The book we wanted everyone to read for our Summer Academy was The Hare With Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal, an English ceramic artist. Hard to believe that this is his first book, which has now been translated into 28 languages.  A family memoir of what had once been one of the richest Jewish families in Europe, de Waal traces the rise and fall of the Ephrussi family, from Odessa to Paris to Vienna.

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Here’s a link to a 15 minute lecture by de Waal, and we highly recommend it.

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And here is an insightful book review, written by Veronica Horwell for The Guardian

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At the turn of the 20th century, it seemed that whatever important was happening important in the world, it was happening in Vienna. Gustav Klimt was creating erotic, dreamy paintings. Sigmund Freud was interpreting our dreams. Gustav Mahler turned those dreams into symphonies. And in so many other fields—architecture, philosophy and literature—the world was looking to Vienna.

It all looked like a prelude. But it turned out to be an epilogue. Here are two BBC documentaries we highly recommend to our friends, to teachers and students alike

Josef Leo Koerner City of Dreams

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A Must See in Vienna: the Austrian Military Museum to see the most famous car in the world. Since our teachers won’t see it this summer, let’s take you to it.

Here’s a link to the Austrian Military Museum’s webpage on that famous car, the one Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were riding in in Sarajevo on 28 June, 1914.

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Here is the British historian Dan Snow’s very short video on Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.

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