Read more with Elke Heidenreich: What speaks against Denis Scheck's anti

Elke Heidenreich presents her book recommendations on video every two weeks - straight from her library in Cologne.

In doing so, she brings a current and an older work from her shelf: a new publication that has received little attention and another book that is worth reading again.

After the new discoveries and rediscoveries, there is also the SPIEGEL bestseller list of the week - for everyone who wants to stay up to date on the latest popular successes.

Read the video transcript here

Elke Heidenreich

"Do you know that? You are bound and then you see someone you like. And then you think: "How about that?" I think everyone has secretly thought that. And then the second thought is that it would have been different with us. Yes, of course it would have been with someone else. And that's exactly the name of the book by Éliette Abécassis. "It would have been different with us." It was published by Arche this summer, a slim book.

And look, this is what the author looks like. Éliette Abécassis is a philosophy professor, and thank God she doesn't write like a philosophy professor, but writes smart, fast, straightforward and tells two lives on just 140 pages. The story of Vincent and Amélie, who meet as very young students, just 20 years old. You are very personable. They go for walks all night, telling each other their lives, but are too shy, too inexperienced to even kiss. You can catch up on that. They arrange to meet. And this appointment goes wrong. They don't meet. And then this is what happens, years later, they meet again at a party. And both already have other partners.And later they meet again and are both married and have children and are both unhappily married. And they are always drawn to each other and yet somehow missed living their life together.

I would like to read a little piece to you:

“And so it went, meetings became dinners together, lunches became dinners, dinners became parties, parties turned into nights, nights turned into years, years into a life together. Fate arises, it seems, from a short-circuit act, a tiny detail that makes us turn in this or that direction. A throw of the dice that may not do away with chance, but ultimately determines everything. "

A throw of the dice, a moment, another turn. And our life would have been different. Isn't it worth thinking about? Of course, I'm not going to tell you how it will turn out and whether these two will get on with each other. But I advise you to read this beautiful, clever, little, entertaining book. It won't make it onto a bestseller list because our major critics are always preoccupied with the major writers.

And at this point I would like to show you twice a month the flowers that bloom by the wayside, the small, beautiful books that are always overlooked. And in this book it says at one point and that also touched me. “Half of the mistakes we make in life are due to rash action. The other half is a lack of zest for action. ”Now you can think about which half you are in right now.

And every time I would like to introduce you to the new book as well as an older book that is worth reading, and today, given the occasion, one by Christa Wolf. The given occasion is that some time ago the critic Denis Scheck in a white suit, I advise against it, white makes you fat, presented a book on SWR TV as part of his »Anti-Canon«. He thinks we care which books he doesn't like. And then he portrayed Christa Wolf as a kitschy and at the end burned her book with a trick up his sleeve with a flame.

And I found that very disrespectful, as I find it disrespectful when he throws the books in a garbage can on the bestseller list or in a box that is waiting, with this throwing gesture. I think that television should show a little more respect for the work of authors. And a woman like Christa Wolf really doesn't need a salvation of honor in front of such a man.

But I would still like to remind you of one of your most beautiful books here today. “No place, nowhere.” This is a book that was published as early as 1979, also very narrow, even only 140 pages. And it also tells two lives. It tells the fictional encounter between the poet Karoline von Günderrode and the poet Heinrich von Kleist. Both were in the same circles during the Romantic period, with the Brentanos and the Savignys on the Rhine. They could have met, but you don't know if they met. And here Christa Wolf invents a walk or a conversation between these two deeply unhappy people on the Rhine. The Günderrode wants to be a writer, has no money, cannot afford to live alone as a woman, is also not able to publish her poems in public as a woman,to sell their books to the people. Kleist has to earn his living in the army, as a soldier, which he hates. And both feel that they are not recognized in society. That society doesn't love its artists. We actually feel that again today in the Corona period. And both go for a walk together.

And Kleist, the unfortunate one, thinks: "Would that be the woman whose love one shouldn't be afraid of?" And she thinks she can almost read his mind and says to him: "Oh, Kleist, you know, there is no touch that we are so infinitely longing for." We know that these two ended unhappily in real life . She stuck a dagger in her heart when she was 26. He shot himself at the Wannsee when he was 34. They couldn't be helped in this world. "No place, nowhere." And that is a wonderful book that is worth reading again. Two authors describe two different ways of life here, and the man who so disavowed Christa Wolf in front of an audience always likes to say: "Trust me, I know what I'm doing." I advise against it.

So that's it for today.

A new and an old book.

This series will continue in 14 days.

And now stay with us a little longer and take a look at the new Spiegel bestseller list.

The SPIEGEL bestsellers of the week

This week in tenth place: Constantly also at the beginning of autumn - »The great summer« by Ewald Arenz.

New to the list, right at number nine, is volume eight of the successful series about Disney villains: »Disney Villains.

The heart so cold "is the name of the book.

And this time the story of the wicked stepmother of "Cinderella" is told.

The newcomer of the week, climbed 13 points to eight: the vampire story "Crave" by Tracy Wolff.

There is more: the story of the young woman who falls in love with a vampire will soon be made into a film.

Relegation to seventh place: Daniela Krien with a view of 30 years of marriage in »Der Brand«.

The six of the previous week remains unchanged.

»Stay away from Gretchen« by Susanne Abel.

The story tells of an impossible love between a black GI and a German right after the Second World War.

Last week on number four, now on number five: "The Missing Sister," the seventh volume of the seven-sisters cycle by the recently deceased Irish author Lucinda Riley.

A classic Stephen King can be found in fourth place.

The road trip thriller about the hit man Billy Summers, who is also a writer, is called, like its main protagonist, »Billy Summers«.

The Briton Simon Beckett climbs one step down on the podium, third place for "The Lost" - the start of his new thriller series.

"Dunkelblum", the work of Austrian Eva Menasse, climbed to second place.

Highly praised and criticized at the same time, the story of a suppressed massacre.

And number one is in, believe it or not, the 24th week, the village and corona novel »About People« by the author, judge and Brandenburg resident Juli Zeh.