Books
David Edmonds’ The Murder of Professor Schlick Recounts the Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle...
In The Murder of Professor Schlick, author David Edmonds recreates the compelling history of Vienna’s contributions to scientific philosophy. The book will come out in paperback on March 29, 2022.
Books
Books – Angus Robertson Explores Diplomatic History in Vienna: The International Capital
To say that Angus Robertson knows Vienna well would be an understatement. Bilingual thanks to his German mother and Scottish father, he moved to Vien...
Books
Stefan Zweig, A Global Phenomenon
In this special exhibition, the Literaturmuseum explores how both Stefan Zweig and his stories travelled across the world.
Books
BOOKS: The Lessons of History in Snow Country
In Snow Country, a new novel by Sebastian Faulks, readers learn about love and consciousness in Austria’s interwar chaos.
Books
The Struggle to Preserve & Promote the Bosnian Language
The Bosnian language is still not sufficiently recognized as an important mother-tongue in Austria. A linguist wants to change that.
Books
The Climbers – Local Author Keith Gray’s novel on The Times “Best Books”
Insightful and heartfelt, the book was honored for its success at capturing the struggles of growing up.
Books
Portrait of the Director as a Young Journalist
A collection of Billy Wilder’s work as a reporter in Vienna and Berlin reveals his early influences and the verve of the roaring ’20s.
Books
In ‘The Third Walpurgis Night’ Karl Kraus Dissects Nazi Discourse
A far-sighted study on the language of Nazism, the book by Austria’s great satirist is finally available in a full English translation.
Books
In “Motley Stones,” Adalbert Stifter Describes the Allure of Nature
The Austrian writer's enchanting short stories reveal his love of nature in elegantly simple prose
Lifestyle
In “The Fiume Crisis,” Dominique K. Reill Explains How a Citizens’ Uprising Establ...
While the Great Powers wrestled over the fate of the Adriatic city-state of Fiume, its residents had their own sense of who they were, argues historian Dominique K. Reill.
Books
Anne Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy Describes the Appeal of Authoritarianism
Anne Applebaum introduces us to the elites responsible for democratic backsliding in her new book, Twilight of Democracy.
Books
Katja Perat’s ‘The Masochist’ Depicts Life in Fin de Siècle Vienna
Set in the gloaming of the Habsburg Empire, Katja Perat’s ardent debut novel is a fictional coming-of-age memoir from the daughter of the world’s first “masochist."
Books
Sylvia Petter’s All the Beautiful Liars Details the Hunt for Answers in Postwar Vienna
In Sylvia Petter’s debut novel All the Beautiful Liars, Katrina Klain arrives in Vienna in search of the lost pieces of her life.
Books
Anna Goldenberg’s “Belonging to Vienna” – a Touching Family Memoir
Close-knit ties triumph over
trauma in Anna Goldenberg’s moving family memoir of torture, exile and ultimate homecoming.
Books
Alice Urbach’s Stolen Cookbook
The bestseller by a society caterer and celebrity chef in interwar Vienna was aryanized, her name erased from history. Now, a century later, her granddaughter reveals her story.
Books
Martin Rady’s “The Habsburgs” Recounts The Family’s Rise and Fall
Martyn Rady’s new history of the Habsburgs argues that their empire was undone by the very things that once made it mighty.
Books
Is Liberalism Dying? A Look at What Went Wrong After 1989
“The Light that Failed: A Reckoning” by IWM fellow Ivan Krastev and NYU professor Stephen
Holmes explains what went wrong with Western liberalism.
Books
The Viennese Ida Pfeiffer Circumnavigated the Globe Alone Twice
Wife, mother, traveler – humble but headstrong Ida Pfeiffer took the world by storm by circumnavigating the globe her way.
Books
Book Review | Daniel Kehlmann & The Power of Mockery
In Tyll, widely-acclaimed German-Austrian author Daniel Kehlmann reinvents a medieval legend to unmask the fatuity of rulers and the wisdom of tricks.
Books
The Coronavirus Ushered Into A New Age of Hubris
Yale professor Frank Snowden’s sweeping analysis of pandemics over the centuries concludes that while science advances, people do not.
Books
A New Metternich Biography Rounds Out the Portrait of One of History’s Greatest Political Strategist...
Wolfgang Siemann draws on newly discovered notes and letters to paint a more nuanced portrait of diplomat and statesman Klemens von Metternich.
Books
Finding Purpose with Robert Musil
Robert Musil’s epic Austrian classic gets cut down to size to explore love and identity across the boundaries of self.
Books
Yale Historian Frank Snowden on Epidemics and Society
Yale professor of medical history Frank Snowden’s sweeping analysis of pandemics over the centuries, concludes that while science advances, people do not. An unsettling but gripping read.
