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Cappelen Damm

Misanthropic User Manual

ESSAYS: Is the truth scandalous? Michel Houellebecq hides behind masks, and in the end the masks are stuck to his face: He has become his own self-representation.

Colonized by the hookup universe

INTERNET: Johann Hari points out in the book that the 'focus crisis' is directly dangerous for democracy and can contribute to forming totalitarian regimes.

The father of populism

FASCISM:Benito Mussolini is back to show us how to build a fascist regime of terror. Antonio Scurati, the author of M – son of the century, says in this interview with MODERN TIMES that "Benito Mussolini was like an empty shell, a man without opinions, but with an excess of the courage of opinions".

From despotism to anarchy and back to despotism

RUSSIA: Mikhail Shishkin has long pointed out that Russia, unlike Germany, has never come to terms with its totalitarian past.

From blasted waste bunkers

POEM: The reader of this book is cautioned against reading too large parts consecutively. You then run the risk of a wild language machine starting up in your head, so that you start writing books yourself.

THE DEPARTMENTAL HEART – "It is a real pleasure for me to deny them access"

Anti-Gypsyism is the latest yet widespread form of racism, directed at the Roma. Maria Rosvoll's Zolo Karoli is a feat of a book.

The experience of (un) human encounters with the ancients

NURSING: After a decade in Norwegian elderly care, nurse Vigdis J. Reisæter could no longer bear to give a sedative to anxiety sufferers of dementia instead of a hand to hold and an ear to listen with.

Lies, manipulation and filth

DEMOCRACY: Anne Applebaum shows how concrete historical events developed a political populism. How can we understand and counteract the forces that want the liberal, democratic, fact-based structure of society to come to life?

What shaped him as a human being

MEMORY: Was the most interesting thing in Thorbjørn Jagland's book overlooked by the critics?

The essence of Africa

Migrations, language families and trade routes: Tore Linné Eriksen's Africa book is a door opener with its many short, thematic stories. But does he succeed in delivering what he promises?

Inside the "white power" of the United States

nationalism: In Vegard Tenold Aase's new book, we become acquainted with right-wing groups in the United States, denying the Holocaust and believing in a new giving for neo-Nazism.

Axel Jensen – from the tuxedo to the stove

AXEL JENSEN: Torgrim Eggen balances in a reading party of a biography on the tight line between Axel Jensen's life and work.

What does Michel Houellebecq want?

The controversial author Michel Houellebecq recently released his first book in four years. Will the book give the French farmers the help they need in the fight for their livelihood?

To dream is to look death in the eyes

What is this dream, what significance does it have?

Norway has become a climate political slowdown

Our important social debater, Eivind Trædal, has written a thorough history book on Norwegian climate policy – and why it is in the wild.

Tempting and seductive feminism

Sometimes it is simple sparkling good. Breen and Jordahl's portrayal of the history of the women's battle in comic format is fresh and liberating without self-celebrity.