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Books selected for you

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  • 08 November 2024 Bambino Mattia Gregori, known in Trieste as “Bambino”, is a former fascist and the city’s most brutal Blackshirt, who left a trail of death in his wake. Alongside Mattia, ... +
  • 08 November 2024

    Bambino

    Mattia Gregori, known in Trieste as “Bambino”, is a former fascist and the city’s most brutal Blackshirt, who left a trail of death in his wake. Alongside Mattia, at the centre of Marco Balzano’s latest novel is Trieste, a city on the margins, a place that shifts identities fluidly, and one that endures years of relentless upheaval and violence, from Fascism to Nazism, followed by a brief period of Communism. Born in 1900, “Bambino” experiences a childhood scarred by abandonment: his brother leaves for America, his closest friend deserts him, and he learns that the woman who raised him is not his biological mother. A relentless fury rises up within him, an intense anger not easily subdued. Drawn into the ranks of the Blackshirts, he is swept along by a chain of events that spiral into the Second World War, the Nazi occupation, the Yugoslav takeover, and ultimately, the tragedy of the Foibe massacres. After Resto Qui, Balzano returns to historical fiction, probing the limits of the human soul, as well as of history and the effect it has on individuals and on their personal choices. And to do this, he creates a fierce, hardened protagonist who creates an indelible impact on the reader.

    Bambino
    Marco Balzano
    Einaudi, 2024

    Bambino
  • 25 October 2024 Broken Truths Le verità spezzate is Alessandro Robecchi’s latest novel, published by Rizzoli. The title is also to be that of the best-known film about its protagonist, Manlio Parrini, a ... +
  • 25 October 2024

    Broken Truths

    Le verità spezzate is Alessandro Robecchi’s latest novel, published by Rizzoli. The title is also to be that of the best-known film about its protagonist, Manlio Parrini, a seventy-year-old director embarking on a new project after years away from cinema. The film he hopes to make, for which he is seeking a producer, is a true story based on the life of Augusto De Angelis, an Italian crime writer in the 1930s, who was violently killed under mysterious circumstances, suggesting a link to fascist squads. Parrini is drawn to this important mystery—the story of a free-thinking man whose life likely ended for political reasons, suppressed by the regime’s heavy-handed censorship. While Parrini is still scripting the film, a new mystery breaks into his life: the murder of his neighbour, the widow Bastioni, a case that echoes the dark tales in De Angelis’s crime novels. Here we have a double investigation into past and present mysteries that bring up themes of freedom and influence, narrated with Robecchi’s characteristic wit and lightness of touch. Le verità spezzate Alessandro Robecchi Rizzoli, 2024

    Broken Truths
  • 11 September 2024 MANIAC Benjamin Labatut continues to question science and its limits, following on from his previous novel, "When We Cease to Understand the World". In MANIAC, the Chilean author presents ... +
  • 11 September 2024

    MANIAC

    Benjamin Labatut continues to question science and its limits, following on from his previous novel, "When We Cease to Understand the World". In MANIAC, the Chilean author presents us with three emblematic figures that mark the three different parts of the book. The prelude is dedicated to Paul Erhenfest, a physicist who commited suicide after killing his son. A tragic event, but one linked to a deeper crisis of a scientist, increasingly overwhelmed by a progress in science and mathematics in which he could no longer find any sense, any logic. Erhenfest saw the emergence of quantum physics theories as a kind of triumph of irrationality, of the inexplicability of the cosmos. The central part of the book continues with the life of John von Neumann, creator of the Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Model I, one of the first electronic computers in history, from which the book takes its title. The character of the great Hungarian scientist is told in his incomparable greatness and in his most terrible sides by the many voices of the people who crossed his path. The result is an incredibly intelligent figure, but at the same time incapable of emotional involvement or moral or ethical doubt, an almost "dehumanised" figure who becomes more and more alien, or perhaps more like the artificial intelligence of which he himself was one of the fathers, thanks to his contribution to the development of processing systems and game theory. The last part moves directly to AI, in particular the story of the confrontation between Lee Se-dol, one of the greatest GO players in history, and AlphaGO, which manages to beat him repeatedly, driving him to despair, until a final game in which the champion manages to win thanks to a move not memorised by the AI. A novel that leaves the reader dismayed by a science that is advancing so rapidly that it is outstripping man's ability to understand it, undermining his certainties and his view of the world.

