The Feeling of Thinking

The Feeling of Thinking

251 pages

Hardcover

Genre: Philosophy, Essay, Fiction, Literature
How reading changes lives: Tales of one of the most existential experiences that readers can have

Every true reader knows the feeling: suddenly you are swept away into a new, unknown world. Or a truth slowly dawns on you, the existence of which you never even imagined before, but which touches you at the core of your being. This sensation is triggered by a book, an author, perhaps only a sentence, which puts life in completely new circumstances. Veronika Reichl traces these existential awakenings and turning points in reading theory in her stories distilled from countless interviews and conversations: How does it feel to read Judith Butler or Slavoj Žižek? Do you have to be silent to understand Hegel? How does one get into the Derrida tension? Does Kant help stop the free-flowing phenomena?
Reichl's brilliant narratives of fiction and documentation form an archipelago of knowing and feeling, a universal history of philosophy as much as a reading guide and self-analysis. Humorous and precise, surprising and ingenious, she tells of experiences of thinking, of the pain of reading, of dealing with not understanding, and of how reading touches lives and changes them forever.

German title: Das Gefühl zu denken - Erzählungen
ISBN: 978-3-7518-0920-7
Publisher: Matthes & Seitz Berlin
Publication date: 2023
Sold to: Russische Föderation

Licence

Literary Essay

Sample translation

English sample available

Veronika Reichl, born in Baltimore in 1973, lives in Berlin as an author, illustrator and lecturer. She studied communication design and media art in Stuttgart and Portsmouth and completed her doctorate on the visualizability of theoretical texts. She was a prize winner of the 11th Open Mike.

"Her humorously essayistic storytelling casually opens up an insight into the essential approaches of philosophy and modern theory combined with great reading pleasure. Quite ingenious!"  WDR