Bernd Brunner

People have perennially projected their fantasies onto the North as a frozen no-man's-land full of marauding Vikings or as the unspoiled landscape of a purer, more elemental form of life. Bernd Brunner recovers the encounters of adventurers with its dramatic vistas, fierce weather, exotic treasures, and indigenous peoples-and with the literary sagas that seemed to offer an alternate ("whiter" and "superior") cultural origin story to those of decadent Greece/Rome and the moralistic "Semitic" Bible. The Left has idealized Scandinavian social democracy. The Right borrows from a long history of crackpot theories of Northern origins. Nordic phenotypes characterized eugenics, which in turn influenced America's limits on immigration. The North, Brunner argues, was as much invented as discovered. A valuable contribution to intellectual history, full of vivid documentation, Extreme North is an enlightening journey through a place that is real, but also, in fascinating and very disturbing ways, imaginary.

A Cultural History

Extreme North

Lori Lantz

Shares cultural lore on lying down that ranges from the history of the mattress and the slow living movement to the practices of Stone Age repose, arguing for the importance of lying down in a world that values activity.

A Guide to Horizontal Living

The Art of Lying Down

Mark Kurlansky

The Story of a Changing Season

Winterlust

A delightfully illustrated history of the complex relations between people and bears around the world

A Brief History

Bears

Geschichte einer Jahreszeit

Als die Winter noch Winter waren

"Beautiful ... Brunner is an astute guide to the fascinating relationships between orchards and human culture."--David George Haskell, author of Pulitzer finalist, The Forest Unseen. For readers of Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire and Mark Kurlansky's Salt. The story of orchards is a human story. It is also a story of how humans have bent and shaped nature to our tastes and desires for millennia. In Taming Fruit, award-winning writer Bernd Brunner interweaves science, literature, art, history, and geography to tell the complete and fascinating story of orchards and humans. The first orchards may have been oases dotted with date trees, where desert nomads stopped to rest. In the Amazon, Indigenous tribes maintained beautiful mosaic gardens centuries before colonization. Modern fruit cultivation developed over thousands of years in the West and the East. As populations expanded, fruit trees sprang from the lush gardens of the wealthy and monasteries to fields and roadsides, changing landscapes as they fed the hungry. When settlers colonized North America, they brought apple orchards and orange groves. Today, rewilding efforts break down fences, encouraging nature to play an active role. But orchards are not only for growing fruit; they are also places of worship and creativity, inspiring poems, music, and art. This sweeping account of orchards explores an overlooked focal point of our relationship to nature. It also offers gorgeous illustrations of orchards past and present, each one more beautiful than the last.

How Orchards Past and Present Have Transformed the Land, Offered Sanctuary, and Inspired Creativity

Taming Fruit

The mysterious world beneath the ocean's surface has captivated man for centuriesthe Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and ancient Chinese all kept fish in their homes for purposes other than the culinary. But it was not until the nineteenth-century invention of the aquarium that the deep was trulydomesticated, offering the curiously inclined a chance to invent their very own exotic sea world within their own walls. In this fascinating history of the aquarium, Bernd Brunner traces the development of this most wonderful invention, giving insight into the cultural and social circumstances that accompanied its swift rise in popularity. Brunner tells a compelling story of obsession, beauty, discovery, and delight, from the aquarium's humble origins as a tool for scientific observation to the Victorian era's elaborately decorated containers of oceanic curiosity, to the great public aquaria of the twentieth century.

An Illustrated History of the Aquarium

The Ocean at Home

Thomas Wolfe

Includes a biography of the author Thomas Wolfe.The great author Thomas Wolfe gives insight in his writing and feelings. Published after the completion of his second novel, he shares without arrogance his struggles. A personal reflection of a famous and successful writer, a book about writing a book.

Incl. Biography of Thomas Wolfe

The Story of a Novel (Annotated)

