An Adventurous Journey Through my Room

Everyday things, everyday life, stories set in past eras: an expedition into the realm of objects by Karl-Markus Gauß.

Many seek adventure in far-off places. But Karl-Markus Gauß, a much-travelled cartographer of Europe’s outer regions, finds them near to home. He does set off on a journey – but without having to leave his room, leading us through different eras and various countries. Whether he writes about his bed, his desk, his grandmother’s handwritten cookbook, the old overseas suitcase with its iron fittings or a letter-opener that belonged to the Moravian industrialist Hans Hatschek, Gauß treasures these everyday things and finds in them the diversity and richness of the world. And from them, we learn about brave and foreign peoples, remote regions, unknown nationalities and above all, the writer’s own tastes. A charming, entertaining and instructive expedition into the unknown terrain of private objects.