“The war never ends, it just moves on a little.“ Books born from journalistic investigations have the ability to profoundly shake society. Moreover, if the topics covered address transnational issues, they can even rewrite part of the history of certain nations. The deeper the search for truth digs, the more the veil of hypocrisy, steeped in clichés, is stripped away, revealing the stark reality of the facts, which our consciences must confront. Ezio Gavazzeni’s book,...
What an experience it was to read this book in my twenties! To experience all over again the excitement and curiosity of first love, to feel the characters’ hearts pound with the unprecedented pain that comes when you lose, for the first time, the person you fell in love with. To find yourself, unfiltered, in the intricate dialectic of someone who is experiencing the same complex choices as you, discovering that you, too, live in...
“If he knew how much I love him, he would be scared.” Take an afternoon and immerse yourself in this story. A gift to yourself, like a long-deserved treat, but never received. The book begins with the same flavor as Donna Tarrt’s “God of Illusions”: university life, young students passionate about literature, a special gathering where they can live out their passion. Young students with a whole life to invent, who mean business. A hint...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “‘I have always wanted to know something about you poets […] What do you do all day??“ Belfast and the 1990s. Two friends and a lot of bombs. Sarcasm and sweetness; so much anger; so much love. And a cat. We’re rereading this book after ten years: we didn’t remember it being so long, so full, and we did remember—yes, that—laughing a lot. What makes this novel so great? Because there’s grandeur in...
“At certain times in life we are more or less close to who we really are.” Let’s start by saying that there’s something extremely essential about this book: everything revolves around a funeral, and—with the exception of the church where it takes place—we move from one house to another, almost without ever changing characters. Now, having said that, I challenge anyone to choose this book, but the author’s power lies precisely here, in our opinion:...
“Rome knew. It didn’t know where, how, or who, but it knew.” We heed the author’s warning at the beginning of the text: this is a book that, while drawing inspiration from true events, tells a fictional story. The connection to true history concerns the March 1944 attack on Via Rasella and the subsequent massacre at the Fosse Ardeatine; while the fictional stories are those of the various characters who, following parallel paths, will vicariously...
Family sagas have always been the genre that most resonates with me. There’s something about the chorus of voices, the interweaving of intertwining and intersecting stories and themes, that can overwhelm me like a raging river. I love losing myself in that powerful chaos, that emotional richness that only great family narratives can offer. The story of the Li family is one of them: it shocks and heals, just as any saga worthy of the...
“So I was forced to steal the chickens […], which was first of all a shame, secondly a serious danger, but above all a necessity.” There are many ways to try to tell a family story: in the first person looking at the past; as a secondary subject who sees the story pass before his eyes and grow with it; as an omniscient voice capable of entering into the emotions and feelings of the various...
“The good thing about a church is that it doesn’t really serve any purpose, except sometimes to instill fear.” A child with no name and no history knocks one night on the door of a house in an unknown town. It is immediately clear that it is not the first time he rings the door of someone he does not know, and also his need to find his father. The entire town will take charge...
“FRIDAY RE-VERSO” “No more bones, no more muscles, no more veins: inside himself Octavio had autumn.” There are three pages, almost at the beginning of the book, three pages that introduce us to Octavio: it is practically impossible not to want to reread them at least twice. It is the painting of a destiny, nuanced and prophetic, like those paintings that the more you look at them the more hallucinatory details appear, faces hidden in...
