Defying convention Director's intriguing search for the 'ecstatic truth' is as strange as his enchanting films

At 83, Werner Herzog can and does do precisely what he wants. 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.

- By Farrah Jarral

This slim volume sets out Herzog's views on truth in a world where technologically enhanced falsehoods proliferate. These appear to be an elaboration of Herzog's Minnesota Declaration, the 12 statements he made in 1999 at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis. The book contains strong, gnomic opinions, which include despising cinéma vérité because it obscures more than it illuminates, as well as surprising sentences such as “rather die than wear a toupee”.