    MANIAC
    Benjamin Labatut
    Adelphi, 2023

    MANIAC
  • 01 August 2024 The House of the Magician "You know how he is”. This is mantra Emanuele Trevi's mother uses to talk about her husband. A renowned and reserved Jungian psychoanalyst by profession, he is a ... +
  • 01 August 2024

    The House of the Magician

    "You know how he is”. This is mantra Emanuele Trevi's mother uses to talk about her husband. A renowned and reserved Jungian psychoanalyst by profession, he is a distracted, distant and reserved parent. On his death he leaves a flat, which was his office where he received and treated patients. However, no one seems to want to buy it. Perhaps because it is still inhabited by the spirits? Perhaps of the ghosts of lives resolved on the couch? Emanuele decides to make it into his own home. Thus begins a journey through Mario Trevi's objects, memories and passions, interwoven with funny anecdotes and incidents involving the studio's new tenant. Dedicated to Mario Trevi, the author's father and a Jungian psychoanalyst, The House of the Magician is a memoir, ironic and moving, centred on the post-mortem relationship between father and son, and inspired by Emanuele's desire to feel closer to the missing parental figure and, perhaps at the same time, perhaps to make him more real, to grasp something more of the man he was. To do this, he begins with memories, places and objects that have preserved his traces and serve not only as avenues to take, but also as real psychic gateways through which to seek answers. The first, and most “cumbersome”, is certainly the house-clinic where the father received patients. It stands at the centre of the narrative, simultaneously taking on the value of a real place and a symbolic space, in which the Emanuel-character and the Emanuel-son meet and intertwine. The house, in fact, in Jungian theories is nothing more than the representation of consciousness. It is indeed the place where the memory of Mario Trevi “the man”, not the father, is preserved, but it is also the place where Emanuele will learn that in order to put the pieces together and put things in order, it is not necessary to look for clues and solve puzzles, but more simply to accept the mystery of which the world and life are made.  

    La casa del mago
    Di Emanuele Trevi
    Ponte alle Grazie, 2023

    The House of the Magician
  • 18 October 2024 The Fable of Mother Bat Which family do bats belong to? To that of mice, with which they share their large ears? To that of birds, since they, too, fly? Or to that ... +
  • 18 October 2024

    The Fable of Mother Bat

    Which family do bats belong to? To that of mice, with which they share their large ears? To that of birds, since they, too, fly? Or to that of humans, who breastfeed their young, just like bats? In the African fable, Mother Bat decides one day to go off and visit some of her relatives but, when she meets them, none of them recognise her. In a simple, direct form of storytelling, she expresses what it is like not to feel included. Mice, of course, cannot fly; birds have no teeth; and humans do not hunt by night. So Mother Bat is rejected by all the animal “relatives” she approaches. They can only see what makes them different and, blinded by stereotypes, they fail to see beyond them. Like all fables, the story of Mother Bat, which is freely adapted from a tale by Babacar Mbaye Ndaak, a Senegalese author and singer, offers a moral. Disheartened and frustrated, she returns home after being rejected. She and her little ones decide that, from now on, they will live their own way, hanging upside down from a tree. This illustrates the triumph of individuality over stereotype, and offers a charming explanation of what gave rise to such truly special creatures. Marta Solazzo’s colourful and whimsical illustrations bring the story to life for young readers, adding a touch of levity and humour to the tale. This is a children’s book with a memorable story.

