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Author: Stefan Laube

Stefan Laube · How-to

Medieval How-to or the Art of Balancing Wildness and Control

On 13 and 14 March 2026 we held an authors’ workshop in Wolfenbüttel. Why? As we all know only too well, instructional and advisory literature was everywhere on the book market in the sixteenth century. Yet the fact that these early printing bestsellers cannot really be understood without taking their…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Tearing off Time. The Tyranny of the Daily Life Hack.

The year 2026 is already nearly two months old – and yet it feels lighter, more unburdened than the last. Why? Because my life is no longer measured by a tear-off calendar. It did not blink. It did not speak. And yet it commanded: Tear me off! Read the tip…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Weeds and Wheat. On The Making of the Unwanted

As the Bible reminds us with relentless clarity, human existence is defined by toil: life must be wrested from a recalcitrant earth that yields chiefly “thorns and thistles” (Genesis 3:18–19). Yet the thistle signifies more than mere hardship. It stands as an emblem of endurance—of resilience forged under sustained pressure.…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Let’s Make Some Noise and Light!

From Courtly Pyrotechnics, Bourgeois DIY, and the Unbounding of New Year’s Eve Be careful – we’re approaching the sparkliest and smokiest night of the year. Fireworks and firecrackers worth around 180 million euros are waiting to be launched into the sky in Germany alone — an economically astonishingly well-oiled ritual…

Stefan Laube · How-to

From Brewing Beer to Sword Fighting – Books That Show You How It’s Done

That’s the title of the latest podcast episode from the Herzog August Library (HAB), which just went on air today! Over the next few weeks, the HAB website will be launching with this episode as its opener. For a good 40 minutes, Alina and I, chat with our wonderful host…

Stefan Laube · How-to

How-to Without Books. Hidden Knowledge from a Region of Makers

Cultural evolution, the passing on of knowledge and skills is the bright thread that runs through the story of humanity. From the first carvings on cave walls to algorithm-curated videos on digital platforms, people have always longed to preserve and share practical insights. Yet this transmission takes many forms. Between…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Where the How-to Land Is – A Sort of Milk and Honey

The longer I work on our How-to project, the clearer it becomes: I grew up in a true How-to region – right in the heart of a city built on metalworking. A place where things weren’t made to be beautiful, but to be useful. Nails, files, wires, hammers – products…

Stefan Laube · How-to

The Ferguson Collection. A Tribute to Performance Art

„Put on a pullover – but don’t stick arms or head through the normal openings – squat down and pull the end of the pullover down over your knees and feet. In this position endure for 20 seconds.“  This weird instruction is part of Erwin Wurm’s series One Minute Sculptures.…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Those Who Patch Know. On How-Toes that Flourish

A flat bicycle tire is never welcome. It usually happens at the worst possible moment: on the way to my seminar or at the start to an excursion to the idyllic lakes in Brandenburg. Strangely, it almost always affects the rear wheel, which is harder to remove – a kind…

Stefan Laube · How-to

How to Find Traces of Use in Old Books. At Venerable Shelves in Wolfenbüttel

In an age when books are categorized on Amazon by their condition — ‘like new,’ ‘good,’ ‘with minor signs of wear’ – blemishes seem to be considered a flaw. But what if these very traces are the real treasures? What if it’s not the untouched, pristine block of pages that…

Stefan Laube · How-to

How to Be ‘Galant‘. About Guides of a Special Kind

As we are now well aware: How-to books shaped everyday life in early modern Europe. There is no other explanation for why so many printed self-help media came onto the market. The Renaissance etiquette manual was something else, a guidebook explicitly designed for personality development, for ‘self-fashioning’, a ‘how to…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Why There Can’t Be a Recipe for the Philosopher’s Stone: Enlightening Readings from Glasgow and Wolfenbüttel

Going AstrayWhat many do not know: As a researcher at the Wolfenbüttel Library, I spent years meticulously searching for the Philosopher’s Stone (it must have been between 2017 and 2023 – the Covid pandemic clouds my memory a bit). But apart from Alchemie und Augenschein. Eine Wissens- und Mediengeschichte, which…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Brothers in Spirit. Some Notes on the How-to of Book Collecting

  John Ferguson (1838–1916) & Duke August the Younger (1579–1666)                                            People collect books for different reasons: out of interest in certain topics, out of bibliophile passion or to accumulate cultural capital. And books can be like elixirs. As the poet John Milton so poignantly put it in Areopagitica…

Stefan Laube · How-to

How-to – Short Notes on a (new) German Anglicism

Anglicisms have become an indispensable part of the German language. From ‘action film’ to ‘baby’ to ‘T-shirt’, they have enriched the German vocabulary, even if they are used incorrectly or become ‘Denglish’ (a mixture of German and English) – as in ‘handy’ (for ‘mobile phone’) or ‘oldtimer’ (for ‘vintage car’).…

Stefan Laube · How-to

Colourful Spots in Small Books

Complex procedures, countless trial and error attempts, characterised the production and use of colours in earlier eras. Existing knowledge was passed on primarily orally, but also in writing, and was used again and again in different ways. The basic colour materials were constantly upgraded and sensitively adapted to changing needs…