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.

Stories of a house: about life under one roof, between walls and doors. And love comes and goes like its residents.

Just look at Konrad, the architect. When he and Dora moved into the house, she was expecting; eleven years later she has left him together with their daughter Katharina. At 16, Katharina moves in again, and Konrad fills the fridge for her. And he brings out a model of his dream house, built in his lonesome years. Konrad doesn’t see that his daughter is disappearing in front of his eyes because she stopped eating. He also doesn’t see Marie, the doctor living downstairs, who falls in love with him and finds Katharina after her breakdown. This story and all the others in this book open on two sides, just like doors leading from one room to another. Gudrun Seidenauer opens the doors to a whole universe within confined spaces, merging past and present. In brilliant style and with a keen sense for the psychology of humans, she tells the stories a house would tell if it were more than a silent witness.

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. .

The moving testimony of an exceptional relationship.

Alma Mahler-Werfel was the epitome of a creative muse and a tantalizing femme fatale. She was married to composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, writer Franz Werfel and the lover of painter Oskar Kokoschka, while her seductiveness also gained her influence far into the spheres of church and politics. Her correspondence with Arnold Schönberg, however, shows a new side of her strong personality. It is now available for the first time. Haide Tenner compiled a selection of letters from the more than 40 years of this special relationship. They show Alma Mahler the sponsor, patron and fighter for the ones she believed in, and they tell the story of a sometimes problematic friendship, of wounded pride on both parts, of loneliness and mutual appreciation in their shared exile. An insightful testimony, the impressive legacy of a friendship spanning half a century.

Master of marvelling, failure in believing: on being an anachronistic contemporary.

“I was a master of marvelling and a failure in believing,” Amanshauser once wrote on himself. In this attitude, open-minded and extremely sceptical at the same time, he spent decades in his lookout high up on Salzburg’s Festungsberg hill. Secluded, but not isolated; withdrawn, but not indifferent. With ingenuity and acuity, a playful humour and unapologetic seriousness he defended his convictions - against all forms of dogmatism, banality and megalomania. All his books tell this story; most of all, however, do his diaries - a seleciton of them is now published for the first time. The observations and self-reflections in this book, alert, irritated, brilliant, scornful, dreamy and relentless to the point where Parkinson’s disease began its work of destruction, remind the reader how much Gerhard Amanshauser is missing in our time.

Ein Thema, drei Blickwinkel: Wovon Poeten, Twitterer und Schluckspechte reden, wenn es ums Zwitschern geht.

The whole world is buzzing and tweeting, in one way or the other, and this is what this book is about. Franz Schuh, a masterful essayist, looks deeper into the existence of boozers and their veering between the utopia of autonomy and the reality of dependency, proofing that suffering and depravation have a great say in who or what humans are. And if Twitter really played a crucial role in the Arab Spring uprisings, there must be more to it than empty tweeting, right? asks Kathrin Passig. And finally, the question on the links between poetry and birds’ twittering is answered by a double expert: Helwig Brunner is both one of the most important young poets in the German-speaking world and a keen ornithologist.

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.

Comfort and advice plus wisdom and wit: more stories on life among fellow humans, men and children.

Love is blind – and that’s why it is so beautiful to be in love. It’s easy to be forgiving when you don’t see further than the rim of love’s rose-colored glasses or the slices of cucumber you put on your eyes to keep love fresh. Still, of course, the world behind those glasses is rough and flawed, full of challenges and obstacles. Losing sight of that will soon leave you stumbling through your life with housework and relationships, husband and kids. Christine Nöstlinger tells the stories of such a life like no other, stories she stumbled across herself, and she does so in a clear-sighted, trenchant, ironic but always loving way.

Military mishaps and mistakes

As the world power of its time, the Habsburg empire not only was the main defender against the Turks in the east, but, over the centuries, also fought various alliances attacking in the west. For a long time, the Austrian army was counted among the world’s most powerful, and acclaimed commanders such as Prince Eugene of Savoy or Count Leopold von Daun were victorious on many battlefields – and horribly defeated on others. Glorious victories were achieved under the Austro-Hungarian flag, but there were also military mishaps, serious blunders and blatant misjudgements which turned the tides in a battle or even decided the outcome of a war. These are the stories told in this book. In fascinating case studies, Hans-Dieter Otto analyses the reasons for these mistakes and introduces the reader to captivating chapters in Austria’s military history.