Mathilde Montpetit

@ajbwells.bsky.social has been talking about going to Dresden's Museum of Lies for years – but only managed it on its very last day. Is truth the only thing left? Our latest SCENE, and one of my favorite things we've published:

Wondering how people could possibly believe in a flat earth? For @publicdomainrev.bsky.social I dove into the original modern text of the movement – and the Flat Earth Society forums:

"After John Cage has done four and a half minutes of silence, the task of the avant-garde is not to then do five minutes of silence. That’s kitsch." Going to be thinking about @return2sanders.bsky.social's interview with Tom McCarthy whenever anyone talks about experimental literature:

"Berlin is one of the largest, if not the largest English-speaking literary community in a non-dominant English-speaking city in Europe. It has an extraordinarily vibrant literary culture ..." an Interview with The Auflauf minorliteratures.com/2026/10/15/w...

a lovely conversation with Cristina from @minorliteratures.bsky.social! thank you for being interested in thr Auflauf (and putting up with my screaming son)!

Compiled by Horace Traubel, The Book of Heavenly Death (1905) gathers choice passages from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass that speak to the poet’s conception of immortality: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-book-of-heavenly-death/

I REMAIN UNDEFEATED: FIVE NOBEL PICKS IN A ROW. Congratulations to Anne Carson and thanks to the Nobel Committee for sending the answer to me in a dream:

As you make your dips, put out the chips and sauce your chicken wings for your big annual Nobel Prize for Literature watch party tomorrow, dig into this @mathildegm.bsky.social dispatch from the prize-picking trail: www.theauflauf.com/p/scene-math...

Need some cash? For @publicdomainrev.bsky.social, I checked out on Carl Jung's copy of the Mutus Liber, the classic text of modern alchemy. Luckily it has step-by-step instructions:

This month's reviews are, in my opinion, a spectacular advertisement for Berlin's lit culture: an Irish writer who writes beautifully about home, a Berlin-based Arabic publisher and translator, and the city's pull on writers from around the world.

The journalist Horace Traubel devoted his life to Walt Whitman's legacy – to geting WW's wisdom out there, even if that meant occasionally taking out some sex & violence. My latest for @publicdomainrev.bsky.social:

One of my favorite Wikipedia deep-dives recently was into the eventful life of Col. James Skinner, who represents an odd early moment of possibility for the British in India:

Miniatures, likely by Alī Khan, illustrating an 1825 manuscript on Indian customs, culture, and caste, penned entirely in Persian by James Skinner, an enigmatic figure of the early British Raj. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/james-skinner-india-castes

As anyone who knows me is tired of hearing, I am very good at guessing who will win the Nobel prize. This year, though, I needed a bit of inspiration, and I wrote about it for The Auflauf's new SCENE series:

Of mixed Surinamese–Dutch heritage, Paramaribo-born Gerrit Schouten (1779–1839) fashioned intricate papier-mâché dioramas depicting life on Suriname’s colonial plantations — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/gerrit-schouten-suriname-dioramas/

people on this website often complain (correctly) about the death of journalism. here's an easy way to help its rebirth: by supporting independent media in Berlin.

Recently found out that 1918 was a big year for cat-themed music, not least this strange comedy track that sounds like a cat getting startled:

Saturday in Berlin

My favorite Auflauf interview of the year about my favorite book of the year. Had a blast talking about modernism, architecture, and baffling mid-century parenting with @robmadole.bsky.social:

this is a bit random but one thing i'm dying to do these days is copy edit a book. i've got years of newsroom copy editing under my belt, plus a good bit of nonprofit/think tank work, and i know my way around an ARC. if you or someone you know are looking for a manuscript copy editor, get at me!

Kommt im Oktober: PARATAXE Symposium XIX: AfroBerlin - afrikanisch-literarische Spuren in & aus Berlin...

For @publicdomainrev.bsky.social, I wrote about the strange history of the first flap books, which started off as propaganda during the English Civil War and became unbelievably popular among children on both sides of the Atlantic:

New from me on BIG OLD GERMAN BOOKS that I loved & are distinctly connected: Effingers & Buddenbrooks. thegoodreview.substack.com/p/on-big-old...

Our September books bring together the distant and the familiar: Celina Baljeet Basra on migrant Berlin, @brynstole.bsky.social on minimalism and the fantastic, Michaela Anchan on the long life of the peatlands:

Auflauf Auflauf Auflauf Auflauf Auflauf Come celebrate 6 months of the books & culture magazine with us! 7 PM September 19 www.lettretage.de/programm/6-m...

will be reading at The Auflauf 6 Month celebration September 19, 7pm Lettrétage, Berlin

A 19th century manual on systematizing life as art and art as life: "Genevieve Stebbins’ Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression" @mathildegm.bsky.social @publicdomainrev.bsky.social (Plus- Wings) Rehearse: roughlydaily.com/2026/08/12/a...

I went long on the cynicism of YESTERYEAR: thegoodreview.substack.com/p/on-the-app... I couldn't figure out where to place ideas like this, so I hope you will subscribe to my new newsletter! (I will not always be such a hater, I promise/I'm sorry.)

it’s my BIRTHDAY!!!! Please celebrate by subscribing to my newsletter 😎 thegoodreview.substack.com/subscribe?pa...

for my sins, I have started a newsletter, it is called The Good Review. I will mostly be talking BOOKS, but also doing some blogging about whatever else I want. thegoodreview.substack.com/subscribe?pa...

Loved this LRB piece about screwball comedies, which really captures what is so amazing about the genre:

This Women in Translation Month, very happy to be working at The Auflauf, where it's WITM every month: in our first 6 months we've run reviews of Franck, Maci, Mehr, Reimann; original translated fiction by Sylvia Krupicka; and an interview with Herta Müller's latest translator:

Studying to become a medieval priest was a real drag – thank goodness Solomon (?) had a series of mysterious diagrams and chants revealed to him (?), to make things go down easier. Loved working on this excerpt from Anne Lawrence-Mathers' THE MAGIC BOOKS:

Experimental German poetry, Casanova, Virginia Woolf and John Lanchester's debut novels... Summer reading is looking even more eclectic than usual. What's on your list?

A few weeks ago we had a great chat with @ajbwells.bsky.social on the legacy of neon signs in Germany. Read the full interview here: www.theauflauf.com/p/jesse-simo...

After seeing it through @neondeutschland.bsky.social's eyes, you'll never see Germany's neon signs the same way again: