book review – literature

ANTHROPOCEN: The combined effects of our environmental impact have become a force on a par with volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, ice ages, floods and droughts. Can the 'anthropocene' as a concept, time phase and reality be interpreted at the intersection between (natural) science and politics today?

NATURE:How the world has looked from the animals' point of view – how mammals, reptiles, insects, birds and fish have reacted to us – has been absent from our imaginary world. When nature seemed threatening, it had to be fought.

IDENTITY: Do we all have a form of doppelganger that expresses our most extreme thoughts and attitudes? In this book, Naomi Klein takes a special stand with her own people group: the Jews.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Sci-fi could help us see our own times, but now we are sci-fi. Computer screens are icons of our time. Inga Strümke just received the Brage prize for this year's non-fiction book.

POETRY: Kosmos' baby by Gunnar Wærness, and Collection by Erling Kittelsen are two books that have a similarity in how they extend away from the personal (author) self and borrow voices from the environment. The latter makes fun of the cultural tourist and New Age consumer who attends evening classes in Sufism one month and shamanic drumming the next.

CAPITALISM: 'Techno-feudalism' is a global expansion with an all-consuming, limitless development of non-material phenomena. Here, social democracy can no longer make any difference, according to Yanis Varoufakis in this book.

PHILLIPINES: Economist JC Punongbayan debunks many of the myths that allowed the Marcos dynasty to retake the presidential palace in the Philippines 50 years after former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. – a regime at least as brutal as Pinochet's Chile. For example, systematic use of disappearances, political executions, and widespread torture of activists and dissidents.

PHILOSOPHY: In this book, cosmic gratitude is related to the attitude of humility. Because we live in the age of the demanded, the scorned, the translated, the misunderstood, the violated and the oppressed.

OLD AGE: To be in life. Really be. It is Danish Jørgen Leth's contribution to the rest of us. And this book cements that way of being in life. But, our reviewer asks: «Are we humans never satisfied?»

RUSSIA: Anna Politkovskaya's daughter: "My greatest wish is to experience Russia as a flourishing, free and developed country, not desolate, poor and militarized."

PHOTO/BOOK: The importance of being human in the Anthropocene has never been more decisive for an understanding of how humans will survive in the future. Photographer Gauri Gill: “I have followed the agricultural cycle, migration, Food for Work programs, nomadic journeys, epidemics, cerebral malaria, tuberculosis, overcrowded hospitals – and death from snakebites, from accidents, from being burned alive for providing an inadequate dowry – and births, marriages, child marriages or moneylenders."

INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION: Contrary to Norwegian law, Norway is heavily involved in preparations for war in space, and Norwegian satellites and radar systems are used in the US space war. Bård Wormdal's third book reveals the extensive e-service cooperation between the USA and Norway outside NATO cooperation, authorized in secret agreements, outside the Storting's control. The revelations are startling. The spy war is a factual thriller about Norwegian security policy.

VIOLENCE: If 'feminicide' has not yet established itself as a term in Norway, it is on its way into our language. It simply means femicide, but is often linked to the spouse, partner or a family member. Last year, 90 women were victims of femminicide in Italy, which places the country in third place in Europe.

GAZA: Sheikh Jarrah describes how the Israeli authorities subsequently sought to silence the journalists. Here is a current book – in connection with the murdered journalists in Gaza. The democratic function of the media is not always so democratic.

PEACE WORK: There is something vaguely medieval in the narrative of the media, politicians and gun fetishists today. That is why it is refreshing to read the chapter "NATO – out of date" in the book Fredskultur. Or how about Costa Rica: "We have no enemies and we don't need an army!"

ARMS: There are a number of developments in the three oil states of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, which Jean-Loup Samaan researches in his latest book. These are the three oil states that account for 17 percent of all arms purchases worldwide. Saudi Arabia's desire to become a nuclear power in order to stand up to Iran.