The Diary Review

‘We stand at the turn of the year more hopeless and depressed than ever during these unfortunate four and a half years of the World War. In ...

A few days ago, it was Reinhold Messner’s 90th birthday, and today it is the centenary of the birth of Messner’s hero, Hermann Buhl - both c...

‘For some time past I have been occupied with a work of infinite grandeur. At the moment I do not know whether I shall carry it through. It ...

‘Suddenly, in the midst of all the people who crowded around me or spoke to me, I felt as if there were a dead chicken in my chest.’ This is...

The Austrian author, Robert Musil, died 80 years ago today. His most famous work and one of the masterpieces of 20th century European litera...

Alma Mahler-Werfel, the Austrian musician and wife/lover of several celebrated artistic figures, was born 140 years ago today. She was a sig...

‘D-minor Quartet of Schoenberg, by [the] Rosé [Quartet]. A single, long-drawn-out atrocity! If there were such a thing as criminals in the r...

Wilhelm Reich, an Austrian psychoanalyst who claimed to have discovered healing powers in the biological energy of orgasms, was born 120 yea...

‘When Freud said laughingly “I really think you look on analysis as a sort of Christmas present,” I could only agree.’ This is from the diar...