“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...
“It is not clear why, but as soon as the word “moral” comes into play, the clarity of thought becomes cloudy.” A book that could be deceiving in size (if someone were to think of being able to read it in a couple of hours) and title (American hallucinations have such a broad meaning!), but not in quality, which is high with peaks that are not very easy to scale; but after all, how could...
“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,...
“Times have changed and so have men.” Ancient text, first published in France in 1931, of atmospheres and settings now uninhabited for almost a hundred years of dust and cobwebs. The protagonist of the long story is the elderly nurse Tatjana Ivanovna, completely devoted to the Karin family, where she has seen entire generations of boys grow up who quickly became men. Almost as an elderly member of the family, in fact, she will accompany...
“The chalk breaks in two and both halves fall to the ground.” In a modern Seoul, where communication runs on all channels, the world of a woman suffering from mutism resulting from a series of traumas comes into contact with that of a man blinded by a degenerative disease. Two sensorial voids that will also reveal themselves to be two internal voids, linked to open wounds that they cannot heal, and which at the slightest...
“Ladies never eat in public.” Quality. This is perhaps the only word capable of describing this book both for the quality of the text and for that of the physical object. A credit that must be divided in half between the writer and the publisher (Italian in this case); a special merit that we like to underline. The author takes us inside a modern fairy tale with an ancient smell, in which the reverberation of...
“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...
“…but deep down I knew it would be a waste of time. And I was tired of wasting time.” Cameron in his pure essence. If you have already read other books by the author, in this one you will find everything you like about him, like a concentrated juice, to be diluted within the flow of spoken and, above all, unspoken words. If you haven’t read a book by him yet, we recommend starting with...
“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...
The books chosen by Andrea Salonia This review is available only in the original language _________________________________________________________________________ Difficile leggere un romanzo tanto acuto, sardonico, crudele e divertente al tempo stesso. Soprattutto pensando che è stato lì per un certo qual tempo, da qualche parte in una libreria grande o piccola, accolto su uno scaffale o appoggiato su un espositore, più o meno in generosa mostra, e tutto ciò da almeno trent’anni nella nostra bella Italia. Senza che...
