During my wife’s six-week stay at the hospital, I realized something important. I could run a marathon, write the next Harry Potter, take the picture of the year, win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, build a billion-dollar business, or do all of those things...
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. A friend of mine goaded me into going to the cinema to see Dune. An awkward date, but a brave attempt to make the best out of a bad situation. You see, my wife’s hospital visit—the one where we’ll learn the exact...
Finally, some good news from the oncologist. Well, sort of. The terms good news, and oncologist don’t exactly go hand in hand. The next step in my wife’s treatment will be stem cell therapy, which is what they call a bone marrow transplant these days to...
How does writing fit into a person’s life? Is it a hobby, a passion, a compulsion—there’s usually little difference between the two—a way of living, a habit, or perhaps a mindset? Often it’s all of those and still not enough to fit into anything...
Summer is here, and this time to stay. As evident by the air shimmering over the black asphalt, the parched grass of city parks, and the crowds of sweaty people fleeing Berlin towards one of the nearby lakes or hiking trails. Life is good, even if slightly tense. I...
Never would I have guessed that something as small as a footnote could punch me in the face. And yet it did. Two quick jabs followed by a right hook. Here, this comes from Martin Amis’s Inside Story: “An illiterate, underbred book… the book of a...
Ceciliengärten. Easy to miss if you don’t know how to get in. A garden walled-off by a fortress of old townhouses; tiled roofs glowing gold in the late afternoon sun; a stretch of lawn between two rows of chestnut trees; and a sizeable water fountain at the...
