“The commuter’s journey, well, it’s not a journey. It’s three dots in brackets.” We won’t beat around the bush in this review: if you’re here, it’s because you’re looking for a good book, one that can not only keep you company, but that can also really give you something more. We’re talking about Björn Larsson’s Philosophy of the Commuter, which at first glance is aimed only at a certain type of reader: a commuter who...
“In Milan everything plays and everyone plays something.” A nice and in its own way captivating idea, that of the author to describe his city, Milan, through the five senses that man has: a clear perception of how the city is felt and envelops each person, even before it can be thought; an observation so true in a city where everyone is passing through life. In fact, as an old adage says, Milan is for...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Then I burst into tears. Then one always bursts into tears, I thought.” Telling life by talking about death: this is what Aglaja Veteranyi does for one hundred and twenty-nine poignant, poetic pages. The life of circus performers has always had a contradictory charm that combines the freedom of wandering with the lability of relationships; a life made of magic tricks and escapes, amazements and disappearances. Different rules, a twirling in space and time...
“They had chased and waited for each other, only to meet again and again.” Let’s go back in time. Catania in the late 1930s, with fascism in power, winds of war ready to become a storm, cowardice and meanness tacitly disguised as nobility of soul and rectitude. Here two boys in their early twenties, Salvatore (known as Sasà) and Michele, meet one night on a beach and fall in love. A difficult love because the...
“My family can be said to have never existed as such.” A collection of short stories published posthumously, in which Piero Chiara’s lovers find all the contents of his narrative style: Lake Maggiore, the gossips of the village, the fixed time of provincial life, the lost memory, the cynicism of the human being. Starting from the twenties of the last century, the events reported arrive up to the very early eighties, to ideally identify with...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Today I’m going to be tough (and I’m crying while writing these lines).” Wandering through the shelves of bookstores these days you will find the latest reprint of the literary debut of Édouard Louis. A student of Didier Eribon, to whom the work is dedicated, he follows in his footsteps with the impulsive unscrupulousness that comes from being a few years younger than his master. Being able to do so, we read this...
“I don’t want to love him so as not to lose him.” Viola is a young journalist who, for work reasons, decides to move from Naples to Milan to work in the editorial office of a large newspaper. As often happens, however, dreams clash with harsh reality, and Viola finds herself chasing low-paid and temporary jobs. In parallel with her life, that of Ershela, the other protagonist of the book, runs wild; a young Albanian...
“She had married late, had become a mother late and was now aging prematurely.” Total light in the style and in the story told. A book that enlightens the reader for the narrative delicacy of the author, and for the desire to bring out of the shadows one of the least virtuous pages of American history. Total surprise for us, who guiltily did not know the author and the book, but for which we must...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “…where your body announced […] its presence there, at the mercy of your laborious apprenticeship to the work of the world.” On October 15, 2024, Antonio Skármeta died. Many have seen “Il postino” starring Troisi, not as many have read that masterpiece of humanity and literature that is “Ardente paciencia”, translated into Italian as “Il postino di Neruda”. A few days before Skàrmeta’s death, excited by a chat about that title, we decided...
“I’m working on a new problem: finding the value of n such that n plus everything else in life makes you feel happy.” Reading Cameron is an experience that everyone should have at least once in their life. In his writings he manages to describe the void that accumulates inside man, like the rings of a tree. A void that cannot be filled in any way, a solitude for which we are always alone in...
