“As soon as I saw Alisia get off the train I thought with relief that we had reached the point: she was finally leaving me.“ Silvio and Alisia are a non-couple. They have almost nothing in common, yet their relationship continues like a stone thrown into a lake, which continues to sink until it reaches the bottom. As a couple, however, they work because, as the author writes, the most successful couples are those who...
The books chosen by Andrea Salonia This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ Difficilmente si potrà leggere un romanzo tanto cupo, tanto gotico, ricco di tale cattiveria e tanto buonismo insieme, di illusione e disincanto, come Observatory Mansions. Difficilmente si potrà trovare tanta fantasia perversa, difficilmente ci si troverà magati da una stranezza così normale, una mordace e impietosa descrizione dell’essere umano, pregna di dolore struggente, annegata nell’ironia e condita da uno...
The books chosen by Andrea Salonia This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ Torniamo indietro, fino al 1978. Pare un’eternità, e forse lo è per il modo veloce con cui molte delle cose della vita sono poi andate. Molte, ma non tutte, e questi giorni dell’oggi – proprio oggi, 24 febbraio 2022 a maggior ragione –folli, incomprensibili, plasmati della stessa materiale del terrore, ecco, questi giorni mi han obbligato a ripensare alla...
The books chosen by Andrea Salonia This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ Ho chiara memoria di nonna, i suoi capelli cotonati e la “grembiala”, come la chiamava lei, la luce che entra da dietro e la torta all’Alchermes regina sul tavolo, fucsia nel centro, e viva di giallo della crema pasticcera e del pan di Spagna sopra e sotto. Una torta a righe, così la ricordo, la mia preferita preparata da...
“That God was nothing but a fantasy created by men to give refuge to our fears?” A strong, powerful and weighty book. The title itself is already explanatory of much of what you are going to read. The story is that of Faustino, a silent child, who takes a long time to speak compared to his peers, and goes to discover the world through the discovery of key words that he writes down in a...
“Pizza is poverty experienced as wealth.” After the death of his father, Pietro, a middle-aged Milanese man, finds himself rewinding the history of his family, and goes to San Francisco to settle some pending matters of a home of his ancestors. There he finds a writing by one of his ancestors destined for future memory, in which he recounts the events that led him to flee Milan after taking part in the revolts against the...
“I wanted to go back into my mother’s womb and never be born again.” The book is a dry and poignant autobiography. The writer tells us about her life, from childhood until today, and entrusts us, without dwelling in pity, the difficult life lived in Hungary between the poverty of her family, the traumatic experience of deportation to the concentration camp, suffering and agony. and finally living as a survivor. We could easily tell ourselves...
“The herons don’t turn to look at us, they are focused on something important that we can’t even imagine.” A six-handed written book capable of making smells of a time gone by, and of the present one that flows away between the fingers without us noticing. To these are added the true flavor of nature to push on the palate, and the mechanical sound of what is created by man. This is Floating souls, a...
“As we walked melancholy towards home, a question filled us with feelings of guilt: were war, unemployment, the lack of a home, poverty perhaps a calling for us?” A story of unexpected gentleness. A slow snowfall on Christmas day when you are a child, greeted by the warmth of home and a glass of hot milk. This is the feeling we experienced at the end of reading Mangereta, with the only regret that there were...
“Since I know you, the desire to tell you things has never gone away. In fact, sometimes I thought that things existed for this reason, so that I could tell them to you.” How do we behave if the love of our life is struggling between life and death? How deep would the regret for not having lived the love story with the intensity deserved? Drops of happiness, perhaps lost forever, to chase unnecessary problems....
