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Munich - Paris: 23 November - 14 December, 1974

Of Walking In Ice

'I set off on the most direct route to Paris, in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot' 
 
In November 1974, when Werner Herzog was told that his mentor Lotte Eisner, the film historian and critic, was dying in Paris, he set off to walk there from Munich, ‘in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot’. Along the way he recorded what he saw, how he felt, and what he experienced, from the physical discomfort of the journey to moments of rapture. It is a remarkable narrative – part pilgrimage, part meditation, and a confrontation between a great German Romantic imagination and the contemporary world.

'Surely the strangest, strongest walking book I know, it tells the story of a winter pilgrimage, made in desperation and in hope. At once a diary, a blizzard of weather and memories, and the record of a ritual: only Herzog could have written this weird, slender classic.'

'Herzog's pilgrimage is a fugue and an absurdist comedy as rich as anything in his cinema'.

Werner Herzog has produced, written and directed more than fifty feature and documentary films, including the multi-award-winning Grizzly Man, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, My Best Fiend, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Nosferatu, Lessons of Darkness, Littler Dieter Needs To Fly, Into the Inferno, Meeting Gorbachev and Encounters At The End of the World. He has also directed many operas and published more than a dozen books of prose including Conquest of the Useless and Of Walking In Ice. The Twilight World is his first book in decades.

A poetic meditation on life and death, by one of the most renowned and respected film-makers and intellectuals of our time. 
 
In November 1974, when Werner Herzog was told that his mentor Lotte Eisner, the film historian and critic, was dying in Paris, he set off to walk there from Munich, ‘in full faith, believing that she would stay alive if I came on foot’. Along the way he recorded what he saw, how he felt, and what he experienced, from the physical discomfort of the journey to moments of rapture. It is a remarkable narrative – part pilgrimage, part meditation, and a confrontation between a great German Romantic imagination and the contemporary world. 
 
‘Surely the strangest, strongest walking book I know’ Robert Macfarlane 
 
?????'It hits you with the force of dreams and leaves you with the taste of snow-filled air’ Helen Macdonald

Fever Dreams in the Jungle

Conquest of the Useless

A fever-dream journal documenting the making of cinema’s most infamous production, from the world's most infamously visionary director: Werner Herzog. 
 
In 1982, the visionary film director, Werner Herzog, released Fitzcarraldo, a lavish film about a would-be rubber baron who pulls a 320-ton steamship over a mountain. Hailed instantly by critics around the globe as a masterpiece, Fitzcarraldo won Herzog the 1982 Outstanding Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, affirming Herzog's reputation as one of the most revered and enigmatic filmmakers of his time. 
 
Conquest of the Useless is the diary Herzog kept during the making of Fitzcarraldo, compiled from June 1979 to November 1981. Emerging as if out of an Amazonian fever dream during filming, Herzog's writings are an extraordinary documentary unto themselves, providing a glimpse into the mind of a genius during the making of one of his greatest achievements. 
 
‘Hypnotic... It is ever tempting to try to fathom [Herzog’s] restless spirit and his determination to challenge fate’ New York Times

Reveals Herzog to be witty, compassionate, microscopically observant and?your call?either maniacally determined or admirably persevering.

Hypnotic...Any book by Mr. Herzog...turns his devotees into cryptographers. It is ever tempting to try to fathom his restless spirit and his determination to challenge fate.

Reveals Herzog to be witty, compassionate, microscopically observant and - your call - either maniacally determined or admirably persevering.

A fever-dream journal documenting the making of cinema’s most infamous production, from the world's most infamously visionary director: Werner Herzog. 
 
In 1982, the visionary film director, Werner Herzog, released Fitzcarraldo, a lavish film about a would-be rubber baron who pulls a 320-ton steamship over a mountain. Hailed instantly by critics around the globe as a masterpiece, Fitzcarraldo won Herzog the 1982 Outstanding Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, affirming Herzog's reputation as one of the most revered and enigmatic filmmakers of his time. 
 
Conquest of the Useless is the diary Herzog kept during the making of Fitzcarraldo, compiled from June 1979 to November 1981. Emerging as if out of an Amazonian fever dream during filming, Herzog's writings are an extraordinary documentary unto themselves. Strange and otherworldly events are recounted by the filmmaker. The crew's camp in the heart of the jungle is attacked and burned to the ground; the production of the film clashes with a border war; and, of course, Herzog unravels the impossible logistics of moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. 
 
In his preface, Herzog warns that the diary entries collected in Conquest of the Useless do not represent "reports on the actual filming" but rather "inner landscapes, born of the delirium of the jungle." Thus begins an extraordinary glimpse into the mind of a genius during the making of one of his greatest achievements.