Die unterschätzte Kunst des Liegens. Alle tun es, doch kaum jemand spricht darüber: Bernd Brunner lädt zu einem entspannten Streifzug durch die Welt des Liegens ein Gut ein Drittel unseres Lebens verbringen wir liegend: wir schlafen und träumen, lieben, denken, dämmern, leiden und erholen uns. Dennoch hat das Liegen im Allgemeinen keinen guten Ruf und wird mit Stillstand, Passivität und Faulheit gleichgesetzt. Dabei ist die Horizontale von unschätzbarem Wert, bietet sie doch Momente der Kontemplation, die oft die besten Ideen mit sich bringen. Hätte Michelangelo sich nicht dem Liegen hingegeben, er wäre wohl nie auf die Idee gekommen, die Decke der Sixtinischen Kapelle zu einem der größten Kunstwerke der Menschheit zu machen. Bernd Brunners Hymne auf das Liegen ist gehaltvolle kulturgeschichtliche Tiefenbohrung und unterhaltsame Geschichtensammlung zugleich. Er nähert sich der Horizontalen auf ganz unterschiedliche Weisen, verliert dabei aber nie den Blick für das Kuriose und Skurrile: ob das Liegen in der Steinzeit, die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Matratze oder die neuesten Erkenntnisse der Schlafforschung – Die Kunst des Liegens entspannt spannend. Ein elegant geschriebens Stück Literatur über eine Kunst, die wir alle beherrschen.

Handbuch der horizontalen Lebensform

Die Kunst des Liegens

Kirk Merak - Uzanma Sanati

Şu anda uzanıyorsanız, o zaman doğru pozisyondasınız; zira hepimiz belli aralıklarla ve de büyük bir zevkle uzanırız. Uzanırken dinleniriz; vücudun en çok gevşediği, en az güç harcadığı pozisyondur yatıp uzanmak. Uzanırken bir sürü şey yaparız: Uyuruz, düş görürüz, sevişiriz, düşünürüz, kendimizi melankolik bir ruh haline bırakırız, hayal kurarız ve acı çekeriz. Bernd Brunner’in tarihsel ve kültürel yönleriyle enine boyuna incelediği Uzanma Sanatı, yatay pozisyonda zaman geçirmenin farklı biçimlerine odaklanan keyifli bir çalışma. Günümüz toplumlarında çoğu zaman tembelliğin, aylaklığın ya da hastalığın ifadesi olarak yorumlanan uzanmanın kıymeti pek bilinmese de, varoluşumuza içkin bir hareket aslında uzanmak: Hepimiz uzanırız ne de olsa. Yine de uzanmak, kötü şöhretli bir eylem olarak bilinir. Hatta eylem bile sayılmaz. Ama siz durmayın, bu kitabı okurken güzelce uzanın. Zira Groucho Marx’ın da dediği gibi, “Yatakta yapılamayan şeyler, yapılmaya değer değildir.”

Uzanma Sanatı / Yatay Yaşamın Elkitabı

A captivating cultural and scientific history of orchards, perfect for readers of Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire and Mark Kurlansky’s Salt Throughout history, orchards have nourished both body and soul: they are sites for worship and rest, inspiration for artists and writers, and places for people to gather. In Taming Fruit, award-winning writer Bernd Brunner interweaves evocative illustrations with masterful prose to show that the story of orchards is a story of how we have shaped nature to our desires for millennia. As Brunner tells it, the first orchards may have been oases dotted with date trees, where desert nomads stopped to rest. In the Amazon, Indigenous people maintained mosaic gardens centuries before colonization. Modern fruit cultivation developed over thousands of years in the East and the West. As populations expanded, fruit trees sprang from the lush gardens of the wealthy and monasteries to fields and roadsides, changing landscapes as they fed the hungry. But orchards don’t just produce fruit; they also inspire great artists. Taming Fruit shares paintings, photographs, and illustrations alongside Brunner's enchanting descriptions and research, offering a multifaceted-—and long-awaited—portrait of the orchard. Praise for Taming Fruit: “Fruit was there at the beginning of the human story, Bernd Brunner argues in this crisply written and lushly illustrated book.” —Zach St. George, author of The Journeys of Trees “A beautiful exploration of the life-giving bonds between trees, fruits, and people.” —David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen “An enchanting journey through the world of orchards and botanical curiosities. Anyone who is even a tentative gardener will cherish this lovely book.” —Brian Fagan, author of The Little Ice Age and The Intimate Bond

How Orchards Have Transformed the Land, Offered Sanctuary and Inspired Creativity

