MEIN UNGLÜCK BEGINNT DAMIT, DASS DER STROMKREIS ALS RECHTECK ABGEBILDET WIRD de

Language – courage – magic: speeches against idleness, both delivered and undelivered.

MEIN UNGLÜCK BEGINNT DAMIT, DASS DER STROMKREIS ALS RECHTECK ABGEBILDET WIRD
(My Unhappiness Starts With the Fact that Electric Circuits Are Depicted As Rectangles)
by Saša Stanišić
Luchterhand/PRH Germany, October 2025

There’s nothing for it: we have to do something to counter hardship and human suffering, war, poverty, fascism and the rest of it. Each of us can do their bit. Everyone. Donate stuff, help out somewhere, that sort of thing. Take responsibility. If the world’s going down the drain, we might as well go down with dignity, goddamn it.

Hardly anyone takes literature seriously any more, and not just since mobile phones . Still, here you are holding a book in your hand and wondering whether to buy it. There are speeches in it. Which you think is stupid. Speeches are something you make, that’s all.

I get it. But anyway, here’s a list of what you’d miss out on:

• The word « unlikely », about twenty times
• my great uncle Stevo, who got six numbers right in the lottery in the late 1990s and promptly drowned (along with a trumpet player)
• a chair in a back yard
• language, courage, magic
• the sentence « Doing is the opposite of death »

Saša Stanišić, born in Višegrad in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1978, has lived in Germany since 1992. His novels and stories have been translated into more than 30 languages, and have won numerous awards, including the 2019 German Book Prize (for Herkunft) and the 2014 Leipzig Book Fair Prize (for Vor dem Fest), as well as the Eichendorff Book Prize, Schiller Prize and Hans Fallada Prize. He lives in Hamburg.

EROTIC SEASONS de Kimberly Ann Johnson

From author of The Fourth Trimester, this is a guide for women of any age who feel out of touch with their body and their true desires but know that their sexuality holds untapped power.

EROTIC SEASONS: Tuning into the Rhythms of Women’s Sexuality and Spirituality
by Kimberly Ann Johnson
St. Martin’s Essentials, November 2026

Women experience so many crossroads at the different stages in our lives—these might include exploring sexuality, beginning a relationship, becoming a mother, trying to get pregnant, losing a baby, being in perimenopause or menopause, leaving a marriage. At these thresholds, our bodies change, our relationship to sexuality changes, and our desires can become mysterious. Most of us don’t have the language, information, or courage to communicate about these changes, so we are left feeling confused, lost or broken.

Kimberly Ann Johnson, sexological bodyworker and Somatic Experiencing practitioner, has helped thousands of women connect with their bodies and desires and put their pieces back together. In EROTIC SEASONS, she offers profound insights to women at all stages. Johnson guides women toward a revolutionary reckoning with sexuality. Grounded in understanding the female body in our monthly, seasonal, and lifetime rhythms, the book guides readers to locate themselves in their own anatomy and nervous system patterns. Kimberly reframes the archetypes of the female lifespan—maiden, mother, virgin, crone—for women today and shares powerful stories of women across generations, helping readers orient to the realities and mysteries of each life stage. Then, with this knowledge, women can experience sexuality that allows us to become more present, awake, and alive throughout our lives.

Kimberly Ann Johnson is a sexological bodyworker, Somatic Experiencing practitioner, postpartum advocate and culture worker. She works at the intersection of birth, sex and trauma helping women heal from birth injuries, gynecological surgeries, and sexual boundary violations. She is the author of Call of the Wild as well as the early mothering classic The Fourth Trimester. She has taught courses on women’s sexuality and spirituality, nationally and internationally for the past fifteen years.

USE YOUR BRAIN d’Erica Dhawan

A provocative, story-driven guide to reclaiming your mental edge in a tech-dominated world. Dhawan’s previous book, Digital Body Language, has been a go-to title for navigating the digital workplace with rights sold in nineteen territories.

