Lebenswerte

This book explores the question of what makes life worth living. It is almost always about enjoyment, often about form and attitude, but never about luxury. It focuses on tangible and concrete matters, but never on the worthless coin of abstract zeitgeist chatter. The author answers the question of life's values with a wisdom that often takes on an aphoristic quality, sometimes amusing, sometimes polemical. His compendium covers values from gastronomy to inequality, from books to self-irony, from piano music to cycling, and from suits to silence. New entries in this edition include football, audiobooks, churches, and dining cars. Peter Sloterdijk praises the vibrant language of Klonovsky's essays, and according to Martin Mosebach, this book describes a very unique way of being. "As long as people grow wine and olives, learn languages, read poetry, set tables on the street at the first rays of sunshine, as long as bells ring, and now and then a child appears among all the retirees, somewhere Bach is being played on a piano, and women prepare themselves before leaving the house, nothing is lost." Michael Klonovsky.