The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War

I'm about half through the book but can hardly put it down. What a brilliant, talented, unstable & self indulgent family! I've lost count of suicides in the family & their associates. A story well worth telling & well told by Alexander Waugh.

This is a fascinating look into the life of the lesser-known (but no less brilliant and crazed and obsessive) brother, Ludwig. No novel could as persuasively match the facts of one of the most afflicted (with genius and torment) families in the twentieth century.

Very interesting read about a rich, powerful and dysfunctional family in the city of my birth. The more I read, the more I learn. Gorgeous cover art.

Vaguely aware of who the Wittgenstein brothers Paul and Ludwig were, I feared the subject matter would be a highbrow detailed discussion of their works. Quite the contrary! Mr. Waugh disdains what could have been a dry pedantic review and approaches the story from another angle: a uniquely vibrant and talented family, graced with impossible wealth, who just don't get along very well. It's a rollickingly jolly read, full of humor, quirkiness, personality, and intelligence. "I never wanted it to end," as the old chestnut goes. The personal foibles of the famous are always a source of fascination and this book is bang on winner. You won't be sorry you bought it.

Fiction would find it difficult to top this account of a 19th-20th century European family: raised in great wealth but generally unable to manage life. Being as I am in music the book was doubly interesting. Can you imagine Johannes Brahms coming to a musicale at your home? Highly recommended.