A Memoir

Every Man for Himself and God against All

PRAISE FOR EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL 
 
Werner Herzog's life story reads like a Hollywood film

Most film memoirs are boring because film-makers don't have a life outside film. But Herzog has lived the nine lives of a cat ... and his book actually gets more interesting the further it gets from the big films

Herzog’s memoir… is as intense, surprising and wacky as his films, with a real sense of reason underlying all the madness and eccentricity

A joyous, fulfilling read … there are some terrific, wild stories … [Herzog] has lived an extreme and extraordinary life

A fascinating glimpse into the mind of an original, anarchic filmmaker. His family tales are weird and funny ... and he gives revealing accounts of his professional career and acting roles on hit shows such as The Simpsons and The Mandalorian

A bracing dive into the film-maker's darkly beguiling mind ... The glory of this book is that Herzog lets us see him making the world up. He writes throughout with enviable attention to the world around him [and] demands that we wonder at the tangible world, in all its mystery.

[Every Man for Himself and God Against All is] an evocative, shocking encounter with a man who has experienced life at its most extreme

[Herzog's] new book is a hypnotic series of recollections and visions that you cannot help but read in that iconic voice ... It's a journey through the heart of Herzog, with Herzog at the wheel

Every Man for Himself and God Against All has the force of an epic poem in which Herzog is both author and subject

This, his first (and only?) memoir might be as close as we'll ever get to the true story ... His life is full of incredible stories ... Now we have the chance to hear that singular poet's voice tell the story of his different kind of life

To read Every Man for Himself and God Against All … is to hear Herzog as loudly if he were three feet away … No ghostwriter could nail the tone like this. It is the autobiography only Werner Herzog could have written

Werner Herzog has always seemed to be something more than human. ... His memoir is a catalogue of risks .... images, anecdotes, fugitive brilliance, unquestionable bravery; surely, all these are enough?

A personal record of one of the great self-invented lives of our time

Covers a wide span of captivating stories from Herzog's life

PRAISE FOR OF WALKING IN ICE 
 
Herzog's existential journey through a hostile winter landscape is one of the great modern pilgrimages - a record of physical suffering, of hallucination and ecstatic revelation, of portents and animals, of the wreckage of history and myth. Of Walking in Ice has the eerie power of the best fairytales. It hits you with the force of dreams and leaves you with the taste of snow-filled air

Surely the strangest, strongest walking book I know, it tells the story of a winter pilgrimage, made in desperation and in hope. At once a diary, a blizzard of weather and memories, and the record of a ritual: only Herzog could have written this weird, slender classic

Laden with eye-opening anecdotes…Everyman for Himself…is not your usual memoir. But then Herzog is not your usual director. Just like his work, he plays with form here, teasing the disparate and extreme strands of his life

PRAISE FOR CONQUEST OF THE USELESS 
 
Hypnotic ... Any book by Mr. Herzog turns his devotees into cryptographers. It is ever tempting to try to fathom his restless spirit and his determination to challenge fate

PRAISE FOR THE TWILIGHT WORLD 
 
Herzog's writing bristles with the same eerie and uncompromising energy as his films. His jungle pulses with hallucinatory life

A potent, vaporous fever dream; a meditation on truth, lies, illusion and time

Werner Herzog is the undisputed master of extreme cinema: building an opera house in the middle of the jungle; walking from Munich to Paris in the dead of winter; descending into an active volcano; living in the wilderness among grizzly bears - he has always been intrigued by the extremes of human experience. 
 
From his early movies to his later documentaries, he has made a career out of exploring the boundaries of human endurance: what we are capable of in exceptional circumstances and what these situations reveal about who we really are. But these are not just great cinematic themes. During the making of his films, Herzog pushed himself and others to the limits, often putting himself in life-threatening situations. 
 
As a child in rural Bavaria, a single loaf of bread had to last his family all week. The hunger and deprivation he experienced during his early years perhaps explain his fascination with the limits of physical endurance.All his life, Herzog would embrace risk and danger, constantly looking for challenges and adventures. 
 
Filled to the brim with memorable stories and poignant observations, Every Man for Himself and God against All unveils the influences and ideas that drive his creativity and have shaped his unique view of the world. This book tells, for the first time, the story of his extraordinary and fascinating life.

The Twilight World

In his first novel, Werner Herzog tells a hypnotic tale inspired by the true story of a Japanese soldier who defended a small island for twenty-nine years after the end of WWII 
 
1944: Lubang Island, the Philippines. With Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. You are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs. 
 
So began Onoda's long campaign. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades - until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making. . . 
 
