My Week in Books – 9th February 2025

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On What Cathy Read Next last week

Monday – I shared my sign-up post for the 2025 Nonfiction Reader Challenge 2025.

Tuesday – This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was Books Released in 2024 I Still Haven’t Read. I also published my review of The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

Wednesday – As always WWW Wednesday is a weekly opportunity to share what I’ve just read, what I’m currently reading and what I plan to read next… and to take a peek at what others are reading. 

Thursday – I published my review of The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay by Flora Johnston and shared My Top Five January 2025 Reads.

Friday – I published my review of The Cafe with No Name by Robert Seethaler, translated by Katy Derbyshire.

New on my shelves

Front cover of The CIA Book Club by Charlie English

The CIA Book Club by Charlie English (eARC, William Collins via NetGalley)

The astonishing story of the ten million books that US intelligence smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

From copies of Orwell to Agatha Christie, the Western effort was to undermine the censorship of the Soviet bloc, offer different visions of thought and culture to the people, and build relationships with real readers in the East.

Historian Charlie English follows the characters of the era, with Bucharest-born George Minden at the narrative’s heart. Tasked with masterminding the effort, Minden understood both sides of the he was opposed to the intellectual straightjacket created by the communist system, but he also resented the Americans’ patronising tone – the people weren’t fooled by what their puppet governments were saying, but they did need culture, diversity of thought, entertainment, art, reassurance and solidarity. This is how the perilous mission to bring books as beacons of hope played out, told in riveting detail.

What I’m currently reading

Look out for…

  • Book Review: The Ghosts of Rome by Joseph O’Connor
  • Book Review: A Cold Wind From Moscow by Rory Clements

Book Review – The Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler, translated by Katy Derbyshire @canongatebooks

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About the Book

Front cover of The Cafe with No Name by Robert Seethaler

It is 1966, and Robert Simon has just fulfilled his dream by taking over a café on the corner of a bustling Vienna market. He recruits a barmaid, Mila, and soon the customers flock in.

Factory workers, market traders, elderly ladies, a wrestler, a painter, an unemployed seamstress in search of a job, each bring their stories and their plans for the future.

As Robert listens and Mila refills their glasses, romances bloom, friendships are made and fortunes change. And change is coming to the city around them, to the little café, and to Robert’s dream.

Format: Hardcover (224 pages) Publisher: Canongate
Publication date: 13th February 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find The Café with No Name on Goodreads

Purchase The Café with No Name from Bookshop.org [Disclosure: If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops]

My Review

Set in 1960s Vienna, The Café with No Name is the deceptively simple story of mild-mannered Robert Simon. He rents a room from an elderly widow with whom he often shares breakfast, providing each with quiet companionship. He harbours an ambition to open a café and one day comes across a property on the edge of the local market. It’s a bit rundown but he’s not afraid of hard work and sets to work refurbishing it. Unable to decide on a name for the cafe, it remains without one.

Customers start to come to the café. They drink a coffee, a beer or a glass of wine – possibly more than one – and eat the cafe’s simple food offering of bread and dripping. At the suggestion of the widow he adds hot punch to the menu – with great success – and thanks to his friend, the butcher across the street, he acquires a barmaid, Mila.

Some customers of the café sit alone, some strike up conversations with other customers, others join friends for a game of cards. There are regular patrons, including traders from the market. Others are simply passers-by. The café is the scene of assignations, quarrels and gossip. It’s a place to unburden yourself or just to sit in quiet reflection. It’s everything Robert hoped the café would be. ‘[He] couldn’t help smiling at the thought of all the lost souls who came together in his café every day.’

Gradually we learn more about the lives of some of the café’s customers. There are moments of joy and sadness, of hope and despair. I found certain scenes intensely moving but I also enjoyed the touches of humour, chiefly provided by two female customers whose gossipy conversation the author allows us to eavesdrop on periodically.

Change is in the air as Vienna continues to rebuild after the war. And for Robert and the café, as in life, it’s time to move on. The Café with No Name explores the lives of ordinary people with an engagingly deft and compassionate touch.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of Canongate via NetGalley.

In three words: Tender, insightful, emotional
Try something similar: These Dividing Walls by Fran Cooper

About the Author

Author Robert Seethaler

Robert Seethaler was born in Vienna in 1966 and is the author of several novels including A Whole Life, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and The Tobacconist, which was a number one German bestseller. Originally published in 2023, Seethaler’s novel The Café with No Name was an instant number one bestseller, spending 44 weeks on the bestseller list. His works have been translated into over 40 languages. (Photo: Goodreads)

About the Translator

Katy Derbyshire is a Berlin-based translator. She has translated works by Christa Wolf, Inka Parei and Clemens Meyer, most notably Meyer’s novel Bricks and Mortar, which won the Straelener Prize for Translation. Meyer and Derbyshire have twice been longlisted for the International Booker Prize.