Books
Book Review | A Call to Ears
In his first foray into cultural criticism, musician Dave Randall
calls upon his readers to think outside the jukebox.
Winter 2019
Book Review | The Painted Face
Love and Desire, War and Human Suffering in Ingeborg Bachmann’s Malina.
Books
Reconsidering Thomas Bernhard
On the 30th anniversary of his death, the Austrian author’s acerbic wit still cuts through the pomposities and pettiness of a society hiding from itself.
Books
The Long Winter of Discontent
Philipp Blom sets out to demonstrate how rapid climate change can dramatically upset our social and economic structures, our everyday lives. It has ha...
Books
Who Owns Kafka’s Legacy?
The struggle over a rich literary inheritance opens questions of identity regarding the seminal writer, a Czech who was also Jewish but wrote in Germa...
Books
Coffeehouse Diaspora
In A Rich Brew, Shachar Pinsker makes a convincing case for the role of cafés in fostering a golden age of Jewish culture.
In any guidebook about Vie...
Books
The Ironies of History
In Éric Vuillard’s award-winning historical novel The Order of the Day, an absurd and tragic encounter seals Austria’s fate.
The hour grows late and...
Books
Europe’s Essence
Robert Menasse’s award-winning The Capital is a dark but affectionate satire on the European idea.
Robert Menasse has long been preoccupied with th...
Books
Metropole Events | Spring 2019
BOOK PRESENTATION | From Empire to Republic
It’s been 100 years since the Habsburg Empire dissolved into several new, independent republics...
Books
Book Release | From Empire to Republic
Home Town Media presents From Empire to Republic
Thanks for attending the event at
Buchhandlung Kuppitsch
Schottengasse 4, 1010 Wien
In case...
Books
Reunited in Language
Arno Geiger’s playful and moving memoir "The Old King in his Exile" discovers a world of imagination in his father’s dementia.
There are p...
Books
Culture Books | November
Anna Seghers’ Morality Play
Available in English for the first time, The Seventh Cross addresses the damage and deep divisions of ordinary life under...
Books
Culture Books | November
To Vienna, with Love
In Kevin Wignall’s new thriller, Vienna takes the spotlight and steals the show
With a name like To Die in Vienna, Kevin ...
Books
Design for Living
In Rebel Modernists, Liane Lefaivre traces 120 years of Viennese design since Otto Wagner.
Urban design has a long and distinguished history in Vie...
Books
Saving the White Stallions
How the US Army helped preserve the famed Lipizzaners in the final days of WWII.
Weeks from the end of the Second World War, a rogue unit of the Amer...
Books
Best of Allies, Worst of Friends | Tim Hadley’s Military Diplomacy in the Dual Alliance
Tim Hadley details just how much the German General Staff knew about the weaknesses of the Austrian-Hungarian army
Until German unification in 1871,...
Books
Prague Nights | Sex and Sorcery in Benjamin Black’s Addictive New Thriller
Benjamin Black’s addictive new thriller re-creates an irresistible world of sex and sorcery in 16th century Prague
It’s a snowy December 1599 in Pra...
Books
After Europe | Ivan Krastev’s Doomsday Prognosis for the EU
In After Europe, Ivan Krastev argues that the refugee crisis is Europe’s gravest threat
Europe is in crisis and Ivan Kras...
Books
Book Review | “The Marshall Plan Since 1947” Recalls America’s Role in Post WWII E...
70 years later, the Marshall Plan remains a model for foreign aid policy in everybody’s interest.
In retrospect, the past seems inevitable. But e...
Books
Edith Sheffer’s ‘Asperger’s Children’ Reveals ‘The Origins of Autism i...
Edith Sheffer updates the record on the famed Austrian physician to chilling effect
As a pioneer of autistic psychopathy, Hans Asperger has a ben...
Books
“Angel of Oblivion” by Maja Haderlap | A History of Violent Persecution
Maja Haderlap’s debut novel Angel of Oblivion confronts the past in Austria’s borderlands.
Austrian writer Maja Haderlap is a farmer’s daughter...
Books
“Exact Thinking in Demented Times” by Karl Sigmund | Unraveling the Vienna Circle
Karl Sigmund’s new book Exact Thinking in Demented Times tells the dramatic history of an intellectual revolution.
Sometime around 1900, in the spi...
Books
Michael Köhlmeier’s Yiza Looks at the Refugee Crisis from a Child’s Perspective
In Yiza the Austrian author Michael Köhlmeier looks at the refugee crisis from a child’s perspective.
Michael Köhlmeier’s startling new novella...
