Ill and evil: how the mentally disturbed can become criminals

Anders Brevik, Josef Fritzl, or the ‘Ice Lady’– are criminals like these pure evil or are they in fact mentally ill? Why is a fanatic legally accountable, while someone delusional is not? Is one innocent and the other guilty? Forensic psychiatrist Thomas Stompe works with ‘mentally disturbed offenders’ who are not held in regular prison, but detained in mental health facilities with special security measures. He recounts fascinating details from cases he has encountered in his work practice as a therapist: the motives that drive the ill offenders; their delusions and crimes; their treatment and their lives ‘after the act’. The stories are disturbing, yet also provoke compassion for the offenders who are humans like you and I.

Bedtime stories about historical figures and well-known personalities, their beds and their secrets.

There’s better things to do in bed than count sheep. In fact, there’s hardly anything that can’t be done in bed! You can become famous, write history, make peace, wage wars and even travel the world – all from the comfort of your bed. For many historical figures and well-known personalities, from Odysseus to Michael Jackson, from Shakespeare to Marilyn Monroe, from Casanova to Madame Pompadour, bed was not only a place to rest, but also a workplace and stage. This book tells fascinating stories about these great people and their beds. Just the book for lazy people, tired people, sick people and anyone who believes that the world wouldn’t need to be bigger than their bed. If nothing else, it’s the perfect place to enjoy a book! You made your bed, now read in it! 3000 years of bedtime in one book: about the beds of Penelope Popeia, Scheherazade, Richard III., Shakespeares Witwe, Ludwig XiV., Mozart, Casanova, Kaiserin Sisi, Colette, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe and what stories they have to tell.

On the occasion of the 200th birthday of the legendary opera composer

Aida, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Don Carlos, La Traviata – Guiseppe Verdi’s great operas are timelessly fascinating. Their heroines and heroes serve as mirrors of reality while also expressing a truth that Verdi sought to create. Like none other he employed passion as the driving force of his plots and created music with such strong emotions that it continues to captivate audiences to this day. Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz virtuously guides us through Verdi’s creative development as a composer, librettist, stage designer and politician. Verdi not only wrote history as a musical virtuoso, but also charmed his audience as a master of words. As an extra treat, this book includes his most beautiful quotes, commented by the author.

A guide to finding the source of happiness in life.

When we lose balance in our lives, it’s time to asses the positive and negative aspects and to “take stock” of our inner self. Petrus Stockinger offers helpful advice and suggestions for this process. Drawing on the words of Saint Augustine, who wrote more than 1600 years ago that life in a monastery is about living “together in harmony, being of one mind and one heart on the way to God.” The author knows from his own experience that this is far from an easy task. He explains how to take inventory and revise one’s life in order to live “with a burning heart”. Even if we don’t actually live in a monastery, we all wish to create peace, draw strength and welcome new impulses in our daily lives.

Maximilian Ronge was the last director of the Austrian k.u.k. monarchy’s secret service. His career shows several similarities to the one of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who headed the German military intelligence service under the Nazi regime. Ronge was an important figure in the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and also later, when Austria had become a republic. He used his extended networks of spies against “all kinds of traitors”, secessionists, socialists and Bolsheviks. Before 1938, no spy in Austria could possibly evade him. Even after being released from the Dachau concentration camp, Ronge continued his activities. After the end of WW II, he cooperated with the American occupants to set up a new secret service in Austria. These are only a few milestones in Ronge’s career. In the course of his life, this man has served many masters, but at heart he remained loyal to his emperor. Finding out about Ronge’s behind-the-scenes activities required meticulous research, since he not only was an expert in espionage and intrigue, but also a master in covering his tracks. The two historians Verena Moritz and Hannes Leidinger, however, give full account of this extraordinary life, and Ronge’s grandson Gerhard Jagschitz provides a private insight. A book that will cause a stir!

A portrait of the man behind the myth: complex, genius and modern, yet driven by fear and inner constraint.

Military commander, strategist, philosopher, gardener, architect – the historic image of Prince Eugene of Savoy is larger than life, just like his statue on Vienna’s Heldenplatz. Loyalty and honor determined his actions, yet his personality was marked by deep neurosis rooted in his childhood. His entire life he hid his vulnerability behind a public image that he wore like a mask. From both a historical and today’s perspective, Konrad Kramar and Georg Mayrhofer present the complex portrait of a public person who influenced the course of history and a private person who tried to hide behind his role as a hero.

Sensational: Newly discovered records on the Habsburg Monarchy’s largest case of espionage

Alfred Redl, officer of the Austrian general staff under Franz Joseph I. and in his majesty’s secret service, sold explosive military secrets of the Habsburg empire to Russia, Italy and France to pay for his extravagant lifestyle and love life. His suicide, however, averted the final solution of this scandalous case of espionage that affected half of Europe – stuff that myths and legends are made of... 100 years later, Verena Moritz and Hannes Leidinger went on a fascinating search for clues: What information was sold? Was Redl the head of a whole network of secret agents? What was his motivation? How has this treason influenced World War I? The two historians unearthed sensational material from the archives and shed light on one of the most mysterious chapters in Austrian history.

The school of geniuses: Vicky Baum, Anna Freud, Else Pappenheim, Hilde Spiel, Helene Weigl Eugenie Schwarzwald, Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer.

Eugenie Schwarzwald (1872-1940) was one of the most fascinating women of her generation. With great enthusiasm she advocated progressive education, social work, communal kitchens and holiday camps and was one of the first women in Austria to obtain a doctoral degree. She also worked as a journalist and invited writers such as Thomas Mann, Sinclair Lewis and Egon Friedell to her literary salon in Vienna, which was, in many respects, one of the most progressive of the time. Schwarzwald founded Austria’s first real secondary school for girls, aiming at providing a “school of joy”. “Boredom is toxic“ was her motto. As teachers she invited artists and great minds of the Wiener Moderne from her circle, among them Adolf Loos, Arnold Schönberg and Oskar Kokoschka. In her later life though, she had to witness how the financial crisis and political extremism ruined her life’s work. In 1938 she fled to Switzerland, where she died in 1940. .

Of saintly and unsaintly people, martyrs and spies: a different history of Iran.

Iran is an unpredictable country. Everything seems impenetrable, nebulous and threatening. In an attempt to bring light into the darkness, Ulrich Ladurner scouted Azari Square in the capital city of Tehran and collected the stories of its citizens. There’s Amit who becomes a saint (which also makes for good business), Baba Zede who notices every single hypocritical move of his neighbours, and then there’s beautiful Robabe who makes a significant decision. Ladurner tells how people suffered under the rule of the Shah, how they experienced the Islamic Revolution and how they are living today, on the verge of a new war. He intertwines historic facts and stories from everyday life in Iran, thus giving a valuable insight, story by story.

Austrian contemporary literature from Christoph Ransmayr to Robert Menasse in exemplary interpretations of their most important works.

Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler coined the term Bruchlinien (faultlines) to describe all the shifts and faults in Austrian literature after World War II. This anthology of all his legendary lectures on the topic has become a standard reference long ago. It also shows how exciting, vivid, inspirational and enthusiastic talks and thoughts on literature can be. Schmidt-Dengler observed and followed contemporary literature in Austria to the last, not only as a critic, but also in these previously unpublished lectures in which he examined the evolutions in Austrian literature from 1990 to 2008 from both a critical distance and a compassionate closeness.