Gesa Olkusz effortlessly and stylishly conjures the past into the present and finds the magic in the everyday.

Plagued by thoughts, Filbert wanders through Berlin. One snowy night he meets Mae, and their love seems easy and absolute. Filbert is still not at peace; the legends of his grandfather, who died a hero as a resistance fighter in the forests of Eastern Europe, won’t leave him. But then Aureliusz appears, and he’s not as harmless as he looks: he may just look like a boy in a holey jumper, but he has the ability to travel through time in his search for the truth. But it’s not that easy to find it when everyone has their own story to tell and Filbert really just wants to have Mae back.

Die Geschichte der ungewöhnlichen Familie Wirring ist eine Hymne auf Freiheit, Aufbegehren und Anarchie.

The story of the unusual Wirring family is a hymn to freedom, rebellion and anarchy. Just like the famous Gallic village the Wirring’s old farmhouse defies the surrounding concrete apartment blocks in Salzburg. For the narrow-minded neighbourhoods it’s a thorn in their side, but for the shameless everyday anarchy of the four family members, it offers a reliable home: Claudia, campaigner for environmental and social renewal, Werner, former advertising guru and now life scientist, grandfather Peter, called Pete Wire, rock musician, and son Rolf, who tries to make sense of it all. That is until the day a terminally ill man stands in the doorway claiming to be an illegitimate child produced from an encounter between their rock star grandpa and a waitress…and with this he sets a turbulent family story spanning three decades in motion.

co-authors: Karin Moser and Wolfram Dornik A ruthless assessment of the empire’s military conduct during World War I by acclaimed Austrian historians

New research on the darkest chapter of World War I: the authors examine the strategies and calculations employed by the Habsburg ruling elite. They show how the war, which began with the main aim of destroying Serbia, was allowed to get out of hand, with no consideration of the losses. And what happened in the zones occupied by the Imperial armies? Were Austro-Hungarian forces responsible for war crimes? This book sheds a shocking light on chains of command, prejudices, and escalating violence towards suspects, civilians and ‘administrated masses’. A disturbing panorama of the Habsburg Empire’s path to downfall.

Music brings pleasure: Nikolaus Harnoncourt reflects persuasively and passionately on his metier. His texts, speeches and interviews reveal the vision of a great artist, looking back on his own influence and far beyond into musical history. He addresses subjects such as the urgency of art, Haydn, and “a crocodile called Mozart”, and considers romantic insight and baroque reminiscence. He gazes into the depths of an immoral world and shares anecdotes from the Vienna Music Society. He explains why artists cannot lie, why The Magic Flute remains an eternal mystery, and why great art ultimately arises from doubt.

The epic story of one of the most fascinating families of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

An handcart and the infidelity of an attractive bookseller’s-daughter launch the story: Jutta Jacobi tells the tale of Johann Schnitzler, talented son of a poor Jewish carpenter from Nagykanizsa, who became a famous Viennese doctor; of his son Arthur, who changed from a sex maniac to a moralist; of his wife Frau Olga, the most remorseful divorcee ever, of Lili, who found happiness at the side of a fascist officer; of Heinrich, forced to emigrate to America in 1938; of Arthur’s grandsons Peter and Michael, who free themselves from the burden of the past; and of great granddaughter Giuliana, who decorates the graves in the Central Cemetery with stars. A story of desire, warmed by humour, with changing perspectives over the course of the narrative.

Von Sultanen, die sich als Renaissancefürsten verstehen, und Elefanten, die fränkischen Herrschern als Geschenk überreicht werden

Popes who studied at Arab universities; Turkish princes who grew up with European Emperors’ sons; Persian kings who saved Greek philosophy from destruction. Whether it was banks, minnesingers, or the concept of romantic love – many ideas perceived as western are in fact developments shared between orient and occident. This book shows how there has always been exchange between these purportedly very different cultures and, despite wars and religious differences, how they developed into a unified whole. Dispensing with clichés it describes a cultural cohabitation which extends to the present day. A journey into ourselves and the diversity we hold within us.

The individuals surrounding the great composer and conductor

Gustav Mahler’s circle of friends and colleagues ran into hundreds. Alongside famous contemporaries such as Richard Strauss and Gerhart Hauptmann, it included many people whose connection to Mahler is well known, but about whom we otherwise know little – from opera singer Rosa Papier, who was instrumental to Mahler’s engagement at the Vienna State Opera; landscape photographer Hugo Henneberg, whose wife Marie became godmother to Mahler’s daughter; to the lawyer Serafin Bondi, a member of the vegetarian association Mahler also belonged to. The book provides seventy fascinating biographies, filling the many gaps in Mahler’s biography.

Evil is all around all the time.

“We are all trying to dance on a golden globe really, whichever and whatever way it rolls,” Swiss businessman Weill, import/export specialist, says philosophically to his partner Blaschky in Vienna’s Café Imperial. At the same time has-been poet Josef Maria Wassertheurer sits on a Vienna market square fantasizing about his next masterpiece, and far away in St Petersburg a mysterious Mr Chernomyrdin is waiting for a crucial phone call. The criminal network of globalists stretches from Zürich and Paris to Bucharest and Moscow, even including the idyllic Salzkammergut. Maintaining a light touch throughout, Peter Rosei has created a satire which makes reality more visible by distorting it – so evilly you will laugh.

Two sisters in a house at the edge of the woods: more than enough ingredients for power games at the boundaries of the forbidden.

Karin lives with her boyfriend Alexander in a house by the woods. Her foster-sister Lisa once lived there too, along with her parents August and Inge, sister Margarethe and brother Peter. Back then Karin and Lisa were happy; they grew as fast as the brambles, dived to the bottom of the lake hand in hand, and hid in the tiny caves formed by tree roots. Then something happened; August died and the foster child was banished. Years later Karin fetches Lisa back, and the two women become entangled in a game as destructive as it is seductive, sucked into a whirlpool of addiction, attraction and repulsion which holds us enthralled till the final page.

Merciless as the twentieth century and uplifting as only great literature can be

Born in Romania between the wars, raised in poverty and washed up in Austria by the turmoil of war, Mrs Berta’s life was one of humiliation, pain and misery. Now in an old people’s home, she describes these violent events to the narrator. He in turn lives in the Pension Adler, with various tattooed, one-armed guests, as well as kindly Swedish women. In the home, with its shifty inmates and carers, he begins to feel comfortable, and takes detailed notes of Mrs Berta’s story. Max Blaeulich’s novel illuminates every shade of despair there is. Yet existential loneliness has seldom been described with such assured language and unsparing precision since Kafka.