Book tips for the summer
5 non-fiction books that will enrich your life
© Kzenon / Adobe Stock
The summer can come! The BRIGITTE editorial team has selected their favorite books for the most beautiful hours by the water, in the meadow, in a deck chair – and wishes: Have fun immersing yourself in wonderful non-fiction books!
Mary Beard – Twelve Caesars
For the summer holiday, it is usually recommended to read lighter fare, and admittedly: That is the book by Dame Mary Beard, professor of ancient history at Cambridge University and also a celebrity in Great Britain as a controversial women’s rights activist, probably not. Instead, here we have 528 pages about the eponymous twelve Caesars, i.e. rulers of the Roman Empire, starting with Julius. In particular, it is about their role in art history: How were they depicted and in which places? And why do these images seem to be so omnipresent in the collective consciousness even today, so that even the most historically unfamiliar has an association when looking at a bust with a laurel wreath? Despite the enormous amount of detail, Mary Beard writes about it so lightly that it’s a pleasure to follow even if you’ve never been interested in the subject before (and haven’t even had Latin at school). And the numerous colored illustrations also make it easy to understand the explanations and arguments. In this respect: Vacation is the best time to deal intensively with something new!
Ü: Ulrike Bischoff, 528 p., 36 eurosPropylaea
Brenda Strohmaier – Sea View, Ass On Ground Ice
There are quite a few books about and by women who give up their white-collar jobs to work on theirs Place of longing abroad to start a new life. But you rarely read it that way disarmingly honest like the journalist Brenda Strohmaier, whose dream (and, it turns out, bit of a nightmare) is an apartment in Marseille.
256 p., 14 eurospenguin
Othega Uwagba – We need to talk about money
This is not a financial guide. Rather, it is about feminism, racism and the question of who is more likely to have a lucrative career and who is not. Londoner Otegha Uwagba, daughter of Nigerian parents, writes about personal experiences as universal factsand in a very pleasant, calm style.
Tr: Yezena Leon-Mezu, 352 p., 22 eurosAtlantic
Bonnie Tsui – Why We Swim
The American Bonnie Tsui observed the old tradition of samurai swimming in Japan, trained off San Francisco with women who cover ultra-long distances in the open sea, met a fisherman in Iceland who doesn’t mind cold water – and a wonderful one Hymn to this way of locomotion written.
Ü: Susanne Dahmann, 320 p., 22 eurosHarperCollins
Oliver Schulz – 8849
Mount Everest is 8,849 meters high, but the myth surrounding it is even greater. The book by the journalist and trained Tibetologist Oliver Schulz is less lurid than the subtitle “Mass tourism, death and exploitation” suggests, but all the more interesting: the history of the expeditions from the time when the summit seemed impassable to the commercialization of the mountain today.
192 p., 18 eurosWest End