Als Toni Muhr im Herbst 1916 aus dem Krieg nach Wien zurückkehrt, wird gerade Kaiser Franz Joseph I. feierlich zu Grabe getragen. Auch sonst scheint Tonis Welt aus den Fugen zu geraten: Sein Arbeitgeber hat ganz offensichtlich das chemische Patent, das er ihm kurz vor seinem Einzug zum Wehrdienst vergebens zum Kauf angeboten hatte, einfach selbst angemeldet und damit während Tonis zweijähriger...

»Das ist die Geschichte des Musikers Johannes Elias Alder, der zweiundzwanzigjährig sein Leben zu Tode brachte, nachdem er beschlossen hatte, nicht mehr zu schlafen.« – Mit seinem Debütroman über das Leben und Sterben eines musikalischen Genies in einem österreichischen Bergdorf gelang Robert Schneider ein sensationeller Welterfolg, der in über 30 Sprachen übersetzt, erfolgreich verfilmt und zu...

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they

This book compiles stories and novellas, written in America (with the exception of one) in the last decade. It's symbolic title That Strange Feeling of Freedom is not incidental.

Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriou

Stanislavov in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An ordinary city on the border of ‘happy Austria’, in which they live, suffer, fall in love, admire science and charlatan performances of world-famous illusionists, have fun at balls and carnivals, go for walks and hide secrets in carved chests of drawers. And against the background of the era, which for posterity will become more and...

Cat’s Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat’s...

A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.

Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

In this issue: Vassili Grossman The Commissar, Leonid Latynin Stavr and Sarah, Nina Sadur Irons and Diamonds, Ludmila Ulitskaia March 1953, Barely Soup, Igor Pomerantsev Sobs in Corners, A Little About You, Yosip, Victor Beilis Breakfast Alfresco. Stories united under subtitle What It Means To Be A Jew In Russia: Lev Anninsky The Wandering Jew, Osip Mandelstam Mikhoels, Larissa Miller Home...

of several generations of an upper-class family during the First World War and the Civil War in Russia. Historical events, providing a background for the narrative, are depicted not directly but rather as seismic shock waves overturning and transforming the lives of ordinary people. Lala, Natasha, Toma - three heroines are close friends, all from formerly affluent families stripped of their...

In this issue: Larissa Miller HomoLudens, Childhood in Post-War Moscow, Papa Misha, St.Petersburg-Leningrad, Muzyka - Music, Flitting and Gliding, the Black Sea, Virgin Lands, My Romance with English, My Land and Home, In Lieu of Conclusion. Larissa Miller's memoir recounts her childhood in postwar Moscow, with reminiscences of her mother, a major journalist under Stalin, and of her father...