From Trieste to Prague and Vienna to Warsaw – during his time in Europe, first as professional musician then as foreign correspondent for The Times, Richard Bassett was able to catch the last echoes of the Habsburg Empire and the fall of Communist regimes in the 1980s. 

His latest book is a memoir of this time and combines familiar events with unexpected encounters. The evening will feature a short reading from Last Days in Old Europe and a talk with Monika Czernin, granddaughter of Austria-Hungary’s penultimate Foreign Minister and author of The Hotel Sacher 1918-1938.