Valley of Flowers by Niviaq Korneliussen is undoubtedly the novel I loved the most last year, a book capable of getting under your skin, uncomfortable and powerful just like its author. A writer who had already established herself in Greenland in 2014, when with her debut she had spoken, for the first time in her country, of queer issues. Issues so current that they return in this novel too. The story is that of an...
“We will have, for a thousand years, peace.” An intense text, in which the author relives his memories as a soldier employed in Africa during the Second World War. Linear in the memory, as if it were a long diary, in which dreams, doubts, individual daily events are reported that together marked the fate of the conflict, up to the defeat in Sudan, the imprisonment and the long period spent in India. The detail of...
Anyone who has read Sostiene Pereira by Antonio Tabucchi knows that it is a novel destined to last beyond the time and space of the fragment of history it tells. I read it just a few weeks ago, while I was in Lisbon. I read it on the plane out, on the famous tram 28 that crosses the city and then sitting on a bench, in front of the sea. And yet, although my scenario...
“The rain washed away the summer. It soaked the earth, and from the earth rose clouds laden with moisture that scattered among the rocks and enveloped the crests.” If you are looking for a narrative built on twists and turns or intriguing actions then this is not the right book. Time passes slowly, expanding like an accordion to its maximum extension, just to play a single note. A book to read from a stylistic point...
BooktoMi e Occasioni d’Incontro are back with the III Edition of the show dedicated to the little ones. Readings, games and workshops to bring children closer to the world of reading with interest and joy. An intense weekend, with Irene Cacciola. The meetings are open to all and as per tradition free, and at the end of each meeting, a snack with bread and jam will be offered! We are waiting for you in the square in...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Why did the seasons continue to follow one another for me, while for him time has stopped forever in that May?” In our minds, as we close the book with a closed throat, mortified by a memory that is now ours too, the echo of the literature professor’s voice when he explained to us the greatness of Primo Levi’s writing: he added nothing, because there was nothing to add. The title itself is an...
“Restoring memory to news makes them less orphaned.” A hymn to the common good, to always acting thinking that every single choice in our daily life can have a positive impact on the community. Being honest with ourselves before others, acting based on what was once called common sense. Well, if we had to describe the book in a few words, they could only be these. In a double-track story, Sigfrido Ranucci offers us key...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “Don’t let anyone convince you that no one is interested in ideas.” Have you ever seen “Three on the Run”? It’s a 1989 film starring Nick Nolte and Martin Short. Not many people have seen it, but we kept thinking about it while reading. In the film, an absurd trio consisting of a former bank robber just out of prison, a shabby thief who chooses him as a hostage, and his very quiet little...
“I grew up with my mother, not with my father.” Finalist of the XXVI edition of the Edoardo Kihlgren Opera Prima Literary Prize, the text is a family story, in which the author goes fishing in the lake of his dearest memories, what he remembers and what he thought he didn’t remember, to tell the story of his life up to now, and the internal dynamics between his parents and then those with his brothers...
“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...
