The Collini Case
The Collini Case

Author: Ferdinand von Schirach

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1101622822

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The internationally bestselling courtroom drama centering on a young German lawyer and a case involving World War II A bestseller in Germany since its 2011 release—with rights sold in seventeen countries—The Collini Case combines the classic courtroom procedural with modern European history in a legal thriller worthy of John Grisham and Scott Turow. Fabrizio Collini is recently retired. He’s a quiet, unassuming man with no indications that he’s capable of hurting anyone. And yet he brutally murders a prominent industrialist in one of Berlin’s most exclusive hotels. Collini ends up in the charge of Caspar Leinen, a rookie defense lawyer eager to launch his career with a not-guilty verdict. Complications soon arise when Collini admits to the murder but refuses to give his motive, much less speak to anyone. As Leinen searches for clues he discovers a personal connection to the victim and unearths a terrible truth at the heart of Germany’s legal system that stretches back to World War II. But how much is he willing to sacrifice to expose the truth?

The Collini Case
The Collini Case

Author: Ferdinand von Schirach

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2012-09-13

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 0718159225

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NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FEATURED IN THE TIMES TOP 100 CRIME & THRILLER NOVELS SINCE 1945 A murder. A murderer. No motive. Fabrizio Collini is a hard working, quiet and respectable man. Until the day he visits one of Berlin's most luxurious hotels and kills an innocent man in cold blood. Young attorney Caspar Leinen takes the case. Getting Collini a not-guilty verdict would make his name. But far too late he discovers that he knows Collini's victim. Leinen is caught in a professional and personal dilemma. Collini admits the murder but won't say why he did it, forcing Leinen to defend a man who won't defend himself. And worse, a close friend, and relation of the victim, insists that he give up the case. His reputation, his career and this friendship are all at risk. But then he makes a discovery that goes way beyond his own concerns and exposes a terrible and deadly truth at the heart of German justice . . . The Collini Case is a masterful court room drama that will have readers on the edge of their seats from start to finish - fans of John le Carre will love this. __________ 'A magnificent storyteller' Der Spiegel 'A murder trial full of political explosiveness: thrilling, clever, staggering' Focus 'Terrific' Elle 'Ferdinand von Schirach brilliantly draws you under his spell' Bunte

Speaking of Universities
Speaking of Universities

Author: Stefan Collini

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2017-03-28

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1786631407

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A devastating analysis of what is happening to our academia In recent decades there has been an immense global surge in the numbers both of universities and of students. In the UK alone there are now over 140 institutions teaching more subjects to nearly 2.5 million students. New technology offers new ways of learning and teaching. Globalization forces institutions to consider a new economic horizon. At the same time governments have systematically imposed new procedures regulating funding, governance, and assessment. Universities are being forced to behave more like business enterprises in a commercial marketplace than centres of learning. In Speaking of Universities, historian and critic Stefan Collini analyses these changes and challenges the assumptions of policy-makers and commentators. He asks: does “marketization” threaten to destroy what we most value about education; does this new era of “accountability” distort what it purports to measure; and who does the modern university belong to? Responding to recent policies and their underlying ideology, the book is a call to “focus on what is actually happening and the clichés behind which it hides; an incitement to think again, think more clearly, and then to press for something better.”

What are Universities For?
What are Universities For?

Author: Stefan Collini

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2012-02-23

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 0141970375

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Across the world, universities are more numerous than they have ever been, yet at the same time there is unprecedented confusion about their purpose and scepticism about their value. What Are Universities For? offers a spirited and compelling argument for completely rethinking the way we see our universities, and why we need them. Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money. Instead, he argues that we must reflect on the different types of institution and the distinctive roles they play. In particular we must recognize that attempting to extend human understanding, which is at the heart of disciplined intellectual enquiry, can never be wholly harnessed to immediate social purposes - particularly in the case of the humanities, which both attract and puzzle many people and are therefore the most difficult subjects to justify. At a time when the future of higher education lies in the balance, What Are Universities For? offers all of us a better, deeper and more enlightened understanding of why universities matter, to everyone.

Crime
Crime

Author: Ferdinand von Schirach

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-01-11

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0307595536

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From Ferdinand von Schirach, one of Germany’s most prominent defense attorneys, comes a jolting debut collection of short stories that daringly brings to light the motivations stirring within the criminal mind. By turns witty and sorrowful, unflinchingly brutal and heartbreaking, the deeply affecting, quietly unnerving cases presented in Crime urge a closer examination of guilt and innocence. In “Fähner,” a small-town physician and avid gardener betrays little emotion when he takes an ax to his wife’s head, an act that shocks the locals but provides a long-awaited reprieve for the good doctor. Abbas, a Palestinian refugee who is cornered into a life of crime, finds true love and seemingly a saving grace with a beautiful student named Stefanie in “Summertime.” But when she is viciously murdered in a hotel room after having been paid to sleep with one of the country’s wealthiest men, is Abbas to blame or is it the man who seems to have it all? And in the startling story “Love,” a young man’s infatuation with his girlfriend takes a grisly turn as he comes to grips with his unconventional—and uncontrollable—impulses to truly know a woman. “Guilt,” writes von Schirach, “always presents a bit of a problem.” In this beautifully nuanced and telling collection, guilt is indeed never as clear-cut as the crime, and justice is more nebulous still.

