Teresa Präauer

'Irresistible... astute observations on the absurd theatre of aspirational living in the age of social media' New StatesmanAn evening of perfect preparation. A night of uninvited chaos.In her stylish apartment, the hostess is hard at work. She folds linen napkins, arranges wildflowers and cues up algorithmically chosen soft jazz to project an effortless cool.Every detail is chosen with care, which makes it all the more galling when her guests arrive late and already drunk. As small talk becomes slurred confessions and lost inhibitions, the hostess struggles to maintain control over an evening far beyond her wildest imaginings.FURTHER PRAISE:'Brilliantly clever' IRISH TIMES'Amusing and delightfully compact' DAILY MAIL'Moreish' GUARDIAN'Beautiful' STYLIST'Stylish and very moving' ADAM THIRLWELL'Thoroughly enjoyable' AYSEGÜL SAVAS'I loved it' CLAIRE POWELL

'Brilliantly clever' Irish Times'Thoroughly enjoyable' Aysegül SavasAn evening of perfect preparation. A night of uninvited chaos.For the hostess, food has always been about growing up. From the pancakes your grandmother made you, dolloped with jam, to the salty glug of your first oyster. Now, poised at the brink of midlife, the hostess prepares for a dinner party in her new apartment. With a hunger for the finer things in life, she folds linen napkins into neat triangles, arranges wildflowers for the table and puts on a jazz playlist the projects effortless cool.But her composure begins to falter when her guests arrive drunk and late, downing bottles of her perfectly cooled wine and trailing water over the floor. Here comes the chain-smoking professor who never says the right thing, the husband glued to his smartphone, the wife who makes a secret pass at your boyfriend.As small talk and social preening give way to sexual tension and lost inhibitions, the hostess struggles to maintain control over an evening far beyond her wildest imaginings.__________'Very funny, very stylish and very moving' Adam Thirlwell'Irresistible' New Statesman'Clever, amusing' Daily Mail'Astute, witty and as pleasure as a case of Crémant' Claire Powell'Beautiful writing' Stylist

Lucas Cranach the Elder created around 500 works during his lifetime. With his portraits of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchton and as court painter to Frederick the Wise, he became one of the most sought-after painters of the Reformation. At the same time, Cranach was the first to translate the Italian Renaissance tradition of the life-size nude into art north of the Alps; his lascivious, barely veiled depiction of Venus, the goddess of love, bears witness to this. On the occasion of the large Cranach exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Austrian writer Teresa Praauer explores the work of this busy prince of painters from A to Z. She focuses not only on Cranach's art, but also on the society that surrounded him, the subjects he painted, and the events that shaped his development.