the ahr catastrophy (die ahr-katastrophe)

• flap brochure
• 252 pages

978-3-86638-080-6

20.00 €           

Gert Reising is a storyteller with long breath and a thorough appetite for research—and with these tools, he has traced the fateful events that led to the 2021 flood disaster in the Ahr Valley.

He spans centuries and covers a wide geographical area – delving into the depths of behavior that may be understandable to humans but is not tolerated by nature and its residues: As in his books on the Hambach Forest and Reims and its wartime history, his book on the Ahr Valley also draws on some highly astonishing aspects, illuminated with meticulous detail, thereby getting to the bottom of the social and psychological conditions that led to the catastrophe. Excursions into the discovery and conquest of the rainforest, which began 300 years ago in part on the Ahr River, and into the politics of today’s Brazil, where there are again connections to marvel at, are just one of the surprising but illuminating insights.

And he can also be clear: both viticulture itself and its implementation as a tourist industry must be reduced, otherwise nature will strike back, so to speak, because the valley has always had to contend with flooding: either we get the climate crisis under control, or we risk another major flood disaster. the situation is not reassuring. there is no guilt, only guilty parties, but for them the guilt is too abstract. is that why they take refuge in politics?

On the occasion of his letter about the Ahr disaster: I have known the ahr valley since I studied in Bonn in 1972/73, but unfortunately only discovered its wine during my stay in Hambach. since then, it has haunted me, and I immediately ordered flood wine when it was no longer allowed to be sold as wine.

bilingual German-French narration

• flap brochure
• 392 pages
• bilingual
• German-French

978-3-86638-323-4

20.00 €           

Reims and surroundings: We do not wish to offer yet another Baedeker or Michelin Guide for Alsace and the surrounding area, as the »relevant places« can be found here as well as there; but they are now presented from a new perspective, from a different angle:

It is the unique perspective of an urbanite, presented as if from the basket of a tethered balloon, that offers an unusual view of Reims Cathedral, but also of other places that are not just tourist favorites: the castle and park of Les Crayères, with its dignified atmosphere surrounded by champagne and wonderful meals, are featured, but that’s not really what this is about. So what is it about?

Have you ever been to the small, excellent Art Deco café in the city center for a cozy chat? In other words, can an artistic and literary guide to Reims exist without brilliant photos? The pictures of the cathedral, the coronation site of French kings, and its 2,600 sculptures, including the famous angel with its mysterious smile; the description of the magnificent boulevard; the reflection on the rich Art Deco architecture as a whole.

In Reims, we hope to pique your curiosity. But we will also mention one of the most magnificent cinemas in Central Europe and one of the earliest sites of modern cinema—so there is a little art history to be found, along with the reconstruction of the city after World War I, thanks to the patronage of American magnates, and perhaps a little monument preservation with the help of German art historians has not gone unmentioned.

But let’s not kid ourselves: you won't have seen a cultural guide like this before – but you should, before you get to know this city with its many stained glass windows and Michelin stars. Afterwards, you will appreciate the German-French friendship all the more with a glass of champagne in René Lalique’s famous angel flute, and, pleasantly intoxicated, you will begin to understand this wonderful capital of Champagne. – À la votre Santé!

Narration plus Fotos

• Hardcover
• 88 pages
• With about 70 coloured photos
• and a long winding Essay

978-3-86638-274-9

16.00 €           

The Berlin photographer Sophie Reuter and the Karlsruhe author Gert Reising have known the »Hambiwald« for years and decided in Lluna in the middle of the forest to put together a publication that shows on the one hand the ultimately failed eviction in 2018 and at the same time a kind of report on the environment: a filed research in the sense of European ethnology.

Parts of the photographs can be seen on Sophie Reuter's website.

It is an expedition into early 21st century colonialism, which has a surprising number of parallels to the paternalism of the mid to late 19th century.

The Works of Georg Büchner, III. Delivery (Georg Büchners Werk, III. Lieferung)

• Swabian brochure
• 144 pages
• With cover illustration by
• Matthias Lutzeyer

978-3-86638-234-3

16.00 €           

Of course, much has been written about Georg Büchner, for example by Norbert Abels in our 16 series—but so close, so in his flow? Gert Reising begins the 553 ten-line text packages on »Georg Büchner's Work, III. Delivery« as follows:

Dreaming from afar

• 956 pages
• An art novel
• Hardcover with satin book ribbon

978-3-86638-185-8

22.00 €           

This is the Künstlerroman of a time of great upheavals:

An artist tells rich Balzacian stories, bucolic dreams and blue-bearded purrings – not only from the own long adventurous-colorful life.

SEDNA contains colorful episodes from the life and struggle of this gypsies of our civilization, from women, from men of the art world. Also from misunderstandings, from the incomprehension between us and them, between jealous colleagues and gorgeous models, a life full of doubts and fury, also about their own opus, from rage, when they desperately slash growing masterpieces near completion. – We all dream of the spilling men and the pursed maids with the picassonian-assured glimpse, their picturesque rags, would like to cast off our embarrassment ourselves, discover their genius within us, share it, argue with them about their pictures, which we later longingly see in the museums: from the master of the red hand, the one of the stony guest, Sandro Botticelli, Ligier Richier, Hans Thoma or Thomas Kaminsky (from whom can be seen on the cover by the way), change with them, share their life in poverty, their fight for recognition, their failure, their loved ones, or rather observe from a certain distance, stay in the sheltered prosperous civil prosperity – because we also would like to be between all these arcs of suspense out of sorrow and victory, the great self-belief and in a life solely full of passion. We definitely grant it you. But we ourselves? Never.

Colportage novel

• 384 pages
• Series Die Hauptwerke
• with satin book ribbon

978-386638-136-0

22.00 €           

about Hans Arp and his sculptures

at the station Rolandseck

A book peddling all about the manufacture of artworks, the occasionally odd works in the Hans-Arp-museum and about the renovation of the station Rolandseck.

The sculptures are based on castings, which are neither authorized by Arp, nor at least were prepared by him as molds. In a construction trailer on the grounds of an art foundry pieces of evidence can be found, which show that there might be something odd about the equipment of a collection, which caused a whole cunstruction of a museum ... and the present novel.

What is this about? Whodunit?

With every new article I exhibited evidences for the surprisingly low quality of numerous works, picked to pieces the probably deliberately cursory scarce proofs of origin and adjudicated the asserted datings to be dubious ... I wrote in a type of journalism, which did not exhaust itself in parroting simply submitted assertions, but brought facts, which emerged from own investigations. Therefore, my texts were indeed enjoyable to read, but not to refute, a badly bearable and increasingly unpleasant situation for the major-domo and the country's cultural bureaucracy ...

Cover picture: Burkhard Maus