The project kicked-off at the Vienna Railway Station. Over the summer, Austrian trains will invite travellers through QR codes to indulge in the Europe Readr universe. The project will also accompany the emblematic “Buch Wien” fair and the “Österreich liest” festival.
Overview
In cooperation with the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), passengers can access Europe Readr on the Railnet portal on more than 300 ÖBB trains (Railjet and Cityjet). To read the books, they only need to connect to ÖBB WLAN on the train via a smartphone, tablet or laptop.
The project was launched on 19 July 2021 at Vienna Railway Station by the Austrian Federal Minister of the Environment, Leonore Gewessler, Slovenian Ambassador to Vienna Aleksander Geržina, and Chairman of the Board of ÖBB Andreas Matthä, who expressed satisfaction that the ÖBB is contributing to the promotion of reading culture and the exchange of views on European issues during the European Year of Rail.
Photo gallery
‘Gast Groeber’s short stories in Every Day Just Hides Another put the focus on characters that increasingly distance themselves from their usual surroundings. The story ‘A Village Idyll’ describes the life of a man who has been ostracized by the villagers ever since he ran over a boy with his car. Groeber smartly shows how the real circumstances of the accident, which have an essential influence on our moral judgement, are no longer taken into consideration at all once the culprit is found. Groeber’s description of the threat to the individual by the Others is also cleverly done: in these stories, it is never clear from the start whether the threat is merely imaginary or very real. Interpersonal relations float between the superficial and a precarious intimacy.
What should be highlighted in Every Day Just Hides Another is the obvious desire to achieve a consistent topical conception that only a few texts don’t follow. Groeber also aims at a decidedly literate, yet always natural language, which is quite an achievement given the limited stock of role models. The attempt for example to construe a character perspective using only impersonal phrases and infinitives that the author makes in ‘The Unbearable Weight of Waiting’ is utterly successful.’