“I fought against white domination and against black domination.” After finishing the book, we felt sad but full of hope. Guilty despite being innocent. Filled with remorse for faults not ours. A necessary text, to understand the world of yesterday and, unfortunately, that of tomorrow. We had read it years ago, and reread it today, and we have come closer to its contents. A small book of just a few pages, but of unimaginable scope....
“Dear diary, I didn’t wake up feeling extroverted this morning either.“ A quality graphic novel, accessible even to those of us who aren’t familiar with the genre. A captivating story, suitable for all ages—and that’s not just a figure of speech. The book is a caress for the children we were, and for all those we’ll encounter in our lives as parents or children of family friends. The themes of shyness, of the wrong things...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “I’ve always been an architect of problems.” The first thing to say is that Ilaria Camilletti was born in 2005. The second thing to say is that this book isn’t beautiful despite, or even though, the author is twenty years old. It’s simply beautiful. It’s important to say that. Obviously, “beautiful” is an adjective that requires qualification, otherwise we wouldn’t be here, but for now. Ilaria has just finished her high school diploma,...
“Orsola treats me like an adult. As an equal. Obedience doesn’t mean subordination.“ The flavor of the words and the human touch Fleur Jaeggy narrates in this book are unparalleled. They bring back memories forgotten in a short time. Empathizing with the protagonists of the story comes naturally, even though the reader is unlikely to have experienced the events recounted. The immortality of the text lies in the precise reflection of certain interpersonal dynamics, typical...
“The man had turned off the light and lay down again. He hadn’t fallen asleep again.“ We enter the story with a sense of suspicion, almost thriller-like, especially in the opening pages, where the first chapter ended with a resounding wow. This driving force drove the reader to read and unravel the narrative, rich in details, descriptions, objects, and lists, until reaching the midpoint of the book, precisely halfway through, where a new and resounding...
“Rye flowers, tablecloth of fears.“ A book of poetry is a great challenge. A reader always finds themselves undecided whether or not to tackle a text they’re unlikely to fully understand. This is because reading a collection of poems is reading oneself, through another person’s words. Given the countless requests we’ve received, we’ve decided to take on this challenge. So we’re talking about poems as fresh as the early morning air, as intense as a...
“And God promised a good year, or at least he made all the almond and peach trees in the valley cover themselves in flowers.” We found a beautiful, dated version of this novel in a bookstore, and we decided it was there just for us, those of us who always love reading a story with a touch of something far removed from contemporary life. From the first pages, we realized we were giving ourselves a...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “What ever gave me the patience to persist until I learned to read the words of a book?” We wonder how this book isn’t required reading in every school. It deserves a place on children’s bookshelves between To Kill a Mockingbird and Fahrenheit 451; if you haven’t already, read it now, before they all burn them. Categorising Mime as science fiction seems risky, to say the least: reading this book today means...
“VENERDÌ RE-VERSO” “[…] the infinite depth of the dream behind the stars.” Without getting too esoteric, it must be said that sometimes the coincidences that connect us to books have a certain oracular quality, like when the random player plays the exact song you were thinking about. And we’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately. Will we classify it as suggestion, or will we choose to believe in that bit of magic that...
“Love, my dear, is a feeling of luxury.” The story is about a love that shouldn’t have happened, just as it shouldn’t have died. On one side, we have Yves Harteloup, a wealthy man who has lost much of his wealth and is forced to live like a common clerk in early 1900s Paris, and Denise Jessaint, the young wife of a wealthy businessman, Yves’s comrade in arms during the Great War. The two meet...