Books
Laura Spinney’s Pale Rider Captures a Moment in Time of the Spanish Flu of 1918
Laura Spinney’s Pale Rider is a portrait of the life and science of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.
Did you get your flu shot this year? Statisti...
Books
The Education of Viktor Orban
In "Orban: Europe's New Strongman" Paul Lendvai tracks the ambition of the increasingly authoritarian Hungarian prime minister.
In politics, symbol...
Books
A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler is a Sparse but Stirring Narrative of Alpine Living
Andreas Egger lives a life bordering on the vegetative, both figuratively and literally: His dwelling is high above the valley, at the tree ...
Books
Marjorie Perloff Looks Back at Austrian Literature’s Nostalgia for the Imperial Past
The 1920s in Vienna was a time of despair and confusion in a world of lost empire, political upheaval and the trauma of war.
...
Books
Books | Mayerling Revisited: Rebuilding the Story of Crown Prince Rudolf’s Murder-Suicide with...
Debunking myths of the murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf and his lover
You know the story – or, you think you know it. With the scenery coll...
Books
Books | Discover Arthur Schnitzler’s Forgotten Novella: Late Fame
Arthur Schnitzler’s forgotten novella is released in English, in a stylish translation by Alexander Starritt
Arthur Schni...
Books
Books | Weird Vienna: The Stuff you Won’t Read on Tripadvisor
The city likes to claim “Vienna is different.” Now Harald Havas’ new book Weird Vienna proves it
Devotees of American pop cul...
Books
Books | A Privileged Peek Into the Hollywood of Viennese Émigré Billy Wilder
The recently published diaries of Sunset Boulevard screenwriter Charles Brackett, on Hollywood and the half-mad world of Viennese émigré director Bill...
Books
Books | In Black Vienna Janek Wassermann Shows the Radical Right’s Interwar Takeover of the Ci...
Janek Wasserman takes a closer look at conservative discontent in Red Vienna during the interwar period
It is the victors who write the history, Win...
Books
Where to Find English Books in Vienna
Part I: Where to buy new English books in Vienna
Finding bookstores that sell English books in Vienna is no problem. Here are a few of our favorites...
Books
Books | On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder, is the Resistance Manual for our Times
Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny is a call to action, demystifying the assaults on contemporary democracy through the lessons of history.
Putin, Orbán...
Books
Books | Peter H. Wilson’s Reimagines the Holy Roman Empire
Peter H. Wilson asks us to reimagine the premodern world in The Holy Roman Empire
It was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire – or so we learned in sc...
Books
Books | Vicki Baum’s Grand Hotel
Vicki Baum’s classic international bestseller Grand Hotel: a lucid, affectionate depiction of a society in crisis
The Vienna-born novelist Vicki Baum ...
Books
Books | David Sax’s Revenge of Analog, or why your hipster friend’s notebook may serve a...
The desire for real things in real time lies deep in the human psyche argues David Sax in The Revenge of Analog.
Evenings, after supper, my fathe...
Books
Books | The Vanquished by Robert Gerwarth
In The Vanquished, Robert Gerwarth attempts a more nuanced look at WW1 and why the carnage didn’t end in 1918.
On September 11, 1919, Gabriele D’Ann...
Books
In “The Tobacconist” Author Robert Seethaler has Freud Swapping Psychotherapy for a few ...
The Tobacconist, a bestselling novel by the award-winning Viennese writer Robert Seethaler, tackles coming of age on the eve of war and shows a sentim...
April 2017
In “Rigor Mortis,” author Richard Harris takes aim at sloppy science
Richard Harris’ book Rigor Mortis inspires scientific soul-searching.
Let’s start out addressing the elephant in the room: There are a lot of sci...
Books
Books | Austrian Novelist Michael Köhlmeier Grapples with his Daughter’s Death
Austrian Michael Köhlmeier’s reinvention of the novel with Idyll with Drowning Dog and Madalyn
Michael Köhlmeier is a man of his times. One of the m...
Books
Books | How Škoda Made us all Look bad After 1989
How neoliberalism changed Central Europe in Europe Since 1989
After the fall of Communism, “privatization” was the word of the day, and it seemed al...
Books
Books | The Third Reich on Drugs
In Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany, Norman Ohler shows how methamphetamines made the German Blitzkrieg possible
As German Panzers overran France in t...
Books
Books | No Direction Home
The story of Stefan Zweig’s exile years is compellingly told in George Prochnik’s literary biography
In spite of his fame, Austrian novelist Stefan ...
Books
Books | Pirouettes and Politics
Two centuries of scandal, intrigue and dancing in Russia are masterfully handled in Simon Morrison’s Bolshoi Confidential
In 2013, the headlines abo...
