“I would like you to become passionate about something that you can do for your whole life.” An Indian family living in the United Kingdom is preparing to experience a pain that is impossible to describe, that no one in the world would want to experience. The death of their mother leaves three little sisters without the most important figure in their lives. The vortex into which they are sucked will also involve their father,...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “In the midst of all that terror, the screams, the heavy footsteps there was something else, something strange. Kolya was laughing.” Every now and then it happens that you mention a book and the eyes of everyone who has read it light up. It is not the effect of the “essential classic” (to be read with the confidence that the quotes suggest), nor of the latest editorial case (“The book of the year” and...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “It was Morris Bober and he couldn’t have been a better sort.” It’s just that you read a lot of books. The further we go, the more the pages accumulate and the shadow of the stacked tomes casts itself over the days to come, gracefully indicating the readings we would like to face next. Slowly, imperceptibly, the analogies add up, the echoes reverberate, the amazement becomes numb. Of course, we always love reading but we adjust...
“I have never understood happiness. The idea seemed obscene.” A symphony orchestra, perfectly in time, interpreting a score written just for it. Here is the relationship that binds the protagonists of this book. The author is instead the director, who explains to the reader his own setting of the story, dictating the times of the individual lines. The center of the story is Harmony, a small town in the southern United States, similar to many...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “For an hour he remained contemplating the great pearly clouds perpetually suspended above the horizon, and from their beauty he drew a sense of resignation that did not allow his reason to examine.” We wander through the shelves full of new products on which out of intellectual humility (or decency) we do not judge but which clearly have little to tell us. Unexpected, there, in a little corner, mild and modest, a small blue...
“There is nothing more reprehensible than remaining blind to the problems and pains of others.” Memoirs belonging to the category of texts that must be read compulsorily. Up to the age of twenty it should be read in order to grow intellectually, after to be able to appreciate the hidden nuances and inconsistencies of the human being. A title that came into our hands almost by accident, during one of our reading groups, which turned...
“People are full of surprises, even for themselves, if they are provoked enough.” We thank one of our reading groups who first introduced us to the author and then to the book. The beauty of reading is right here, in the sharing of interests and continuous discovery. Our great miss having never read anything by James Baldwin before. Intense and delicate like few other authors, with a writing born to remain over time and inside...
“[…] and he finally knew the kind of transformation that love had given to all the people he knew, to always escape only him.” A novel full: of what? of life, of contradiction, of feeling, of emotional inconsistencies, of elective affinity, of imagination and reality. If that weren’t enough yet, we also add full of reflections on interpersonal relationships, mistakes, remorse, on man’s inadequacy and wealth. Three divided yet linked stories, with an alternative vision...
The books chosen by Andrea Salonia This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ Come resistere a un romanzo il cui titolo recita “Quattro galline” ? Io non sono riuscito: questa nuova scrittrice americana, Jackie Polzin, alla sua prima opera di parole, è stata davvero capace di catturare la mia attenzione. Lei, la copertina nera con una avvenente gallina di razza Dominicana, un geroglifico nero in campo bianco-crema, cresta e piccolo bargiglio rosso,...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “There was nothing I could say about that world except that I had known it, that it had been mine, that it still was.” Cosidering that there is a lot to talk about, here is a brief summary of the plot: forced by her father to separate from his beloved Jade, David Axelrod sets the family home on fire, with nebulous and somewhat delusional purposes. Here it begins: for four years, two of...
