Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

By far the most poignant book I have ever read (and I read a lot.) Every impression and observation has a heightened importance when you know the author and his wife both killed themselves not long after the book was published during the worst years of WWII. Brilliantly recreates the pre-WWI Europe that disappeared after 1914 and is only now maybe being recreated in an updated style. Wonderfully describes the tumultuous years between the wars and demonstrates the despair of the worst years of WWII. Also where else can you read good things about the AustroHungarian Empire these days? Would highly recommend this book for anyone between the ages of 10 and 100. Why don't they use books like this in high school and college history classes to make the past come alive? Also enjoyable because it tells things like they were at the time before 50 years of revisionist and deconstructed history have twisted everything around. The real tragedy of this story is that Mr. Zweig and his wife did not wait another 18 months before killing themselves. They may not have found it necessary once the Allies started defeating the Axis powers in Europe and the Pacific. Still Mr. Zweig's World of Yesterday was irreparably destroyed and would never return.