Books
Books | Mortality Tales – Elizabeth Greenwood’s “Playing Dead”
Enjoy the true stories in Elizabeth Greenwood’s Playing Dead, but don’t expect deep insights
It all began with a conversation about student loans. Li...
Books
Books | Prized by the People – “The Habsburg Empire: A New History”
A myth-busting new history of the Habsburg Empire by Pieter M. Judson gives valuable insights on nationalism and identity in Central Europe
In June ...
Books
A Family Affair
Barry G. Gale brings high-brow rigor to a low-brow subject in Love in Vienna: The Sigmund Freud - Minna Bernays Affair.
As Barry G. Gale admits in a...
Books
Unbridled Learning
With schools and universities starting again, Benedict Carey’s How We Learn is the right guide for getting your brain in full swing.
Learning is a slo...
Books
Smart Urbanism: Utopian Vision or False Dawn?
Smart cities claim to improve the lives, productivity and eco-balance of their citizens. A new collection of essays questions whether the vision lives...
Books
Boundless Wanderlust
In seeing the world in all its delicate beauty and overwhelming roughness, Christoph Ransmayr’s Atlas of an Anxious Man finds a language for mapping t...
Books
Books: Cultural Geotagging
Doing business with people from different cultural backgrounds can be tricky. Understanding them is the first step to making it work
There is an ol...
Books
Books: Brave New Data-Smart World
E-readers may be an innovative, eco-friendly alternative to pulp. But are publishers now looking over your shoulder while you read?
Have you hear...
Books
Books: Rebirth of the Rustbelt – The Smartest Places on Earth
How yesterday’s industrial graveyards are turning into today’s hotbeds of innovation
Akron and Albany, Dresden and Eindhoven, Oulo and Portland –...
April 2016
Book Review: Mapping Genius
Eric Weiner traces how time, place, background and clutter figure into the settings where genius is born.
What happens when former National Publi...
April 2016
Book Review: Language Shock
Understanding requires much more than merely speaking the same language. It’s the culture that matters.
In a Viennese café: you’ve found a table,...
Books
Five Less Famous (but still brilliant) Irish Poets That You Should Probably Know About
Adomnan was born in 524 and in addition to being an Abbot, hagiographer, a keen traveler and the friend of kings, this guy also managed to find time f...
Books
Book Review: Austerity: The history of a dangerous idea
On 300 dense pages the Scottish political economist Mark Blyth delivers a ringing battle cry to change course – or else.
With the economy back on...
Books
Book Review: The Real John Le Carré
A new biography by Adam Sisman deciphers the coded life of novelist David Cornwell
Duplicity and betrayal are constant themes in the writing of “...
Books
Set In Vienna: Books
When you ask for a list of books set in Vienna, Graham Green's The Third Man will likely be the first one people suggest. Granted, Green's screenplay,...
Books
Book Review: “A Poem on Every Page” – Joseph Roth’s Hotel Years
A master of the feuilleton, the author’s virtuosity is on full display on every page of this collection of newspaper essays about people and politics ...
Books
Book Review: Theater of Modernity
With a fascinating cast of characters, Philipp Blom’s engaging history of the inter-war years stages the glories and agonies of these troubled times....
Books
Book Review: Everything Austrian, Statistically and Graphically
Few questions are left unanswered in the pictograms and statistics collected in these two volumes.The second, on Vienna, was just published in...
Books
Book Review: Art Against the Odds
Peter Vergo’s re-issued "Art in Vienna, 1898-1918," recounts the fitful birth of the Modern
In conservative Vienna of the 1890s, culture had ossi...
Books
Book Review: Is Eastern Europe’s Lack of Solidarity the Legacy of 1989?
Anna Porter’s The Ghosts of Europe shows different paths to transition and the continuing identity crisis
Nearly three decades after the “velvet”...
Books
Book Review: Taking the Waters
David Clay Large’s engaging history: The Grand Spas of Central Europe
In a sense, David Clay Large took a lifetime to write The Grand Spas of Ce...
Books
Book Review: Storming the Eagle’s Nest
A chronicle of Hitler’s war in the Alpine borderlands
As Europe’s map was redrawn at Potsdam in 1945, Austria was again separated from Germany, a...
Books
Book Review: The Man and the Road
Traveler, soldier, linguist, scholar, bon vivant, grand flaneur, Patrick Leigh Fermor was one of the greatest travel writers of the 20th century. Arte...
Books
Books | Life after Wartime
Elisabeth de Waal’s The Exiles Return depicts the heartbreak of postwar homecoming
Elisabeth de Waal is a familiar name to readers of her grandso...