth)

The Belgian author was a drug addict and was declared mentally disturbed. Locked away in a psychiatric ward, Roger Van de Velde wrote mercilessly laconic stories about life in this closed institution. Half a century after his death at the age of just 45, the masterfully condensed miniatures have finally appeared in German.

"Life is a story told by an idiot": Roger Van de Velde says it with Macbeth. (PD)

Volker Reinhardt: The One Who Reached the Stars

He believed in nothing that was not proven and was not afraid to attack the Church: Giordano Bruno is one of the most fascinating figures of the Church. 16th century. Monk, philosopher, fantasist, heretic: Volker Reinhardt tells the life of a brilliant outsider.

Set no limits to reflection: the monument to Giordano Bruno in Rome stands on the spot where he was burned as a heretic four hundred years ago. (Rarrarorro/Imago)

Martin Krauss: Being there would be everything

European Football Championships, Olympic Games: a summer full of sport. Martin Krauss presents the work of memory necessary for this purpose. In the book "Être là, il y serait tout" (To be there, there would be everything), he talks about the athletes who had to fight to participate: workers, for example, women, Jews or blacks.

The Athlete's Achievement: Jesse Owens aboard the SS Manhattan, which he sailed to Europe for the 1936 Olympic Games. (Bettmann/Getty)

Michel Foucault: The Discourse of Philosophy

In the summer of 1966, Michel Foucault wrote "The Philosophical Discourse". Forty years after the death of the French thinker, the work appeared for the first time in German. A kind of systematics of philosophy with speculative intent. The attempt at order against thought.

Thought must be clearly structured: Philosopher Michel Foucault in a recording made shortly before his death in 1984. (Michele Bancilhon / AFP)

In 1741, the "Wager" was caught in a storm off the coast of Chile and capsized. Some of the crew were able to escape to a small island. A few months later, they were seriously suspected. David Grann tells a true story of murder and mutiny.

A voyage of life and death: The "Pari" shortly before its sinking, painted by Charles Brooking (circa 1744). (PD)

The First World War marked the end of multi-ethnic empires. And it marked the beginning of new nation-states. Historian Tara Zahra examines the coexistence of national isolation and globalization in the interwar period.

For Equality and Peace: Rosika Schwimmer organized a world congress in Budapest in 1913 for the introduction of women's suffrage. (Everett Collection / Imago)

Carolin Emcke: What is true. On violence and climate

"For me, I have no choice," says Carolin Emcke about her commitment to a better world. (Andreas Labes)

"Is it even necessary to speak? Isn't it more creative to forget than to remember?": Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) never confronted his past. (Toni Albir / EPA)

Sven Felix Kellerhoff: “Röhm Putsch! » 1934

German officer and SA leader Ernst Röhm (1887-1934) was one of the first members of the NSDAP. (Imago)

Democracy cannot exist without conflict. (Tabea Guenzler / Imago)

"We often underestimate the imagination of children," says Melanie Möller. (Getty)

Percival Everett's novel "James" is a revenge fantasy. (David Levenson/Getty)

Jhumpa Lahiri: The Reunion. Roman Stories

Rome is the setting for Jhumpa Lahiri’s latest anthology. But the city remains interchangeable; the only thing that is certain is the racism that Lahiri describes. (Francesco Boscarol / NurPhoto / Getty)

Mareike Fallwickl: And everyone is so calm.

Mareike Fallwickl could easily trust the readers of her novel more. (Barbara Gindl / APA)

Laura Leupi: The alphabet of sexualized violence

Lara Leupi has written a thoughtful and fruitfully provocative book. (Claude Bühler)

Han Kang on Lindenhofplaz in Zurich, 2016. (Dominic Steinmann / NZZ)

Love Letters. Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West

Virginia Woolf (left) and Vita Sackville-West in the garden of Woolf's country house in Rodmell. The photo was taken in 1933. (PD)

Salman Rushdie has been blind in his right eye since the stabbing. (Thomas Lohnes/Getty)

Since she couldn't get out of her skin, former lawyer and now writer Constance Debré at least covered it with tattoos. The photo was taken in Stockholm in the fall of 2023. (Johannes Äng / Imago)

Polish writer Szczepan Twardoch has long been advertising for Mercedes in Poland. Today he transports weapons in an old Toyota. (Martin Lengemann / Ullstein)

Author Anne Weber in a recording from 2020. (Helmut Fricke / DPA)

Philipp Felsch: The Philosopher. Habermas and Us

Philosopher Jürgen Habermas has been one of Germany's most influential intellectuals since the 1960s. (Martin Gerten / EPA)

Ulinka Rublack: Dürer in the Age of Miracles

The artist in the center: In Heller's altar, Albrecht Dürer depicted himself, right in the middle of the action. (Alay)

"I am the chancellor, and that's why it's like this": Olaf Scholz. (Markus Schreiber / AP)

Wolfgang Schäuble: Memories. My Political Life

Wolfgang Schäuble in October 1993, when he led the joint CDU-CSU parliamentary group. (Imago)

Theodora Becker: Dialectics of the Whore

"The prostitute plays with the desires of the suitor," says Theodora Becker. (Julian Röder / Ostkreuz)

Didier Eribon: A worker

Smart, elegant, intelligent, surprisingly polite and very left-wing: Didier Eribon. (© Pascal Ito / Flammarion / Suhrkamp-Verlag)

Persevering to win: Winston Churchill in October 1941 visiting an anti-aircraft base near London. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty)

Uwe Wittstock: Marseille 1940. The Great Escape of Literature

Escape aid Varian Fry (right) with painter Jacqueline Breton, painter André Masson and writer André Breton in 1941 in Fry's office in Marseille. (Bridgeman/Imago)

He has been in office for almost 11 years, longer than he himself imagined: A gust of wind blows the pileole off Pope Francis' head as he arrives in St. Peter's Square for the weekly general audience. (Andrew Medichini/AP)

Omri Boehm, Daniel Kehlmann: The Starry Sky Above Me

An uncompromising anarchist thinker: Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804). (Imago)

Gabriel García Márquez: See you in August

An unfinished novel by the Colombian writer has been published from the estate of Gabriel García Márquez. The photo was taken in Paris in 1982, the year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. (Ulf Andersen/Hulton Archive/Getty)

Life under constant observation: Giovanni Falcone in a 1992 photo. (Vittoriano Rastelli/Corbis/Getty)

Ulrich Peltzer recreates the left-wing student circles of the 1990s with autobiographical simplicity. (Gunter Gluecklich / S. Fischer Verlage)

Georges Haldas: Before the big departure

Poet Georges Haldas (1917-2010) in a 1998 recording. (Louis Monier / Gamma-Rapho / Getty)

Silence can be both oppressive and relaxing. Ingrid Thulin in Ingmar Bergman's "The Silence" from 1963. (Imago)

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Gerbrand Bakker: The barber's son