An entertaining and informative voyage through cultural fantasies of the North, from sea monsters and a mountain-sized magnet to racist mythmaking. Scholars and laymen alike have long projected their fantasies onto the great expanse of the global North, whether it be as a frozen no-man’s-land, an icy realm of marauding Vikings, or an unspoiled cradle of prehistoric human life. Bernd Brunner reconstructs the encounters of adventurers, colonists, and indigenous communities that led to the creation of a northern “cabinet of wonders” and imbued Scandinavia, Iceland, and the Arctic with a perennial mystique. Like the mythological sagas that inspired everyone from Wagner to Tolkien, Extreme North explores both the dramatic vistas of the Scandinavian fjords and the murky depths of a Western psyche obsessed with Nordic whiteness. In concise but thoroughly researched chapters, Brunner highlights the cultural and political fictions at play from the first “discoveries” of northern landscapes and stories, to the eugenicist elevation of the “Nordic” phenotype (which in turn influenced America’s limits on immigration), to the idealization of Scandinavian social democracy as a post-racial utopia. Brunner traces how crackpot Nazi philosophies that tied the “Aryan race” to the upper latitudes have influenced modern pseudoscientific fantasies of racial and cultural superiority the world over. The North, Brunner argues, was as much invented as discovered. Full of glittering details embedded in vivid storytelling, Extreme North is a fascinating romp through both actual encounters and popular imaginings, and a disturbing reminder of the power of fantasy to shape the world we live in.

Extreme North: A Cultural History

Explores the roots of the Christmas tree tradition, tracing customs from the Middle Ages to the present day to reveal how it first became part of mainstream American culture and has since become popular worldwide.

Inventing the Christmas Tree

“A strange and dreamy voice . . . , like an Italo Calvino short story, curiously translated from some lost, obscure language.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love An utterly charming study of the history of lying down—which is more complicated than you might think We spend a good third of our lives lying down: sleeping, dreaming, making love, thinking, reading, and getting well. Bernd Brunner’s ode to lying down is a rich exploration of cultural history and an entertaining collection of tales, ranging from the history of the mattress to the “slow living movement” to Stone Age repose—when people did not sleep lying down—and beyond. He approaches the horizontal state from a number of directions, but never loses his keen sense for the odd or unusual detail. Far from being a pose of passivity or laziness, lying down can be a protest, a chance to gather thoughts or change your point of view—the other side to our upright, productive lives. Brunner makes an eloquent case for the importance of lying down in a world that values ever-greater levels of activity, arguing that time spent horizontally offers rewards that we’d do well not to ignore.

Using werewolves and Wernher von Braun, Stonehenge and the sex lives of sea corals, aboriginal myths, and an Anglican bishop in this new book, the author weaves variegated information into a glimpse of Earth's closest celestial neighbor, whose mere presence inspires us to wonder what might be out there. Going beyond the discoveries of contemporary science, he presents a cultural assessment of our complex relationship with Earth's lifeless, rocky satellite. As well as offering an engaging perspective on such age old questions as "What would Earth be like without the moon?" he surveys the moon's mythical and religious significance and provokes existential soul searching through a lunar lens, inquiring, "Forty years ago, the first man put his footprint on the moon. Will we continue to use it as the screen onto which we cast our hopes and fears?" Drawing on materials from different cultures and epochs, he walks readers down a moonlit path illuminated by more than seventy-five vintage photographs and illustrations. From scientific discussions of the moon's origins and its chronobiological effects on the mating and feeding habits of animals to an illuminating interpretation of Bishop Francis Godwin's 1638 novel The Man in the Moone, his interdisciplinary explorations recast a familiar object in an original light.

Moon

Das Buch der Nacht

"An exquisitely beautiful book ...These stories about birds are ultimately reflections on the curious nature of humanity itself" - Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk There is no denying that many people are crazy for birds. Packed with intriguing facts and exquisite and rare artwork, Birdmania showcases an eclectic and fascinating selection of bird devotees who would do anything for their feathered friends. In addition to well-known enthusiasts, such as Aristotle, Charles Darwin, and Helen Macdonald, Brunner introduces readers to Karl Russ, the pioneer of "bird rooms" and lover of the Australian budgerigar, who had difficulty renting lodgings when landlords realised who he was; George Lupton, a wealthy Yorkshire lawyer, who commissioned the theft of uniquely patterned eggs every year for twenty years from the same unfortunate female guillemot who never had a chance to raise a chick; Ambrose Pratt who leaves us a beautiful example of a devoted relationship between a lyre bird and an Australian hermit; Mervyn Shorthouse, who posed as a wheelchair-bound invalid to steal an estimated ten thousand eggs from the Natural History Museum in Tring; and Tibbles the 19th century cat, who belonged to the lighthouse keeper on Stephens Island in New Zealand, and who collected many of Lord Walter Rothschild's bird samples. As this book illustrates, people who love birds, whether they are amateurs or professionals, are as captivating and varied as the birds that give flight to their dreams.

Bernd Brunner

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