Andreas Egger lives a life bordering on the vegetative, both figuratively and literally: His dwelling is high above the valley, at the tree line; and his days are mostly passed in wordless labor.
The 1920s in Vienna was a time of despair and confusion in a world of lost empire, political upheaval and the trauma of war.
Debunking myths of the murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf and his lover
Arthur Schnitzler’s forgotten novella is released in English, in a stylish translation by Alexander Starritt
The city likes to claim “Vienna is different.” Now Harald Havas’ new book Weird Vienna proves it
The recently published diaries of Sunset Boulevard screenwriter Charles Brackett, on Hollywood and the half-mad world of Viennese émigré director Billy Wilder
Janek Wasserman takes a closer look at conservative discontent in Red Vienna during the interwar period
Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny is a call to action, demystifying the assaults on contemporary democracy through the lessons of history.
Peter H. Wilson asks us to reimagine the premodern world in The Holy Roman Empire
Vicki Baum’s classic international bestseller Grand Hotel: a lucid, affectionate depiction of a society in crisis
The desire for real things in real time lies deep in the human psyche argues David Sax in The Revenge of Analog.
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 sentimental side of Freud.
Richard Harris’ book Rigor Mortis inspires scientific soul-searching.
Austrian Michael Köhlmeier’s reinvention of the novel with Idyll with Drowning Dog and Madalyn
How neoliberalism changed Central Europe in Europe Since 1989
The story of Stefan Zweig’s exile years is compellingly told in George Prochnik’s literary biography
Two centuries of scandal, intrigue and dancing in Russia are masterfully handled in Simon Morrison’s Bolshoi Confidential
Enjoy the true stories in Elizabeth Greenwood’s Playing Dead, but don’t expect deep insights
A myth-busting new history of the Habsburg Empire by Pieter M. Judson gives valuable insights on nationalism and identity in Central Europe
Barry G. Gale brings high-brow rigor to a low-brow subject in Love in Vienna: The Sigmund Freud – Minna Bernays Affair.
With schools and universities starting again, Benedict Carey’s How We Learn is the right guide for getting your brain in full swing.
Smart cities claim to improve the lives, productivity and eco-balance of their citizens. A new collection of essays questions whether the vision lives up to the promise
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 the intricacies of the human heart
Doing business with people from different cultural backgrounds can be tricky. Understanding them is the first step to making it work
E-readers may be an innovative, eco-friendly alternative to pulp. But are publishers now looking over your shoulder while you read?
How yesterday’s industrial graveyards are turning into today’s hotbeds of innovation
Eric Weiner traces how time, place, background and clutter figure into the settings where genius is born.
Understanding requires much more than merely speaking the same language. It’s the culture that matters.
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 for poetry writing. The pieces attributed to Adomnan were written in Gaelic …
Five Less Famous (but still brilliant) Irish Poets That You Should Probably Know About Read More »
On 300 dense pages the Scottish political economist Mark Blyth delivers a ringing battle cry to change course – or else.
A new biography by Adam Sisman deciphers the coded life of novelist David Cornwell
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, and subsequent film, remain essential to cinema history, The Third Man doesn’t officially …
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 in Europe in the 1920s and 30s
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.
Few questions are left unanswered in the pictograms and statistics collected in these two volumes.
Peter Vergo’s re-issued “Art in Vienna, 1898-1918,” recounts the fitful birth of the Modern
Anna Porter’s The Ghosts of Europe shows different paths to transition and the continuing identity crisis
David Clay Large’s engaging history: The Grand Spas of Central Europe
Traveler, soldier, linguist, scholar, bon vivant, grand flaneur, Patrick Leigh Fermor was one of the greatest travel writers of the 20th century. Artemis Cooper recounts his peripatetic life with great affection and humor in Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure.
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