A sleep researcher who can’t sleep. Dreams that spill over into reality. An old man struggling to make amends.
DER LÄNGSTE SCHLAF
(The Longest Sleep)
by Melanie Raabe
btb/PRH Germany, September 2024
In young scientist Mara Lux’s life, practically everything revolves around sleep. She lives in London, and is a leading scholar in the field – but has herself been tortured by insomnia for years. She’s scared of her dreams, because they have an uncanny habit of blurring with reality. Which is particularly tough for Mara, because she’s nothing if not rational, and likes to be in control.
Mara’s parents died a long time ago, and she hardly ever visits Germany, so she’s surprised when she learns from a notary that someone wants to give her a big, old villa as a gift – anonymously. Mara thinks it must be a case of mistaken identity. Still, she’s curious, and decides to check it out. When she arrives in the small town she’s never heard of, she discovers that the place has somehow been in her dreams all along…
For fans of Lauren Groff, Mariana Leky, Alex Schulman and Ewald Arenz
Melanie Raabe was born in 1981. After her studies she worked as a journalist during the day and secretly wrote books at night. The Trap was published in 2015, followed by The Truth in 2016, The Shadow in 2018, and The Woods in 2019. Her novel Die Kunst des Verschwindens (‘The Art of Disappearing’, 2022) was her first thriller. Her books have been translated into 22 languages so far, and many have been adapted for the screen.
Precht’s « Who Am I – And If Yes, How Many? » introduced millions of readers to the big philosophical questions of our time, making him one of Germany’s most famous authors. A good fifteen years later, it is being published again – this time as a graphic novel. Illustrated by Jörg Hartmann, it gives us Precht’s wisdom inside a modern aesthetic. Everything we know about ourselves from neuroscience, psychology and philosophy is contained within its pages – creating a unique path through the plainly mind-boggling amount of information out there about what it means to be human.
L’historienne Christina Morina a reçu le 11 juin le Prix allemand de la non-fiction 2024 (Deutscher Sachbuchpreis 2024) pour son ouvrage 
Ever since her mother’s death, 29-year-old Akiko has led a modest and reclusive life in Tokyo. Her monotonous job as a bookkeeper offers little excitement, and she has no real friends or family. Then, one evening, she runs into an old face from her schooldays: Kento is an outsider, just like her, and even back then she always felt drawn to him. As if that wasn’t enough, Akiko is shocked to discover that the man she thought of as her dad was in fact only a hired actor, paid by her single mother to play a part. Akiko begins to wonder: is everything a lie? And, more profoundly: who is she, really?
Perfect parenting results in perfect children? If only it were that easy. Many parents are exceedingly ambitious and want to do their job as ‘flawlessly’ as possible. But in doing so, they miss out on how much families can benefit when parents do NOT raise their children according to some standard textbook. In their book, Caroline Märki and Knut Krüger, two close confidants and companions of Jesper Juul, get to the bottom of assumedly golden parenting rules, exposing the deeply rooted but erroneous axioms and parenting myths that are hidden underneath. Notions such as ‘Parents must be consistent!’ are refuted and discarded once and for all, not only because such ideas make our lives needlessly more difficult, but also because they frequently produce misunderstandings and self-doubt.