Books from Austria

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl draws on his survival of three years in Nazi concentration camps to ask why some prisoners kept their will to live while others gave up. His answer — that we always retain the freedom to choose our attitude — grounds logotherapy, his conviction that the deepest human drive is the search for meaning. A sober, humane, and quietly hopeful classic.

Stephen Fry retells the great Greek myths — from Chaos and the birth of the gods to Prometheus, Pandora, Persephone, and Midas — with wit, warmth, and a storyteller's relish. The first book in his retelling of the classical myths, Mythos is a warm, funny, and richly entertaining gateway into the foundational stories of Western imagination.

Stefan Zweig's final novella: aboard a liner bound for Buenos Aires, an unassuming Austrian lawyer challenges the world chess champion, and reveals the Gestapo isolation that both saved his mind and nearly destroyed it.

• survival
• rivals

Monster hunts, voyages for treasure and bargains with the gods: Stephen Fry retells the Greek myths of Perseus, Heracles, Jason, Theseus, Oedipus and others. He tells them with dry humour and an eye for the flawed people behind the glory.

• quest

Irene Wagner, a wealthy Viennese housewife bored by years of marriage and social convention, begins an affair with a young man. When she learns that another woman has discovered the tryst, Irene is blackmailed into a desperate scheme to silence her — only for the plot to turn against her in ways she never anticipated.

Rainer Maria Rilke, a celebrated poet, shares his wisdom with a young aspiring writer in this collection of personal letters. Spanning several years, these exchanges offer guidance on the artistic journey and the challenges of self-discovery. It's a direct look into the mind of a master, providing advice for anyone pursuing a creative path.

• mentor figure
• epistolary
• coming of age

Sigmund Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams" is a foundational text in psychoanalysis. It introduces his revolutionary ideas about how dreams reveal the unconscious mind, acting as a window into our hidden desires and inner conflicts. This book changed how we understand ourselves and the meaning behind our dreams.

In this collection of ten letters written between 1903 and 1908, Rainer Maria Rilke offers profound insights to a young correspondent, Franz Xaver Kappus, who sought his guidance on poetry. Rilke shares his reflections on the poetic vocation, the nature of solitude, and the essence of art. The volume also includes additional correspondence with Lou Andreas-Salomé and Friedrich Westhoff, exploring these same enduring themes.

• epistolary
• mentor figure

Visceral, raw, singular, and distinctive, Frost is the story of a friendship between a young man at the beginning of his medical career and a painter who is entering his final days. A writer of world stature, Thomas Bernhard combined a searing wit and an unwavering gaze into the human condition. Frost follows an unnamed young Austrian who accepts an unusual assignment. Rather than continue with his medical studies, he travels to a bleak mining town in the back of beyond, in order to clinically observe the aged painter, Strauch, who happens to be the brother of this young man’s surgical mentor. The catch is this: Strauch must not know the young man’s true occupation or the reason for his arrival. Posing as a promising law student with a love of Henry James, the young man befriends the mad artist and is caught up among an equally extraordinary cast of local characters, from his resentful landlady to the town’s mining engineers. This debut novel by Thomas Bernhard, which came out in German in 1963 and is now being published in English for the first time, marks the beginning of what was one of the twentieth century’s most powerful, provocative literary careers.

Erika Kohut, a piano teacher at the Vienna Conservatory, lives a repressed life under the thumb of her domineering mother. By night, however, she secretly indulges in dark desires at peep shows. When a seventeen-year-old student becomes infatuated with her, Erika's hidden passions erupt in a disturbing exploration of sexual perversity and violence.

• morally grey
• anti hero
• forbidden love
• family saga

A reclusive scholar, obsessed with the memory of his deceased sister, recounts the story of her life and the elaborate, conical house he designed for her. He believes his architectural 'correction' led to her death, and now he attempts to correct his own understanding through a relentless, spiraling monologue. This intense novel explores themes of genius, madness, and the destructive nature of perfection.

• unreliable narrator

Discover how to find purpose and inner strength, even when facing unimaginable hardship. This adaptation of Viktor Frankl's powerful memoir shares his experiences in Nazi concentration camps and introduces his ideas on logotherapy. It's a testament to the human spirit's ability to endure and find meaning in the darkest of times.

• survival