The most recommended books about Austria

This is one of the first ‘proper’ history books I read, having borrowed it from my local public library, and gave me a lasting interest in the wars and warriors of Central Europe.

First published in 1964, it recounts the life of an Irish exile who became a field marshal in the Austrian Habsburg army and died leading a bayonet charge against the Prussians. Browne’s career exemplifies how ‘German’ military history is far more diverse than it might first appear.

Christopher Duffy vividly brings the eighteenth century to life, and I warmly recommend his many other books on early modern warfare. 

Recalling Ibbotson’s personal experience of leaving Austria for England before Hitler’s Anschluss, The Morning Gift is a witty and warm marriage of convenience story between a witty and intrepid archaeologist, Quinton Somerville, and a brilliant professor’s daughter Ruth Berger. When Ruth is accidentally left behind in Vienna after her family has emigrated to England, Quin marries Jewish Ruth and protects her from oncoming Nazi occupation: under the condition that they will part ways when both are safely back in London. But Quin and Ruth continue to run into each other again and again and again. A deliciously Austrian-flavoured book. Ibbotson’s Viennese set-sequences and memories are a love letter to her city.

This book left a deep emotional impact on me. Many times, it reduced me to tears so be sure to have a box of tissues handy as you read it. 

Lily Graham’s heart-breaking, descriptive passages of life in Auschwitz and the fact that anyone, let alone a child born into that horror, could survive, were beyond remarkable. 

Graham shows us strong characters like Eva, Sofie, and Helga, who by helping one another and coming together, managed to get through the worst things that could ever happen to a human being. This is a story that should be read by all generations to ensure that such horrendous things can never ever happen again.

Perhaps one of the most classic Arctic memoirs, this book is Ritter’s account of the year she spent in the remote Arctic wilderness of Spitsbergen in the 1930s. 

The nature writing is exquisite, and you can’t help but be transported to the time in place in which she lived, replete with polar bears and long, cold, (and dark) Arctic nights. 

Maybe the last of the great Viennese-born classical composers, Korngold enjoyed enormous success in Europe in the 1920s.

Invited to Hollywood in 1934, he began writing film music for the swashbucklers, costume dramas, and historical pageants of Warner Bros., often starring the likes of Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, and Claude Rains: Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row, and others.

Korngold thought of movies as "operas without singing" and wrote lavish, richly orchestrated scores filled with memorable melodies. Fleeing the Nazi tyranny in 1938, he became one of the greatest composers in the Golden Age of movies.

Carroll spent decades researching his life, it's a thorough and compelling read, and it saddens me that the book is now long out of print.

In addition to providing an engaging and well-researched introduction to Krampus (the darkest winter holiday creature of them all), The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas is a wonderful exploration of a wide spectrum of delightfully sinister facets of European Christmas tradition. For centuries, grim entities have emerged from the Christmastime shadows to offer a counterbalance to the lightness and joy of the holiday season. Ridenour connects Krampus to this tradition by taking the reader on a thrilling journey to an old world seething with witches, ghosts, demons, and child-eating ghouls. This book provided invaluable context and detail as I crafted the monster-filled, festive and shadowy setting of my own book.

Moving on now to something more serious, this is the start of a very long and very popular saga set at a girls’ boarding school, founded in the 1920s, by a pair of sisters without any apparent qualifications, in a Swiss chalet, as a means of supporting themselves. It’s a children’s book but has a huge following among adults, with its many adventures featuring an ever-changing range of pupils and teachers from all over the world. They’re now very dated (not least for their cavalier attitude to health and safety and indeed towards education), but they have a timeless charm.

There are many different vantage points from which to view the road to war in 1914, but an essential one is that which focuses on the ethos, politics, and strategy of one of the constellations of European Great Powers. In the 1980s, Macmillan published a series of books focusing on each of these, written by acknowledged experts (Zara Steiner on Britain, John Keiger on France, Dominic Lieven on Russia, Volker Berghahn on Germany, Richard Bosworth on Italy). The last in the series appeared in 1990, when Samuel Williamson published his study of Austria-Hungary.

It was well worth the wait. Comprehensive in its structure, balanced in its judgments, meticulous in its research, Williamson established a new standard for studies of the Great Powers. His conclusion – that Austria-Hungary was largely responsible for initiating the July Crisis and, ultimately, the war itself – is persuasively argued and the story compellingly told.

Just a great novel – you will fall in love and empathize with the characters.

As always, Irving mixes in life and death making the fiction feel real. Irving has a way of surprising the reader. Each plot turn will bring out a new emotion. The reader will feel sorrow, anger, and love while identifying with the characters.

Most importantly, Irving has a real touch with making me laugh at the twists and turns of life.

This novel, first published in 1963, looks at how we create meaning in our lives through the investment and care we give to that life. A woman vacationing in the Austrian mountains is suddenly cut off from the rest of humanity by a mysterious cataclysmic event, of which she may be the sole human survivor.

As a firsthand account, it examines her fear, loneliness, and ultimate commitment to creating a meaningful life in her new reality. It can be seen as a critique of modern life and how it has cut us off from the rhythms of nature. It is also a feminist novel depicting a woman’s devotion to making and nurturing a life.

Ultimately, it examines how we create value and purpose through our choices and actions.