Archives de catégorie : Nonfiction

AUFGEWACHSEN IN DER LETZTEN DIKTATUR EUROPAS de Viktoryia Andrukovič

A strong young woman talks about life in the last remaining European dictatorship. Courage, pain and hope – the struggle for freedom in Belarus.

AUFGEWACHSEN IN DER LETZTEN DIKTATUR EUROPAS
(Grown Up in Europe’s Last Dictatorship)
by Viktoryia Andrukovič
‎ Heyne/PRH Verlagsgruppe, May 2022

Viktoryia Andrukovič, the Belarusian human rights advocate and political activist, was born in 1994, the year that Lukashenko came to power. She knows her homeland only as a country under the yoke of an increasingly autocratic regime, and she spent her deprived and precarious adolescence there hoping for a better, freer future for her country. An opposition activist both before and after the 2020 presidential elections, she now works with Belarusian NGOs in exile.
In this book, she tells her story – the story of the generation of Belarusians who were born and grew up under the dictatorship, a story about fear, persecution and hope, and the story of the fight for a free Belarus, for human rights and democracy in the face of oppression and violence.

Viktoryia Andrukovič, born in 1994, is a Belarusian human rights activist. For many years, she has worked for Belarusian human rights organisations and NGOs promoting democracy, freedom and justice in her home country. She was involved in ZUBR, a platform established to monitor the presidential election process, has helped victims of police violence in Belarus, recorded human rights abuses for the Committee Investigating Torture in Belarus and engaged in protest movements. She currently helps various oppositional Belarusian NGOs in exile with their work.

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VOM GLÜCK, UNTERWEGS ZU SEIN de Christian Schüle

To the ends of the world in search of ourselves; Why we love travelling – and why it’s good for us.

VOM GLÜCK, UNTERWEGS ZU SEIN
(The Joys of Life on the Road)
by Christian Schüle
‎ Siedler/PRH Verlagsgruppe, April 2022

Travelling is simply wonderful – that joyful sensation of heading out into the big wide world to experience the wholly new, that feeling of freedom and openness to accidental encounters… and it’s not least the ideal chance to experience time, the world and yourself differently. Whether it’s the beauty of old pilgrims’ ways in Scandinavia or dark alleyways in Cairo, the effortlessness of the flip-flop-wearing guides to Guatemala’s Atitlán volcano, the dogs dozing idly in the Portuguese sun, nights in Blackpool or Tokyo …
In this book, Christian Schüle – philosopher, traveller, flâneur and hiker – combines his personal experiences exploring the world with reflections on why unfamiliarity and distance are the perfect way to find yourself. VOM GLÜCK, UNTERWEGS ZU SEIN is both a philosophical road trip, and a celebration of meaningful travel.

Christian Schüle, born in 1970, is a philosopher, freelance writer and publisher whose award-winning essays, articles and reportage have appeared among others in Die Zeit and Mare, and on Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio and Radio Bavaria. Since 2015 he teaches Culture Studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin. He has published a series of much talked-about and noteworthy essays on topical subjects, including his collection « Deutschlandvermessung » and, most recently, « In der Kampfzone: Deutschland zwischen Panik, Größenwahn und Selbstverzwergung ».

FREIHEIT FÜR ALLE de Richard David Precht

How will we work in the future – and why should we work at all?

FREIHEIT FÜR ALLE
(Freedom For All)
by Richard David Precht
‎ Goldmann/PRH Verlagsgruppe, March 2022

It’s a given that, as far as work is concerned, nothing these days is a given. The Second Machine Age of self-teaching computers and robots will revolutionise not only the job market, but also redefine what ‘work’ is in the first place, and why we still do it. What happens when machines do so much of the work that economies no longer need to rely on human productivity? Without the old wage labour society of the First Machine Age, our conception of work as defined by the nineteenth century will become a mere appendix – useless and outdated. The big prize we aim for will no longer be full-time work, but self-realisation, and the raffle tickets will change accordingly: society will cease to think of employment as the be-all and end-all, and place greater value on high-quality jobs and workplace conditions.
Richard David Precht shows how changes in the world of work are also affecting our lives, our culture, our approach to education, and ultimately society itself – and the enormous challenges that lie ahead for politicians, who have to createnew policies in line with these changes, including restructuring our welfare systeminto a system based on universal basic income.

Richard David Precht, born in 1964, is a philosopher, journalist, and author, and one of the most distinctive intellectuals in German-speaking countries. He is an honorary professor of philosophy at the Leuphana University in Lüneburg and at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin. His books Wer bin ich – und wenn ja wie viele? (Who Am I and If So How Many?), Liebe: Ein unordentliches Gefühl (Love: A Disorderly Emotion) and Die Kunst, kein Egoist zu sein (The Art of Not Being an Egoist) are international bestsellers and have been translated into 40 languages. Since 2012 he has been the moderator of the philosophy program ‘Precht’ on the ZDF television network.