    La favola di Mamma Pipistrello
    Freely adapted from a story by Babacar Mbaye Ndaak, with ilustrations by Marta Solazzo
    Modu Modu, 2013

    The Fable of Mother Bat
  • 08 October 2024 Bambini Nascosti A little girl is in a room with her back to us, leaning against a completely blue wall. Her eyes are closed and she is counting. Beyond the ... +
  • 08 October 2024

    Bambini Nascosti

    A little girl is in a room with her back to us, leaning against a completely blue wall. Her eyes are closed and she is counting. Beyond the door, the vast expanse of the world’s best-loved game unfolds—children hiding, waiting to be hunted down, caught in the tension between fear and the hope of being found. This is the starting point of Bambini nascosto, literally “Hidden Children”, the latest book by Franco Matticchio, one of Italy’s most celebrated illustrators and winner of the Extraordinary Award at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2024. Anxiety condenses all the emotions that the game of hide-and-seek has always brought with it: anticipation, surprise, the thrill of escape, and the race to safety. On page after page, Matticchio’s exquisite illustrations depict boys and girls hiding in unexpected places—among dense tree branches, crouching behind chairs, armchairs, and musical instruments, often in the most extraordinary poses. These illustrations accompany a minimal text, with just a list of proper names that echo the joy of those who have hunted down their playmates, a brief poem gifted by Vincenzo Mollica, and a Dantesque opening that evokes the profound, formative power of the age-old game of hide-and-seek. The search for the hidden meaning in the repertoire of names—with its wealth of allusions and references to characters from culture and history—is really a game for adults. The quest to find children hiding in the countless imagined places outside the all-blue rooms, on the other hand, is an ageless pursuit. And it is this that makes the book so wonderful. Bambini nascosti Franco Matticchio Vanvere Edizioni, 2023

    Bambini Nascosti
  • 26 September 2024 October, October It is a delicate but powerful novel that was a finalist for the 2024 Premio Strega Ragazze e Ragazzi, having already won the 2022 Yoto Carnegie Medal. The ... +
  • 26 September 2024

    October, October

    It is a delicate but powerful novel that was a finalist for the 2024 Premio Strega Ragazze e Ragazzi, having already won the 2022 Yoto Carnegie Medal. The story follows October, an eleven-year-old girl who lives alone with her dad in a house in the woods, in perfect harmony with nature. Her days are filled with the sounds of the wind, the rustling of trees, and the company of birds, rocks, and the elements of the earth. Hers is a life of freedom, where imagination is free to run wild. As October proudly states at the beginning of the novel, “we live in the forest and we are wild”, and she revels in a world filled only with the sounds and smells of nature. But one day, on her eleventh birthday, her life suddenly changes: her dad falls from a tree and ends up in hospital, fighting between life and death. October is then forced to go and live with her mother, a woman she hasn’t seen since she was four and has never forgiven for abandoning the forest to return to city life. London, with its jam-packed housing, endless grey skies, the jarring sounds of the Underground, and the school with its rigid desks and being obliged to sit, is a stark contrast to October’s former life. For the first time, she has to measure up to and interact with other children. London also brings a complex mix of emotions—anger towards her mother and a sense of guilt over her dad’s condition. These feelings gradually fade as October begins to open up to her new experiences, like her friendship with Yusuf and her discovery of the River Thames and the mudlarking club. It is here that she learns that happiness can be found anywhere, even in a city. "October, October" thus unfolds as a coming-of-age story, where childhood transitions into the realm of adulthood, allowing space for new emotions and ideas, made possible by the use of new expressions and words. The “woman who is my mother” eventually becomes “Mum,” symbolising a shift towards a deeper understanding of life, where “all the world is wild, and waiting for me”. This remarkable book by the English author Katya Balen is written in a refined and often poetic style, rich in sensory details that allow readers to smell the wood, the smoke, and the rain, and vividly feel the surge of emotions. It is a must-read for Balen’s extraordinary ability to capture the mindset of a young girl and convey her thoughts and feelings with an authentic, age-appropriate voice. The story is beautifully accompanied by Angela Harding’s illustrations, which bring to life characters like Stig, the little barn owl that October discovers when he is at death’s door in the woods and that she lovingly raises with her father’s help. Later entrusted to a wildlife centre in London, Stig is eventually returned to the wild in a breath-taking scene in which he takes flight, leaving October as he soars up into the sky. This dazzling moment, filled with light and sound, serves as a metaphor for chasing one’s dreams.