'An enthralling novel that explores the nature of time and warfare with great mastery' Mail on Sunday 
 
'Herzog. . .brilliantly blends fact and fiction in this fever dream of a novel' Daily Mail 
 
'A literary jewel set to sparkle against the backdrop of his monumental career in cinema' i

Beautiful... Nobody else could have written The Twilight World. It is pure Herzog

Herzog's writing bristles with the same eerie and uncompromising energy as his films. His jungle pulses with hallucinatory life

An enthralling novel that explores the nature of time and warfare with great mastery

Herzog's skills as a filmmaker and dramatist serve the narrative well... In spare, elegant prose, he analyses how isolation effects Onoda... The Twilight World is an austere book, and a wise one

The Twilight World...is very cinematic: indeed, it feels like a film unspooling inside Herzog's head as you read

This is Herzog's debut novel - and it is beautifully crafted, a literary jewel set to sparkle against the backdrop of his monumental career in cinema

Herzog...brilliantly blends fact and fiction in this fever dream of a novel, which shimmers with the single-minded strangeness of Onoda's thoughts and feelings

The true story is extraordinary in its own right, but Herzog's concise yet meandering account of unending loyalty, resilience and desolation transmutes Onoda's personal history into a poetic tragedy

(praise for Of Walking In Ice:) Surely the strangest, strongest walking book I know, it tells the story of a winter pilgrimage, made in desperation and in hope. At once a diary, a blizzard of weather and memories, and the record of a ritual: only Herzog could have written this weird, slender classic

(Praise for Conquest of the Useless:) Hypnotic... Any book by Mr. Herzog...turns his devotees into cryptographers. It is ever tempting to try to fathom his restless spirit and his determination to challenge fate

(praise for Of Walking In Ice:) Herzog's existential journey through a hostile winter landscape is one of the great modern pilgrimages - a record of physical suffering, of hallucination and ecstatic revelation, of portents and animals, of the wreckage of history and myth. Of Walking in Ice has the eerie power of the best fairytales. It hits you with the force of dreams and leaves you with the taste of snow-filled air

THE FIRST NOVEL FROM LEGENDARY FILMMAKER WERNER HERZOG 
 
1944: Lubang Island, the Philippines. With Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. You are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs. 
 
So began Onoda's long campaign. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades - until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making. . .

Werner Herzog

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very subject of truth … It’s like listening to a fireside monologue from an entertaining uncle … Compelling … A collection of uniquely Herzogian mindfarts … Absurd, profound or an ecstatically truthful mix of the two

As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guide … In The Future of Truth he shares field notes of his encounters with truth and its increasingly convincing simulacra, from deep fakes to wholly fabricated personalities, living full if fictive lives in cyber space

** PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS ** 
 
Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Werner Herzog has always seemed to be something more than human

Michael Hofmann’s sparkling and inventive translation from the original German…somehow makes Herzog more Herzog in tone

What if a lie is told to reveal some underlying truth? Are feelings that seem inappropriate, such as hysteria following the death of a celebrity, any less true than the grief we feel over the death of a loved one? Even if the plot of an opera seems preposterous, can’t it still express emotions that ring true with the audience? 
 
At the heart of this fascinating and iconoclastic book lies Werner Herzog’s concept of ‘ecstatic truth’ – a truth that is often hidden behind the facts and our conceptions of reality but can be gleaned through the poetic imagination, in art, literature and cinema, when we open ourselves up to an aesthetic experience. 
 
Written in Herzog’s inimitable style, these stories, anecdotes and reflections take us from present-day deep fakes and the opportunities and perils of AI to ancient Egypt and Rome, where rulers resorted to lies and propaganda in the same way as governments do today; from Scott and Amundsen’s race to the South Pole to alien abduction claims and the making of Herzog’s own films. 
 
With its singular vision and unique voice, The Future of Truth is a compelling meditation on the relationship between fact and fiction – evidence and imagination – by one of today’s most fascinating and idiosyncratic thinkers.

The Future of Truth

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Werner Herzog

Praise for The Future of Truth

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very s ...

As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guid ...

PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS

Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very s ...

As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guid ...

PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS

Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very s ...

As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guid ...

PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS

Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Books by Werner Herzog

Articles featuring Werner Herzog

The wisdom of Werner Herzog

The greatest walks in literature

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Praise for The Future of Truth

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very s ...

As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guid ...

** PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS ** Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very s ...

As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guid ...

** PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS ** Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very s ...

As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guid ...

** PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS ** Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Books by Werner Herzog

Articles featuring Werner Herzog

The wisdom of Werner Herzog

The greatest walks in literature

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter

PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS

Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS

Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS

Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original