Here you can bathe in a land of milk and honey made from the fruits of reading. A passionate reader, yes: a bookworm, no: a devourer of literature picks apart and recommends all kinds of printed works in book form. Readers walk and float through almost all genres, from children's books, gift books and volumes of poetry to freaky novels of the century and non-fiction books about giants of erudition.

Monographs, personal encyclopaedias, autobiographies and memoirs are leafed through and pored over. Renowned minds pass by: Pu Sing Ling, Thomas Aquino, Theodor Lessing, Gustave Flaubert, Sir Galahad, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Alfred Döblin, Albert Vigoleis Thelen, Annemarie Schimmel, Rainer Maria Rilke. Double portraits revolve not only around Marcel Proust and Ernest Hemingway, but also sometimes around orgasm and humour, or buttocks and face. Wilhelm Hauff's fairy tales are not left out, nor are lexicons on youth jargon and scene language. Alongside the first and only atheist picture book is a specialised ornithological encyclopaedia and an art book about strange food. The boundless range of topics extends from Arabic proverbs to matriarchal mythology. It's about India, China, tricksters, bulldozers, tree souls, serial killers, sonnets, dormice, eco-realism, animism, graphology, artists' gardens, Monte Verità. It's even about unknown drawer works by unknown intellectual heroes. It's about genres that have never been reviewed, such as the operating instructions in user manuals, advertising brochures for dog products, inscriptions on spray cans against insects.

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Author: Ulrich Holbein