A critical cultural history of terrorists claiming to act in the name of God while denying his very existence in their actions

Terrorists shoot into a crowd at Bataclan in Paris killing dozens; Guardians of public morals have thousands beheaded during the French Revolution with the aim of realizing the "ideals of enlightenment"; Dostojevsky's "Demons" murder because their nihilism has destroyed any sense of morals – What goes on in these minds? How can people declare themselves lords over life and death, thus putting themselves above God? When they act in the name of God or political ideals, Wali claims provocatively, they are in fact enacting the opposite: What drives these murderers is a fascination with violence, the feeling of absolute power, the desire to spread mortal fear, and the wish to destroy the social fundament of trust.

The last heartache was twenty years ago. Twenty years without heartache: Good grief, what a meek existence! A most unusual love story full of reckless charm

A man and a woman. She: Pernilla Brigido, once an acclaimed theater actress, now a charmingly elegant, vivacious septuagenarian member of Vienna's society. He: Ildefons Krehmayr, known as Illo, affluent master builder, divorcee and father of a puberty-struck daughter. He's twenty years younger and has led a life with temperate passions and ambitions. Coincidence crosses their paths and so begins a ravishingly outrageous love story that Pernilla and Illo waltz through with the grace of well-trained dancers. Until one of them makes a wrong move and oversteps a boundary better left uncrossed. But when the curtain rises once again, the two star-crossed lovers have already set out on a summery roadtrip…

With dark humor and chilling beauty, Cordula Simon writes of no less than the end of the world that looms over us all.

In an unnamed wasteland we see the blinking lights of Lightraff, an artificial town that was speedily built around an oil refinery and promises work in a world destroyed by climate disasters. Koslov, a barkeeper in Darkraff, is hoping to find his luck there, just like famer Schreiber and super slick Haye, who even managed to get a job in the municipality. The three share more than their hopes for better life in Lightraff: They share a single bed in shifts – eight hours a night for each man. Once the oil runs dry and the city's tight structure starts to flail, the three bed-sharers meet for the first time. Henceforth, things simply can't go well…

Only about once in a lifetime you truly get what you wish for. It happens for no apparent reason and comes as a big, unexpected surprise to the wishing person. And then the person has to make sure it doesn't become a burden, overbearing, stifling. My surprise was this summer. A crystal-clear and painfully beautiful coming of age story that we have all been waiting for.

Philine has a mom with a fickle love life and a bunch of changing dads. Instead of going to school she prefers going around the school and in water she turns into a fish. Then she also looses her foothold on land. After a breakdown, Philine moves to a quiet village, where she meets Planta – Planta-who-has-a-plan. Planta who serves her the best scrambled eggs ever at dawn and whose eyes are as blue as a shark pool. He shows her all there is to see, the highest and lowest places, and the bottle house at the lake, where everyone is welcome. Another life seems within reach, a happy, care-free life. But when winter comes and the bottle house commune breaks up, Philine decides not to break and holds on to everything that was, everything that wasn't, and everything that can't be held on to because it's somewhere between the lines and slips through your fingers like the quickest fish in the world: like everything you need to know.

We can't expect evolution to ensure the survival of humankind. If we want to survive, we have to take matters into our own hands.

70, 000 years ago, humans were first able to form a thought about something that didn't exist. What sounds simple actually marks the birth of human culture and poses the outset for a range of inventions that have formed human nature and haven't necessarily changed us for the better. We thought up myths and religions and invented languages, money and racism. Now humankind is about to complete its greatest invention: itself. Science allows us to continue our own evolution. Renée Schroeder looks back at the short period of humankind's existence, takes a detour into genetics and proclaims a new age of enlightenment.

An amusing tour through the history of parenting

A small consolation for 21st century parents: Mothers and fathers have had to face a load of challenges since forever. This tongue-in-cheek book charmingly traces what it was like to be a parent in past eras. Living up to the expectations of being a "good parent" has never been easy. Advice on conception and pregnancy was supposed to help create ideal circumstances before the child was even born. Infant care and child-rearing strategies have changed like seasons in the course of history. What is timeless, however, is parents' love for their offspring. Our ancestors already knew: Puberty is a critical phase and more than one ambitious father's plan was thwarted by teenage rebellion. What's the moral of the story? Most parents pulled through and humankind did not go extinct. So moms and dads, stay calm and carry on!

Designer babies and dream children – where are the ethical boundaries to what is technical possible?

Throughout the world, hi-tech reproduction medicine is paving the way for whole new forms of intervention into human life. Between supply and demand, a global market for dream-child medicine has grown up, its services ranging from in-vitro fertilisation to selecting the child’s sex, from illustrated catalogues of semen and egg-cell donors to the provision of surrogate mothers. Looking at this vast array, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim asks some urgent, critical questions: are the wishes of parents choosing their ideal child compatible with that child’s needs? Should everything technically possible actually be done? And if not, what are the limits and who should define them?

Europe's most recent crises are causing turmoil in modern politics. There used to be left and right, but now things work differently. The East is the future of the West. [Jan Werner Müller, political scientist]

25 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Europe's democracies are in a deep crisis. Old political camps are fading: the left is trading revolution for nationalism; the right is borrowing a useful enemy – the banks – from the left. It causes Boris Schumatsky great dismay to see the growing success of Russia's autocrats. Whether right, left or middle: Ruling is fun, freedom is tough. During the 1990s, a wave of postmodernism seemed to promise everlasting peace. Now the ease of those days, and with it an inability to tell apart truth and lies, has turned into a populist monster. Boris Schumatsky delivers an astute analysis of current political trends and future prospects.

The sequel to Weber's bestseller "A Good Day has 100 Points" The less points a product has, the better for our carbon footprint and our wellbeing. The less we indulge in the excess around us, the better for us and our planet. Why you should reader Weber: Unlike the average environmentalist, he does not plead for a governmental regulation of our carbon footprint. Instead, he calls for more individual initiative in the quest for more sustainability. And with this book, he offers us the tools. [NZZ]

How can we improve our carbon footprint while keeping our lifestyle? How can we stay aware and treat the environment with care? Thomas Weber has the answers and provides ideas that anyone can follow. Initiatives like "rent a chicken", "chop some thujas" and "free your slaves" are concepts that are unusual, but easy to translate into everyday life. After the great success of "A Good Day has 100 Points", this sequel offers new ideas for a more sustainable lifestyle. Thomas Weber's suggestions are creative, fresh, and appealing.

1966, the year the world said farewell to the past and hello to the future. The fact that Schäfer is an author who not only writes literature, but also writes about pop music and literature, is pure luck for this genre. [Franz Dobler, taz]

The opening of the Psychedelic Shop on Haight & Ashbury on January 3, 1966 is not only the beginning of an era in pop culture. Ken Kasey and the Merry Pranksters are touring through the US with their public LSD Happenings. Even the Beatles are on acid and they're more famous than Jesus. And more controversial, too. In London's UFO club, Pink Floyd begin their ascent to the stars, just like Captain Kirk, Spock, and Bones. The cold war moves to outer space and students start moving to the streets. And a white whale is sighted in the Rhine… Frank Schäfer paints a colorful collage of the year when postwar blandness was replaced by psychedelic pink paisley.