USE YOUR BRAIN: How to Think Deeper in a World on Autopilot
by Erica Dhawan
St. Martin’s Press, January 2027

We have trained ourselves to surrender pieces of our agency to technology for decades; GPS tells us where to turn, search engines tell us what to know, and smartphones make constant availability feel normal. With the dawn of AI, the age of hyper-speed is here whether we like it or not. These new tools don’t just support our brains, they outsource them to machines that don’t feel, don’t doubt, and don’t care. But the future doesn’t belong to those who blindly follow algorithms or trends—it belongs to those who outthink them.

USE YOUR BRAIN is a practical playbook for nurturing, not abandoning, your critical thinking skills in an era defined by speed and automation. Author Erica Dhawan conducted a years-long intensive study of people across five continents and all walks of life—from CEOs and artists to students and scientists—and the leaders who are thriving aren’t dependent upon new technology; they’re able to use it to their advantage while refusing to compromise their own judgment.

Packed with entertaining stories and concrete advice, USE YOUR BRAIN is essential reading for getting ahead in modern life, whether you’re an executive navigating scale, an employee trying to stay relevant, a parent raising independent thinkers in a world of instant answers, or someone who just wants to remain mentally sharp and fully human. Anyone who wants to succeed in today’s world must understand a baseline truth that runs counter to everything Silicon Valley is selling us; that speed is not the same as wisdom, automation is not the same as judgment, and efficiency is not the same as progress. They will be the ones who know when to challenge it, when to trust their own reasoning, and when to step back and think for themselves.

Erica Dhawan is a globally-recognized expert on leadership and teamwork. She is regularly named as one of the top fifty management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50 and a top fifty keynote speaker by Real Leaders. She speaks on global stages ranging from the World Economic Forum at Davos to TED, and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and NPR, among others. She has degrees from Harvard, MIT Sloan and The Wharton School.

MORSELS de Abe Moss

A relentlessly fast-paced supernatural horror from a striking new talent that will have you reading late into the night and afraid to find who—or what—is staring right back.

MORSELS
by Abe Moss
Podium Entertainment, June 2024

Connie can’t deny she’s nervous about meeting her boyfriend’s family. Spending the weekend at their ritzy woodland summer home, Evan has already given her fair warning that his parents are cold, snobbish, and especially unpleasant toward those outside their usual social circles.

So when Evan’s mother warmly greets them with open arms, Connie is as confused as he is. Evan’s parents are nothing like he described.

They’re so friendly, in fact, Evan himself can hardly believe they’re real.

Then, while helping with dinner, Connie overhears strange noises coming from the basement—what almost sounds like voices calling out for help.

Connie doesn’t realize that once the door is opened, it can’t be closed. Or that once she descends those rickety steps into the darkness below . . . she may never see the light of day again.

Abe Moss has been writing horror stories for as long as he can remember, and hopes to never stop. With each book he writes, he hopes to try something a little different. The possibilities are endless and that’s what he really loves about storytelling. He hopes you’ll enjoy his stories too! He also writes suspense thrillers as Beau Savage . . . if you’re into that kind of thing.

VERY BAD NEIGHBOURS de Sue Hincenbergs

The second book from international bestselling author of The Retirement Plan, Sue Hincenbergs.

VERY BAD NEIGHBOURS
by Sue Hincenbergs
William Morrow, Spring 2027
(via Mushens Entertainment)

Sophie Kowalski arrives in her new neighbourhood looking for a fresh start for her young family, and neighbours she can befriend over their white picket fences. Her husband Mike has finally quit his less-than-legal job putting bad people into the ground, and at last they can lead a normal life.

But that dream threatens to explode before it’s even begun when Sophie and Mike learn there’s a hit out on the school’s queen bee. Lauren’s killer body and circle of devotees might be to die for, but who would actually want her dead?

There’s no way Sophie can let this happen – but trying to stop a murder is about to land her in the middle of the neighbourhood’s darkest secret, and soon she’ll discover that these picket fences can be sharp as knives…

Sue Hincenbergs is a former TV producer. She lives in Toronto with her husband, her scruffy, middle-aged rescue dog Kramer, and the rooms full of the stuff her three sons left behind when they moved out. Her debut, The Retirement Plan was a huge Canadian bestseller, staying in the Hardback top 10 chart for 11 weeks