Gift tip for book lovers: “Munich.

read and let read"

Created: 04/01/2023 16:49

By: Katja Kraft

Literature that can bite: Publisher Albert Langen and his Munich satirical sheet "Simplicissimus", whose logo was the red bulldog designed by Thomas Theodor Heine, in a collage by the artist Lili Aschoff.

© Illustration: Lili Aschoff

The booklet "Munich.

Read and let read” by Michael Schleicher is a declaration of love for reading.

And it's very readable in itself.

Our book tip!

Of course, you can do all this conveniently via the Internet.

Amazon Prime, click click, online transfer, click click, and the desired book will be delivered on the same day.

Delivered contactless to the front door by the messenger.

A feast for every misanthrope.

A horror for people like Michael Schleicher.

The feature editor of our newspaper is a self-confessed member of a group that we hope will never die out: the book lovers' club.

He has now written a declaration of love for reading for all of them.

And it's very readable in itself.

The history of the L. Werner bookstore, which is now located at Theresienstraße 66, is the starting point for “Munich.

Read and let read”.

© sleep

Michael Schleicher takes us on an entertaining journey back to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

A trip to Munich.

Because the starting point is one of the oldest German oases for bibliophiles: the bookshop L. Werner.

When Louis Werner opened it in 1878, including an antiquarian bookshop, "in a prime location", not far from Max-Joseph-Platz, he hit the nerve of the times.

The fact that he specializes in the fields of art, architecture and decorative arts testifies to the mood that prevails in the city.

“Whereas Munich in the 19th century, with its two Pinakotheks, its Glyptothek and the antiquities collections, became a city of art and the 'Athens of the Isar', after 1900 Schwabing became a field of experimentation: artistic, literary, social.

Michael Schleicher takes us on a literary journey through Munich

The author knocks on the door of Anita Augspurg and Sophia Goudstikker's legendary photo studio Elvira;

brings folk singer Ida Schumacher (1894-1956), better known as “Ratschkathl”, to life in our inner eyes;

makes the beer overflow in Kathi Kobus' artist bar Simplicissimus - and the heads get heated from discussions in the editorial office of the magazine of the same name.

Their first issue came out on April 4, 1896 - their trademark, the blood-red bulldog, has lost none of its bite more than 100 years later.

With bright yellow eyes she stares at us from one of Lili Aschoff's collages, which loosen up the book optically.

A literary stroll through Munich: Michael Schleicher's book “München.

Read and let read”.

© Klinkhardt & Biermann

The bulldog is a symbol of the intellectual struggle waged with a sharp pen by ingenious satirists such as Olaf Gulbransson or Frank Wedekind around 1900.

Today we are fortunate enough to live in a democracy.

By relating the political writers of yesteryear to those of the present, Michael Schleicher reminds us that literature can literally be a matter of survival.

As Kamel Daoud observed during a visit to the Munich Kammerspiele: "Literature is a tool for freedom."

The book invites you on a journey into your own reading past

And sometimes a source of joy.

Also the distraction when the world outside becomes unbearable.

The poems quoted in the book make you want to start reading right away.

Ringelnatz' "Book Friend" for example ("And whoever buys books, buys souls") or Eugen Roth's "Healthy Reading" ("Because Goethe, Keller or Stifter/Are real comforters and detoxifiers").

The same applies to the memories of the author himself. When Michael Schleicher describes how it sounds when you open a book for the first time: “Books sound.” Or when he speaks directly to his readers and mentally sends them back to their own first tender steps through the inexhaustible side forest of the imagination.

"How did you become aware of those books and authors

that accompany you for a long time?

Whose recommendation brought you to the bookstore or library?

Look, you remember!” Right.

Suddenly there is the chubby science teacher who - instead of teaching science - preferred to read "Feuerschuh und Windsandale" and gave you more for life than any home school could have done.

Or the man you were so in love with that you ran to the nearest bookstore to get Javier Marias' Tomorrow in Battle Remember Me, his favorite book.

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The book makes you want to read it yourself

Michael Schleicher is a keyword giver in the best sense.

He gently pokes us in exciting directions, touches on stories that we would like to continue reading.

Always puts new titles and authors on your personal book list.

The desire to read is awakened.

The cozy winter evenings can go on!

Michael Schleicher: “Munich.

Read and let read”.

With collages by Lili Aschoff.

Klinkhardt & Biermann, Munich, 104 pages;

16 euros.