Anatol has to stay in kindergarten for another year. Going to school is unthinkable. He is a clever, imaginative child, but he has never been able to integrate into a group. Anatol is a "system disrupter" - he pushes his family and the educational institutions to their respective limits. Shortly after he is expelled from kindergarten, he receives an ADHD diagnosis. A school psychologist and a psychiatrist get involved, and Anatol is given medication. His parents are desperate to find a suitable school for him. Again and again, his mother Jil gets called to pick him up because the teachers are overwhelmed - not one school wants to keep him. What will become of Anatol? Jil, who dreamed of a free-spirited life as a poet and singer, threatens to break under the challenges, to be consumed by her worry about her beloved child, by her feelings of guilt and failure as a mother, and by her disappointment with a life in which she no longer exists.
Anatol abholen is an engaging, heartbreaking, and yet comforting story of a family's journey through the labyrinth of bureaucracy in our school and healthcare system, and the lack of understanding towards children who are different and have different needs. The book also explores the lack of capacity and opportunities in the mental health system, and the psyche of a mother who worries for her son and is forced to fight hard battles for his wellbeing and his future.
Neurology, cell biology, anthropology, and even astrophysics - Michel Rochon approaches music from a scientific perspective and leaves no field unexplored. In his essay Das Gehirn und die Musik, he tells us remarkable things about music both on Earth and in space. That the cosmos emits its own "music", for example. Or that the people of one of the Canary Islands communicate using a whistling language - i.e. by music - called Silbo.
Michel Rochon addresses fascinating questions in his essay: What came first - language or song? Are there negative effects of making music? Does music make you smarter?
Jörg Rehmann describes his experiences with excessive drug use and addiction in Berlin. He describes the tensions between his father's family from Schkopau and his mother's family, who fled Silesia after the Second World War. His mother demonstrates for Pegida and becomes a member of the AFD. His father, whom he calls "Master", dreams himself back to the GDR. His sister cruises through TV shopping channels after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Trips to his family's past in Poland and Ukraine not only help him to get clean. They transform everything.
For the second time, Jörg Rehmann succeeds in breathing humor into topics that are met with uncertainty, unease and intolerance in today's society with stylistic confidence and linguistic ease. His novel shows that the road itself is a worthwhile goal, no matter how rocky and endless it may seem - and can become a pleasure to read about.
Laurentius Hylas, a young student sporting a suitcase and a curious parrot, arrives in wintry Estonia at the end of the 17th century. Fleeing from a dark past and suspicions of heresy, he makes his way to Tartu, the "City of Muses". In this scientific and philosophical environment that would ultimately lead to the Age of Enlightenment, Laurentius searches obsessively for a cure for the illness that plagues him and which his contemporaries call melancholy - a depression. But the more he concerns himself with questions he cannot answer - Where does the soul come from? What is the relationship between it and the body? - the more he is drawn to the world of superstition and the remedies of the farmers in the countryside. A world he knew as a child, one in which he took part in witch hunts, a world that haunts him in dreams and visions. A world that he fears and that begins to merge with reality.
Friedenthal delves deep into the Middle Ages to tell of the emergence of a new age of reason. A time when modern medicine is carving its way through fears and the old belief in alchemy. The dark north dreams of a radiant antiquity and the harmony of a world that can might be healed by a longing for light, gold, and honey.
Protagonist Z wanders through the city, her own emotional world, and her childhood. The community that surrounds her allows her to unlearn unwanted things and to find herself more and more.
How can love challenge societal patterns?
What to do with one's own past?
What is it like to live with ten people when one grew up in a nuclear family?
And how does one get a house?
Alexandra Todorka Doza tells the story of an individual who tries to move through life in a collectivist way, repeatedly fails, and gains new insights in the process.
Marine biologist Leah sinks down to the ocean floor with her team during a research trip in a submarine and remains missing for six months after the accident. When Leah returns home, her wife Miri is overjoyed. But Miri soon realizes that Leah has changed. After so long a period of silence, picking up where they left off as a couple would not be easy under the best of circumstances; but Leah has changed in fundamental ways, and Miri is forced to confront a new reality.
Armfield draws on collective and archaic human fears: the sea, but also outer space, other people, God, madness, the subconscious (our "sunken thoughts"), and dementia. The unknown is embodied as a physical idea - the submarine or Miri and Leah's apartment, which - surrounded by a rippling darkness - appears eerie and unfathomable. Just as she did in her stories in Salt Slow, Armfield brilliantly depicts the two women's relationship: slander out of self-preservation, tender feelings, rituals, anger and grief over lost joys - all the small moments that make up a fervent and lasting love.
Laia Birchler’s project draws attention to a taboo subject:
Society’s ignorance in interactions with disabled and neurodivergent people has always weighed heavily on her. This book is her response to the insecurity we feel, even though we live in a time in which tolerance and diversity are widely proclaimed as a given. The author longs for a society full of acceptance. This book is a plea for that society.
Laia Birchler had many conversations with neurodivergent individuals, their relatives, and specialists, and asked all participants to express their observations, thoughts, and concerns. She collected the different perspectives and added her own illustrations to the quotes. By presenting the existing prejudices, concerns, and wishes, the author enables a deeper understanding of divergent perception.