Emotional chaos in the elderly and the best aesthetic for folds and wrinkles. Birgit Glombitza talks to Andreas Dresen about geriatric love and sex, and his new film "Wolke 9".

Here you'll find links to newspapers, magazines and other useful culture-related websites

The legendary German poets, Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, met and fell in love in Vienna 1948. Their electric and torturous correspondence, which continued until 1961, has now been collected in book form for the first time. Ina Hartwig on what was probably the most complicated love story in post-war Germany.

The era of the book is over, publisher's editor Tom Engelhardt declares in The Nation. In the New Statesman Jonathan Derbyshire turns his thoughts to Weltliteratur since Goethe. In Polityka, Adam Michnik praises the Communists for passing their exams in Polish patriotism. Difficulty as a virtue has abandoned the realm of literature to be embraced by the computer game, John Lanchester writes in the London Review of Books. Standpoint takes Germany to task for its love of Russia. The New York Times tells the story of Mexico's victorious battle against the "culture of poverty". The Economist honours H.M., the man without memories.

and all the best for 2009!

Signandsight will be back again on January 9th.
(Photo squirmelia)

This year Turkey was the guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair. We introduce the books that attracted the most critical attention.

Sonja Margolina watches Stalin's halo glowing ever brighter in Russia. Ulf Erdmann Ziegler looks into a dark future under the light of another EU norm. The FAZ is not all too comfortable with the plans for the "House of European History" either. The ageing Japanese are keeping their newspaper industry alive and kicking. Richard Swartz visits Europe's last divided city. And thousands of Turks are apologising online to the Armenians, but PM Erdogan is not among them.

Radovan Karadzic might be on trial in The Hague, but he can sit back in his Hugo Boss suit, confident that his work is done. His heirs are young, healthy and full of hate. And as far as they are concerned, the war is far from over. Croatian author Dubravka Ugresic dreams of a procession of collective shame and a ritual of repentance.

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In Outlook India Arundhati Roy analyses the nature of terrorism. In the London Review of Books, Tariq Ali describes an "honour killing" in his own family. In the Observator Cultural, the writer Mircea Horia Simionescu describes how useful it is to be the victim of infidelity. Elet es Irodalom examines the detrimental influence of the primitive Janos Kadar. In Gazeta Wyborcza Victor Erofeev wishes the credit crunch would hurt Russia more, so that it would be forced to change. In Lettre International Peter Nadas describes the legacy of simulation which had the Eastern Bloc in its grip. The New York Review of Books publishes the Chinese "Charter 2008".

Kurt Flasch's book "Kampfplätze der Philosophie" strides across the battlefields of philosophy from Augustine to Voltaire. After a weekend spent scribbling furiously in its margins, Arno Widmann was enlightened, exhilarated and hungry for more.

The NZZ wonders why the generous American presence abroad is not reflected in foreign-correspondent numbers. Serbian author Bora Cosic stumbles across a passage in Witold Gombrowicz's diary from 1967 about JMG Le Clezio, a "young god in tiny swimming shorts". Victor Zaslavsky remembers the 15,000 "local activists" without whom the massacre in Katyn would never have been possible. Jorge Semprun talks about the freedom of choice in Buchenwald. Danish author Jens Christian Gröndahl explains why the independence of Greenland is merely a formality for its colonial ruler. And the Frankfurter Rundschau looks at Greek violence.

Philosopher Jürgen Habermas called for a pan-European referendum in the wake of the Irish 'No'. He overestimates the wisdom of the masses and underestimates what has been achieved up to now, counters Alfred Grosser.

In Al Ahram, Aijaz Zaka Syed calls upon Muslims to confront the terrorists in their midst. In Atlantic, Gao Xiqing tells the Americans to be nice to their money-lenders. In Przekroj Lech Walesa explains that he has to be top dog. In Nepszabadsag Laszlo Lengyel defines Hungary as bottom dog. In Merkur Dina Khapajewa explains how the Russians use WWII myths to repress memories of the gulag. The TLS maligns journalistic moralising. And the Spectator salutes the gentleman pirates of Somalia.

The writers Tariq Ali and Suketu Mehta explain why it's easy to point to Pakistan when Mumbai burns. Historian Arno Lustiger warns against a repeat of the UN anti-racism conference in Durban. Composer Konrad Boehmer draws a parallel between New Music and capitalism. And Jane Birkin reveals all about painless facelifts.

Outlook India investigates the attacks in Mumbai. In Salon, Martin Simecka outlines the difference between ex-communists and true dissidents. The Walrus pines for the wild Jews. In Przekroj, Dorota Maslowska warns about the imminent combustion of Polish society. In the TLS George Walden consoles hedge fund managers with tins of excrement. Umberto Eco buries himself in a dictionary of onomatopoeia. In the Nouvel Obs, Paul Virilio meditates on the omni-polis of the modern nomad. Sex ain't revolution the Nation declares, with an eye on Iran. The Wired watches Charlie Kaufman bleed. And the New York Times lifts the veil on the world's most powerful censors: the Google Three.

Viktor Erofeev describes how Putinism is buying citizens' loyalty, by allowing them control over their private lives. Dmitri Muratov praises the courage of the jury in the Politkovskaya murder trial. The SZ prints David Grossman's acceptance speech on winning the Scholl Siblings Prize. The blood and sperm theatre of the Volksbühne is dead, but refusing to stay down. The Norwegians are warming to Knut Hamsun again. And Levi-Strauss has turned 100.

The age of privatisation is over. Politics not the market is responsible for promoting the common good. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas talks to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order. (Photo: Wolfram Huke)

The American magazines - The Nation, the NYT, New Yorker - focus their attentions on V.S.Naipaul. The Nation also reviews Roberto Bolano's forgotten novel "2666" which, the Economist is astounded to reveal, is flying off the shelves. The Hungarian magazines take the temperature of the cold war between Hungary and Slovakia. Prospect waits for the bubble of bubbles to pop. Jose Saramago outs himself as a flush-faced blogger in El Pais Semanal. Dubravka Ugresic tells the Gazeta Wyborcza why Serbo-Croat is a throroughly modern language. And in the New York Times Kevin Kelly hurtles towards screen ubiquity.

As Ukrainians commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor, the Berliner Zeitung is shocked by Dimitri Medvedev's elastic understanding of the word "genocide". The FR remembers a fateful decision that shaped the lives of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov. In die Welt, Mikhail Khordokovsky predicts a global leftwards shift. Pianist Peter Feuchtwanger sings the praises of the drooping wrist. And sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky says it's the tight fist - which makes the world go round.