The Foundation recommends

Machines Like Me

Ian McEwan’s novel is set in an alternative London, in 1982, in which England has lost the war against Argentina to control the Falkland Islands, the Beatles have reunited, Alan Turing is still alive and his discoveries have enabled an incredible technological development. Among the most important inventions of this futuristic past there are already self-driving cars and the first prototypes of “synthetic humans”. The protagonist, Charlie Friend, receives a large inheritance after the loss of his mother and decides to use it to buy a robot, called Adam, of which there are only twelve examples in the world and thirteen of the female model, Eva. These androids aren’t just machines, sold as “companion items”, but are also capable of experiencing emotions and feelings. It’s a story that leads the reader to question what allows us to define ourselves as “human beings” and differentiate ourselves from artificial intelligences, when these develop their own conscience. A ‘uchronia’ that acts as a mirror to our present, to be reread in light of the increasingly rapid developments in AI, which are blurring the lines between science fiction and reality.  

Macchine come me
Ian McEwan
Einaudi, 2019

Who Speaks and Who is Silent

In the seventies, Vittoria moves to Scauri, on the Lazio-Campania border. She arrives with Mara, a woman much younger than her. The rumours fly in the villages, covering every possibility: maybe it’s her adopted daughter, maybe she was kidnapped. Many things are spoken, many left silent. Vittoria is generous and affable, perhaps a little unusual; she has opened a boarding place for pets and is on good terms with everyone, but she never talks about her life. Twenty years after she arrives in Scauri, she is found dead in the bathtub and the episode is accepted as a tragic domestic accident. Lea Russo is a lawyer, a friend of Vittoria, who doesn’t resign herself to this explanation and wants to excavate the past to understand who this woman was and if it was really just misfortune. She will find herself in front of a difficult and unexpected experience, which will also push her to question herself, her relationship with her friend and what her life could have been – a multi-layered investigation, which will also lead her to discover the environment she lives in, people’s prejudices, changes in the village. Chiara Valerio’s latest novel is structured like a provincial detective story, but it transcends its genre, becoming a book that talks about love and possession, identity and changes, written with a fluid language, which plays with words and subverts rules.  

Chi dice e chi tace
Chiara Valerio
Sellerio, 2024

The Rare Metals War

For decades, there has been talk of digital and environmental transition, transformations that continue unabated as the world becomes increasingly connected and, hopefully, more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Almost all of the innovations implemented, however, require intensive exploitation of the resources below the earth’s crust, in particular the so-called “rare-earth metals”, a group of 17 chemical elements central to the production of new technologies, from robotics to renewable energies and from artificial intelligence to consumer electronics. Control of these resources is a central issue for the geopolitical balance of the planet. French journalist Guillaume Pitron explains the risks involved in the intensive exploitation of these metals, the extraction and purification of which requires costly processes with a considerable environmental impact. It is a good read for exploring a topic that continues to raise burning questions, which require answers to prevent the dream of developing “green technologies” from turning into a nightmare.  

La guerra dei metalli rari
Guillaume Pitron
Luiss University Press, 2019

The astrakhan coat

A nameless protagonist tells the story of his life in post-war Paris in the first person. Drawn to France and its capital, seen as a Mecca to which every man should make a pilgrimage in his life, the forty-year-old from Luino, on Lake Maggiore, goes to the shadow of the Eiffel Tower without a specific plan, seeking opportunities to change his life or at least adventures to tell people about when he returns to Italy. The man manages to convince a widow, Mrs. Lenormand, to rent him a room in her house, but he has to share it with the cat Domitien, who has no intention of leaving the room. The woman, at first hesitant and shy, gradually begins to get used to his presence and relates to him episodes of her life and that of her son Maurice who appears to have abandoned her to go and live in Indochina. The resemblance between Maurice and the young Italian, both physical and in terms of affinity of soul, strikes Mrs. Lenormand to the point that during the winter she decides to give him some of her son's clothes, including an Astrakhan coat, in the style of the Russian fashion at the time of the Tsars. At the same time, the protagonist begins to date a girl named Valentine, but one day she gets upset when she sees him wearing the coat, which reminds her of the one that belonged to a past love of hers. Piero Chiara writes a novel with a European feel. Despite starting from the places close to his heart, where most of his novels are set, it moves to the French capital, where the protagonist, perhaps partly an autobiographical character, tries to find a broader horizon than that of the quiet Italian province. The author also retraces the places of his life on the pages of the Pirelli Magazine, in which he publishes two articles: “La sponda magra” (The lean shore) in 1952, in which he describes a spring trip on the shores of Lake Maggiore, and “Valsolda piccolo mondo” (Valsolda small world) in 1962, in which he tells of a visit to the Lombard valley between Lakes Como and Lugano, following in the footsteps of Antonio Fogazzaro.  

Il cappotto di astrakan
Piero Chiara
Mondadori, 1978