The literary scholar and critic Niklas Bender examines selected examples of modern and contemporary literature to explore how reading literature today can contribute to a meaningful life. In the first part of his essay, the author diagnoses the digital present, which overwhelms us with an abundance of possible ways of existence. Through the examples of Flaubert, Pirandello, and Houellebecq, he demonstrates how novels can teach us to cope with this inundation—especially through narrative worlds where life paths can be missed and potentials are not always realized. In the second part, he illustrates how poetry can reveal the grasping of intense moments through three poets of modernity and the present (Baudelaire, Montale, and Nico Bleutge). The third part of the book presents another.