Books like The Strudlhof Steps — picked by fans

When I first read Zweig’s memoir, I initially thought it was pretentious name-dropping, mentioning one prominent fin de siècle Viennese writer or musician after another. Only years later did I warm to his memories describing a world that existed before the cataclysm of World Wars and the ultimate fate of Europe’s Jewish citizens.

In reading other memoirs from the period (such as Ernst Krenek’s–not available in English), it’s possible to see that Zweig was writing from a position of enormous privilege while also reflecting the very essence of cultural life in a world where culture was perhaps its most important characteristic and distinguishing element. 

This is somehow the antidote to Roth’s novel. It is a daunting read, often thought of as a Viennese answer to Proust. What was fascinating was its very unsentimental and often quite funny representation of wealthy Viennese society. Musil is a seductive writer and it is easy to keep reading even while wondering when something might actually happen.

Like Roth, the effect of the novel is cumulative–only after reading it suddenly comes together. It also balances the presentation of Vienna as a city of musicians and poets and gives us the politicians, the mathematicians, the scientists, and the economists. The central character is himself a mathematician with little comprehension of the finer arts.  

This is a novel that is tender and sad, and it relates in a language that is simple and poetic to the atmosphere of the Habsburg Empire during its final days. The novel takes place in the provinces rather than in the capital.  Every line of the book can be savored, with every sentence laden with nostalgia for a world that seems like another, kinder planet. It is the world that pre-dated one of my other recommendations, The Strudlhof Steps, in its presentation of people with a sense of purpose, duty, and loyalty, even if not blessed with an abundance of acumen.

These were well-intentioned people trying to hold an empire together of disparate people and cultures. The empire represented an ideal world of Habsburg paternalism to Jews, Slavs, and Hungarians. It is difficult to conclude the book without tears. No cinematic version has done it justice—nothing captures the… show more.

There are so many histories of fin de siècle Vienna that this book is a welcome, long-awaited postlude. It explains how the city’s creativity did not die with the fall of the Habsburgs but became the source of everything we think of today as “modern”, from shopping, to cooking, to economics, to housing, education and the interaction of state and society.

Berlin may have been livelier in the 1920s, but the new ideas that would take root across the world and shape modern society were still coming out of Vienna. 

This novel shocked and even horrified me at first with its graphic description of a woman’s sexual fantasies. What has this to do with the horrors that are to follow? What is the relevance to the Holocaust of Freud’s attempt to treat this disturbed woman? The novel created huge controversy on its publication, and it took me several readings to understand what the author was suggesting–at least, what I think he meant because nothing is spelled out for the reader.

This is the heartbreaking story of a young woman and her small son caught up in the horror of what the Nazis did in Ukraine, and what I think D. M. Thomas is doing in the most inventive and daring manner is to show how deeply embedded in the psyche of Europe is the wickedness, the psychological sickness, that led to the Holocaust. I’m usually uneasy with the supernatural in… show more.

I love this humorous coming-of-age story narrated by a naïve yet academically smart girl who is juggling the various conflicting truths of her life—what she is taught in school, what she learns at home, what she learns from her friends and her siblings, what she is told about how life is and what she observes for herself. How is a person to reconcile all these truths?

By becoming the Queen of England, which is what Monei, the narrator, says she wants to become when she grows up since the Queen is the only woman, as far as Monei can tell, who can make decisions. This is one of the funniest books I have ever read. Dow brilliantly captures the perplexed voice of a growing girl and the idiom of Botswana life around Independence.

A year or so ago, I read a lot of factual books about India, so I was delighted to find this Golden Age cozy mystery set in a land I was falling in love with through books. This book took me back to a pre-partition India still under British rule, with a realistic glimpse of life under colonialism alongside a hefty–hopefully less realistic–dose of murder and mystery.

I adored how Harini Nagendra created a strong, independent female character who still feels genuine and believable in the time and place in which the book is set–a time when most women were stifled, submissive, and governed by their husbands–and how the observations of colonization feel true to life while remaining both sympathetic and observant to the Indian culture and ways of life.

The setting is vividly portrayed, and the sights and sounds of 1920s India are an absolute delight. The main characters… show more.

Where did J.R.R. Tolkien get his ideas? This book will provide some insight.

I fell in love with the Lord of the Rings when I was 12 when the first Peter Jackson film came out in 2001. It put me on the path to learning more about his works and his inspiration. Elves, dragons, and magical rings? Tolkien got much of it from Old Norse literature, and the Saga of the Volsungs has it all. Based on Viking Age poems, it is filled with myth, legend, and human drama and follows the story of Sigurd, the dragon slayer who is fundamentally changed after a meeting with one of Odin’s Valkyries.

For all of its myth-making, I love this book because of its very human elements: princely jealousy, unrequited love, and how greed corrupts. 

I love how the lives of different people intersect during the summer in this book. Unexpected romance, well-meaning lies, and damaging secrets pepper this story, making it the perfect page turner during a summer vacation.

I also love that one of the characters is a baker. I just love stories that marry food and cooking into the story.

In this book, you meet a rare person–a female heroine from the Tudor Times. Based on a true story about a woman aboard the Golden Hind, you are taken into the dark world of medieval ships and meet Maria.

As the book unfolded, I was moved to tears by her courage, strength, and ability to navigate a terrible world. I was inspired by her.