INTERSTELLAR de Avi Loeb

From the New York Times bestselling author of Extraterrestrial comes a mind-expanding new book explaining why becoming an interstellar species is imperative for humanity’s survival and detailing a game plan for how we can settle among the stars.

INTERSTELLAR:
The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars
by Avi Loeb
‎ Mariner Books, August 2023
(via Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)

In the New York Times bestseller Extraterrestrial, Avi Loeb, the longest serving Chair of Harvard’s Astronomy Department, presented a theory that shook the scientific community: our solar system, Loeb claimed, had likely been visited by a piece of advanced alien technology from a distant star. This provocative and persuasive argument opened millions of minds internationally to the vast possibilities of our universe and the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth. But a crucial question remained: now that we are aware of the existence of extraterrestrial life, what do we do next? How do we prepare ourselves for interaction with interstellar extraterrestrial civilization? How can our species become interstellar?
Now Loeb tackles these questions in a revelatory, powerful call to arms that reimagines the idea of contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. Dismantling our science-fiction fueled visions of a human and alien life encounter, INTERSTELLAR provides a realistic and practical blueprint for how such an interaction might actually occur, resetting our cultural understanding and expectation of what it means to identify an extraterrestrial object. From awe-inspiring searches for extraterrestrial technology, to the heated debate of the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, Loeb provides a thrilling, front-row view of the monumental progress in science and technology currently preparing us for contact. He also lays out the profound implications of becoming—or not becoming—interstellar; in an urgent, eloquent appeal for more proactive engagement with the world beyond ours, he powerfully contends why we must seek out other life forms, and in the process, choose who and what we are within the universe.
Combining cutting edge science, physics, and philosophy, INTERSTELLAR revolutionizes the approach to our search for extraterrestrial life and our preparation for its discovery. In this eye-opening, necessary look at our future, Avi Loeb artfully and expertly raises some of the most important questions facing us as humans, and proves, once again, that scientific curiosity is the key to our survival

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and bestselling author of Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth (on lists of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, L’Express and more). He received a PhD in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative, and was subsequently a longterm member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Loeb wrote 8 books and more than 800 papers on a wide range of topics, including black holes, the first stars, and the future of the Universe. He was the longest serving Chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, Founding Director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, and is Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. Loeb is a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies and a current member of the Advisory Board for « Einstein: Visualize the Impossible » of the Hebrew University. He also chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative and serves as the Science Theory Director for all Initiatives of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. In 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space. Smithsonian Magazine printed a 12-page feature on Loeb and his work in their October 2021 issue.

COMPASSIONATE LEADERSHIP de Rasmus Hougaard & Jaqueline Carter

Leadership is hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness in getting the job done?

COMPASSIONATE LEADERSHIP:
How to do Hard Things in a Human Way
by Rasmus Hougaard & Jaqueline Carter
Harvard Business Review Press, December 2021
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

A global pandemic, economic volatility, natural disasters, civil and political unrest. From New York to Barcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is coming apart. Through it all, our human spirit is being tested. Now more than ever, it’s imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion. But in hard times like these, leaders need to make hard decisions—deliver negative feedback, make difficult choices that disappoint people, and in some cases lay people off. How do you do the hard things that come with the responsibility of leadership while remaining a good human being and bringing out the best in others? Most people think we have to make a binary choice between being a good human being and being a tough, effective leader. But this is a false dichotomy. Being human and doing what needs to be done are not mutually exclusive. In truth, doing hard things and making difficult decisions is often the most compassionate thing to do.
As founder and CEO of Potential Project, Rasmus Hougaard and his longtime coauthor, Jacqueline Carter, show in this powerful, practical book, you must always balance caring for your people with leadership wisdom and effectiveness. Using data from thousands of leaders, employees, and companies in nearly a hundred countries, the authors find that when leaders bring the right balance of compassion and wisdom to the job, they foster much higher levels of employee engagement, performance, loyalty, and well-being in their people.
With rich examples from Netflix, IKEA, Unilever, and many other global companies, as well as practical tools and advice for leaders and managers at any level, COMPASSIONATE LEADERSHIP is your indispensable guide to doing the hard work of leadership in a human way.

Rasmus Hougaard is the founder and CEO of leadership development and consulting firm Potential Project. He is a sought-after keynote speaker and coach of C-suite executives at top global companies. In 2019 he was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Leadership Award, recognizing « thinkers who shed powerful and original new light onto this perennial and still vital subject. » He writes for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Business Insider and is the coauthor, with Jacqueline Carter, of The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results.
Jacqueline Carter is a partner and North American Director for Potential Project. She has over twenty years of experience helping leaders and organizations manage change and achieve results. She is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Leader to Leader. She is the coauthor, with Rasmus Hougaard, of The Mind of the Leader.