The Girl Who Wasn't There
The Girl Who Wasn't There

Author: Ferdinand von Schirach

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2015-01-08

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0349140472

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Sebastian von Eschburg, scion of a wealthy, self-destructive family, survived his disastrous childhood to become a celebrated if controversial artist. He casts a provocative shadow over the Berlin scene; his disturbing photographs and installations show that truth and reality are two distinct things. When Sebastian is accused of murdering a young woman and the police investigation takes a sinister turn, seasoned lawyer Konrad Biegler agrees to represent him - and hopes to help himself in the process. But Biegler soon learns that nothing about the case, or the suspect, is what it appears. The new thriller from the acclaimed author of The Collini Case, THE GIRL WHO WASN'T THERE is dark, ingenious and irresistibly gripping.

Two Cultures?
Two Cultures?

Author: F. R. Leavis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-08-29

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 1107471621

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In this first annotated edition of F. R. Leavis' famous critique of C. P. Snow's influential argument about 'the two cultures', Stefan Collini reappraises both its literary tactics and its purpose as cultural criticism. The edition will enable new generations of readers to understand what was at stake in the dispute and to appreciate the enduring relevance of Leavis's attack on the goal of economic growth. In his comprehensive introduction Collini situates Leavis's critique within the wider context of debates about 'modernity' and 'prosperity', not just the 'two cultures' of literature and science. Collini emphasizes the difficulties faced by the cultural critic in challenging widely-held views and offers an illuminating analysis of Leavis's style. The edition provides full notes to references and allusions in Leavis's texts.

Guilt
Guilt

Author: Ferdinand von Schirach

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2012-01-31

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 0307957675

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On a sweltering day in August, a small town drunkenly celebrates its six-hundredth anniversary with a funfair when an anonymous tip leads police to find a young woman brutally beaten, raped, and thrown under the floorboards of the very stage on which her attackers had just played a polka. An eight-member brass band composed of respectable family men with respectable day jobs is charged with the crime. A neophyte defense lawyer, still wet behind the ears and breaking in his attaché case, takes on the trial, only to lose his innocence in the process. So begins Guilt, Ferdinand von Schirach’s tense, riveting collection of stories based on real crimes he has known. In these brief, succinct tales, von Schirach calls into question the nature of guilt and the toll it takes—or fails to take—on ordinary people. In “The Illuminati,” the popular mean crowd at an all-boys’ boarding school wages a vicious attack against an outsider schoolmate, and ends up accidentally killing the boy’s beloved teacher. Attempting to hurdle through a midlife crisis, a housewife begins to steal trivial things no one will miss, an act that gives her a rush and staves off depression in “Desire.” And in “Snow,” an old man whose home is used as a way station for a heroin ring agrees to protect the identity of the lead drug runner, who receives his comeuppance in due course. Compassionate and seen with the same cool, controlled eye that propelled Ferdinand von Schirach’s debut collection, Crime, onto best-seller lists, Guilt is a stunning follow-up from one of Germany’s finest new writers.

The Girl on the Stairs
The Girl on the Stairs

Author: Louise Welsh

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2012-08-02

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1848546491

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Jane Logan is a stranger to Berlin and she finds the city alive and echoing with the ghosts of its turbulent past. At six months pregnant, she's instructed by her partner Petra to rest and enjoy her new life in Germany. But while Petra is out at work, Jane begins to feel uneasy in their chic apartment. Screams reverberate through the walls, lights flicker in the derelict building that looms over the yard, a shadow passes on the stairs . . . Jane meets a neighbour's daughter, a girl whose life she tries to mend, but her involvement only further isolates her. Alone and haunted, Jane fears the worst . . . but the worst is yet to come. Louise Welsh, the acclaimed author of The Cutting Room, delivers another masterful suspense novel. The Girl on the Stairs is a powerful psychological thriller packed with twists and turns to keep you reading well into the night. Read it, or be left in the dark.

The Tyranny of Metrics
The Tyranny of Metrics

Author: Jerry Z. Muller

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0691191263

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How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government—and the quality of our lives Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself—and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all.