LMU reads

From a thought-provoking nonfiction book that challenges how we view the world to a historical novel that encompasses war, flight, and new beginnings, these recommendations are bound to have something for every reader this summer.

Questioning your own perspective

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“Good news between two covers: In many areas, the world has improved far more than most people realize. In recent decades, there has been tremendous progress in life expectancy, education, health, and the fight against poverty.

Hans Rosling demonstrates this in his book Factfulness, which he co-wrote with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund. We often misjudge the state of the world, the authors argue. Using data, statistics, and vivid examples, they explain why our view of global developments is often shaped by preconceptions, media reports, and intuitive errors in thinking.

I like it that Rosling does not call for blind optimism, but for a fact-based and nuanced view of reality. His writing is clear, engaging, and personal. Rosling combines scientific findings with stories from his many years of work as a physician and researcher.
Factfulness is for anyone who wants to question their view of the world and learn how to evaluate information critically and on the basis of data. It certainly gave me a great deal to think about.”

Ferenc Krausz is Chair of Experimental Physics – Laser Physics at LMU and Director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023.

Reading recommendation:

Hans Rosling with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World– and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. Flatiron Books.

Of war and new beginnings

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“I picked up a novel by Elif Shafak by chance in a bookstore and have been devouring her books ever since. The topics she chooses are historically rooted and politically relevant to our times. She explores a wide variety of perspectives and her writing is beautifully poetic.

If I had to choose a favorite novel, it would be The Island of Missing Trees from 2021.

As is often the case with this author, the action takes place in multiple locations and at different times – in this instance, in London at the end of the 2010s and on Cyprus in 1974. The novel essentially centres on the outbreak of civil war in Cyprus, which pits the Greek and Turkish populations against each other, forcing many to seek new beginnings in other countries. One of the many narrative voices spans both narrative threads and belongs to a fig tree, a cutting of which is carried from Cyprus to England. The displacement of this plant from its familiar environment to a new one can be seen as a metaphor for the story’s overarching theme. But can a fig tree thrive in London?

Written in compelling language, the book explores war, politics, the division of a country and of families, as well as history and society of the time – and love. What more could you want from an exciting summer read?”

Dr. Anna Axtner-Borsutzky is a lecturer at LMU’s Faculty of Languages and Literatures. She heads the theater subproject within the research project “Lost in archives. In search of hidden women in the 18th century,” which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Reading recommendation:

Elif Shafak: The Island of Missing Trees. Viking.

Is it possible to be happy at the expense of others?

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“In The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973), Ursula K. Le Guin creates an allegorical utopia in which the happiness of the many is founded on contempt for the dignity of an individual. Omelas would appear to be the fulfillment of all human aspirations – a place without war, without tyranny, and without need. But this fortune is tied to one condition and inextricably linked with the suffering of a child – a state of affairs of which Omelas’ inhabitants are aware.

Over 50 years after its first publication, Le Guin’s questions are just as relevant now as they were then: What does it mean for our conception of justice when the suffering of others is not just collateral damage but a prerequisite for our prosperity? And what stories do people tell to justify the foundations of this social order – to themselves and to others?

I particularly recommend Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas to readers who like philosophical science fiction such as Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival.”

Paraskevi Trianti is studying philosophy and political science at LMU.

Reading recommendation:

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Harper Perennial.

Being mortal

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“In our modern society, there is an unspoken assumption that technology can solve almost any problem. Given enough time, resources, and innovative capacity, it seems that every challenge we humans face can be overcome – even death. The multi-billion-euro longevity industry illustrates this. But is death really a medical problem to be solved? Should every human life be prolonged at any cost – even when doing so comes at the expense of a patient’s well-being, dignity, or expressly stated wishes?

In Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, bestselling author, surgeon, and Harvard professor Atul Gawande explores these questions with remarkable honesty and deep compassion. It is the most moving book I have read in quite some time. Drawing on his experiences as a physician and on deeply personal stories, Gawande describes the suffering of patients whose lives were prolonged even as their quality of life steadily declined. He shows that modern Western medicine has become extraordinarily good at extending life, but far less adept at helping people live well when a cure is no longer possible.

Rather than seeing death as medicine’s ultimate failure, Gawande invites us to reflect on what truly matters at the end of life. He reminds us that medicine should ask not only, ‘How can we live longer?’ but also, ‘What makes life worth living?’ Perhaps one of life’s greatest challenges is not avoiding death, but facing it with dignity.

As the book powerfully shows, the ultimate goal is not a good death, but a good life – and that is precisely what we should strive for in the limited time we are given on this earth.”

Kevin Heng is Chair of Theoretical Astrophysics at LMU.

Reading recommendation:

Atul Gawande: Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End. Metropolitan Books.

Lost paradise

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“I like books that do things differently from the norm, and that is exactly what Johanna Sebauer’s Nincshof does in a funny and lighthearted way. That makes it the perfect summer read for me.

Nincshof no longer exists – at least not as it once did. Hidden among the reeds, the village was long known only to its residents. But then the wetlands were drained and the village appeared on the map, as it were. With that visibility came the loss of the freedom that had previously defined it.

A small group of self-proclaimed oblivists wants to reverse this. They hope to enlist the help of Erna Rohdiebl, who is almost eighty years old and secretly swims laps of her neighbor’s pool at night. She is the type of person, they reckon, who knows what freedom means. But for Erna, the plan to make Nincshof disappear is the stupidest idea she has ever heard.

It is a story about a lost paradise, the yearning for freedom, and the unconventional paths its characters take in pursuit of it.”

Lena Radau is a research associate and doctoral candidate at LMU’s Chair of Social Inequality and Social Structures.

Reading recommendation:

Johanna Sebauer: Nincshof. Dumont

A book that sinks into your skin

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“I was one of those “bookworm” kids growing up. I devoured books with an unceasing appetite, and could never imagine a summer holiday without a stack of at least 20 novels to tide me over. But with so much required reading and writing in my daily life as a grad student, and my imagination exhausted at the end of the work day, reading for pleasure just seems like too much effort these days. I sometimes feel like I have lost that little girl who could never be found without a book in her. But I have a “rule of three” when it comes to media: if I hear something recommended by at least three trusted sources, I have to give it a try. Following that rule, I picked up the novel Piranesi by Susanna Clarke as my holiday read last summer, and I am so glad that I did.

This atmospheric and contemplative novel follows a protagonist trying to understand an unfathomable and surrealist netherworld. The prose feels almost poetic in its cadence, with a pace that entices further exploration while also allowing the reader to linger on each fine detail. As the mysteries inherent to the plot unravel, they reveal a familiar, haunting ugliness at the core of the story that I found entirely too familiar in our world today. But this novel doesn’t languish in this darkness, and instead celebrates how one can resist succumbing to it: exploration, simple joys and kindnesses, and appreciation for what beauty remains. It is one of those books that sinks into your skin and sits with you for a long time after reading, inviting you back to piece apart its unassuming complexity again and again. And did it help that I related entirely too much with the scientist main character obsessed with the nature of the world around him? Probably.

I enjoyed this book because it felt wholly unique and entirely fleshed out, reminding me of what it felt like to discover a new book as a kid. In an age of mass-produced, recycled plot lines marketed to me as “the next big thing,” while rehashing the same tired tropes over and over, this book felt like a breath of fresh air. It made me feel like that little girl again, in the backseat of the family car during a summer road trip, so lost in a novel that I hardly notice the miles or the time passing by, and that is what makes it the perfect summer read for me.”

Carly Russell is Biology PhD student at LMU Munich

Reading recommendation:

Susanna Clarke: Piranesi. Bloomsbury Publishing