“The Order of the Day” is a short book – more an essay than a novel – about the annexation of Austria by Nazi-Germany in 1938. In its first part, the book describes how Germany’s top manufacturers supported the Nazi party since the 1933 German elections. In its second part, it describes the events of the “Anschluss” (the German pressure on the Austrian politicians, the atmosphere in the streets of Vienna, etc.).

Andreas is a man of few words who leads a quiet and modest life in the Austrian Alps with his beloved wife, Marie. However, his life is upended first by a devastating avalanche in the village, and later by the outbreak of the Second World War, when he is sent to fight in the Caucasus. Eight years later, when he returns to his home, he finds that modernity and tourism have encroached upon his once-isolated mountain village.

17-year-old Franz moves from the Austrian countryside
(Salzkammergut) to Vienna in 1937, where he begins working in a tobacco
shop, selling newspapers and cigars. He has a love affair with a Czech
cabaret girl and seeks the advice of the famous Sigmund Freund, a regular
customer of the tobacco shop, who offers him guidance in love in exchange
for cigars. When the Nazis seize power in Austria in the spring of 1938,
Franz’s life is turned upside down.

“Angel of Oblivion” is a novel about the Slovenian ethnic minority in Carinthia, Austria’s southernmost province. The narrator, a young girl, recounts her childhood in rural Austria during the 1960s and 1970s, revealing her family’s wartime experiences during World War II.

“The Hare with Amber Eyes” traces the history of the Jewish Ephrussi family in the 19th and 20th centuries. It follows their rise as grain merchants in Odessa, their successes as bankers and art collectors in Paris and Vienna, and their downfall when the Nazis seized power in the 1930s, leading to their diaspora across England, the US, and Japan. A central thread in this family memoir is a collection of Japanese ‘netsuke’ miniature sculptures, purchased by one of the Ephrussis in the 1870s and passed down through five generations, ultimately reaching the author of this book, Edmund de Waal.

Alexander Waugh’s “The House of Wittgenstein” is a biography of the illustrious Wittgenstein family. The patriarch, Karl Wittgenstein, was a self-made steel magnate who, by around 1900, virtually controlled steel production in Austria-Hungary and was one of the wealthiest men of his time. His children included Ludwig, who would become one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, and Paul, a celebrated concert pianist who achieved fame despite losing his right arm in the First World War. Their sister Margarethe was immortalised in a wedding portrait by Gustav Klimt. Several other children tragically took their own lives, with suggestions that Karl’s overbearing nature played a part in the family’s dysfunction. Bound by their shared passion for music, the Wittgensteins hosted artists such as Brahms, Strauss, and Mahler, while Ravel and Prokofiev composed pieces specifically for Paul to play with his left hand.

A shy and modest chess master challenges the reigning world champion for his title in Vienna in 1910. “Carl Haffner’s Love of the Draw” captures the tense atmosphere of this chess tournament, interwoven with flashbacks from the protagonist’s impoverished upbringing in Vienna, his rise as a local chess prodigy in the city’s coffeehouses, and his continued discomfort with public attention.

“The Battle” is a historical novel depicting the Battle of Aspern-Essling, which took place between the French and Austrian armies just outside Vienna in 1809 during the Napoleonic Wars. This marked the first occasion where the French Emperor was defeated on a European battlefield. “The Battle” offers a realistic portrayal of the chaotic and violent events of the Napoleonic wars, presented from the French perspective.

For over thirty years, Reger has visited the same room in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where he spends his time viewing Tintoretto’s painting “White-bearded Man”, complaining about art, society, the weather, and almost everything else. As the novel unfolds, the reader discovers the deeper reasons behind Reger’s disdain and why he continues to visit this particular room in the museum.

A writer returns to Vienna after 20 years abroad upon learning that an old friend has committed suicide. On the evening of the funeral, he is invited to a dinner party held in honour of an actor of the Burgtheater. “Woodcutters” unfolds through the writer’s sharp observations of the other guests and his reflections on why he despises them all.