'Brilliantly clever' IRISH TIMES

'Moreish' GUARDIAN

An 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.

A BREAKOUT FAVOURITE WITH READERS:

'Gobbled this up in a day'

'Ponders what adulting actually means'

'If you liked Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection, read this'

'A lyrical homage to food memories'

'Funny and very clever. A must-read'



Teresa Präauer is a prize-winning Austrian author, essayist and playwright. She is a literary columnist for German newspapers and magazines, and lectures at universities internationally. Cooking in the Wrong Century is the first of her novels to be translated into English and received the highly prestigious Bremer Literaturpreis.



Very funny, very stylish and very moving. Teresa Präauer is a novelist of unusual elegance and charm - who can make the reader sadly aware of time passing even while leaving them delightedly hungry



Deliciously unsettling and thoroughly enjoyable. It's so much fun to see this meticulously planned dinner party go wrong



Astute observations on the absurd theatre of aspirational living in the age of social media abound in Teresa Präauer's Cooking in the Wrong Century. Culture, under Präauer's gaze, is a mood that can be blurred by candlelight and the Thelonious Monk Septet: it's irresistible, disorienting



Clever, amusing and delightfully compact. To be consumed in one sitting, it pairs wonderfully with a glass or four of fizz



Every fear you've ever had about hosting a dinner party crops up in this half dream, half choose-your-own-adventure, in which the events of the evening are affected by minor differences: which guests arrive first, and which are late? Who has had a drink on the way? Do they take their shoes off at the door? The characters' conversation follows similar strange, winding tangents to the surreal narrative. Get the crémant open



Astute, witty and as pleasurable as a case of Crémant. An irresistible novel - I loved it



There's a sensibility akin to Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection in everyone's obsession with names and cultural touchstones, as they share selfies on social media (#FoodPorn #BestFriendsForever) . . . The tone of this moreish story swings between sadness and satire



A greatly magnified and irony-laden slice of life. This impressive novel feels at once modern and eternal, like a perfectly balanced and freshly honed chef's knife



Beautiful writing and an interesting concept



Takes on gender roles, social disappointments and the memories evoked by food



An entertaining, finely observed chamber play and a great culinary reading pleasure



Splices fleeting sincerity with gleeful satire all while digging up the true intents of Vienna's thin upper crust . . . Präauer is both witty and wise; she has a gift for sharp dialogue



An elegantly written, deliciously sardonic read which I very much enjoyed. The discomforting gap between the fantasy of a convivial dinner party and the awkward reality of tricky, unappreciative guests was beautifully observed. The witty dissection of social media was scalpel-sharp and very entertaining



Unusual and compelling . . . an intelligent social farce about a dinner party



Astutely analyses social interaction and presents it in a humorous and ironic way



With her well-seasoned, original menu Teresa Präauer proves herself to be an amusingly sophisticated hostess and stimulating companion at this literary dinner



Teresa Präauer is one of the brightest candles on the cake of contemporary German literature . . . This is breathtakingly funny, comical and very, very insightful



Hardly ever has such an intellectually precise novel about taste been written



Entertaining, witty, amusing and clever. It offers plenty of material for the next table conversation