      Ottobre, Ottobre
    Katya Balen, Angela Harding (illustrator)
    Einaudi Ragazzi, 2023

    October, October
  • 01 August 2024 Shuna’s Journey After forty years, one of the first works by the great master of Japanese animation Hayao Miyazaki is published in Italy by Bao Publishing. Inspired by Tibetan legend, ... +
  • 01 August 2024

    Shuna’s Journey

    After forty years, one of the first works by the great master of Japanese animation Hayao Miyazaki is published in Italy by Bao Publishing. Inspired by Tibetan legend, the work never saw the light of day as an animated film, but was later published as a stand-alone manga. A story in which we already find many of the elements that the author would develop in the following years, especially in "Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind" or "Princess Mononoke". Shuna is the prince of a forgotten kingdom, plagued by hunger and famine due to infertile soil. One day the prince comes across a dying traveller from a distant land. Before he dies, the man gives Shuna a bag of seeds, tells him about the land they come from and promises that they will save his people from starvation. So the prince decides to embark on a journey to the West in search of the mythical land and to save the future of his people. The simplicity of the story and the tables express some of the central themes of the author's poetics, such as the love of nature and the contrast between an idyllic rural world and an industrialised civilisation that threatens its balance. The beautiful and delicate watercolours, drawn directly by the author, dominate the pages rather than the text, creating a dreamlike atmosphere that is closer to cinematic language than the clear and defined black and white style usually favoured in manga.

    Il viaggio di Shuna
    Hayao Miyazaki
    Bao Publishing, 2023

    Shuna’s Journey

From the world of books

Events and fairs
literary anniversaries
  • 23 September 2024 Campiello 2024 Awards Ceremony The prize-giving ceremony for the sixty-second edition of the Premio Campiello took place on Saturday 21 September, at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The event was hosted ... +
  • 23 September 2024

    Campiello 2024 Awards Ceremony

    The prize-giving ceremony for the sixty-second edition of the Premio Campiello took place on Saturday 21 September, at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The event was hosted by Francesca Fialdini and Lodo Guenzi, with musical intermissions by Luca Barbarossa, and broadcast live on RAI 5. The novel chosen by the Jury of Three Hundred Readers was “Alma” by Federica Manzon, published by Feltrinelli. The author received the “Vera da Pozzo”, a replica of a traditional Venetian puteal (well-head) and the emblem of the prize, symbolising the “Campiello”. For more details about the winning book, you can watch the interview conducted by the Pirelli Foundation on this page.

    Campiello 2024 Awards Ceremony
  • 12 September 2024 pordenonelegge The 25th edition of pordenonelegge, organised by Fondazione Pordenonelegge.it, opens today at the Teatro Verdi in Pordenone. Running from 18 to 22 September, the festival will feature over 600 Italian and international authors in ... +
  • 12 September 2024

    pordenonelegge

    The 25th edition of pordenonelegge, organised by Fondazione Pordenonelegge.it, opens today at the Teatro Verdi in Pordenone. Running from 18 to 22 September, the festival will feature over 600 Italian and international authors in more than 300 events across the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. This year’s guests include the Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, Enrico Brizzi with the long-awaited sequel to Jack Frusciante è uscita dal gruppo, Gianrico Carofiglio, Chiara Valerio, Donatella Di Pietrantonio, and Maurizio Maggiani. The theme of sport will take centre stage in this edition, which will see the tennis champion Adriano Panatta in a conversation with the producer and director Domenico Procacci and the journalist Stefano Semeraro. There will also be a special event curated by Massimo Passeri and Antonio Bacci. Arrigo Sacchi, Federico Buffa and Fabrizio Gabrielli, Riccardo Pittis and Marino Bartoletti, among others, will all be taking part. As part of the pordenonelegge programme, on Friday 20 September at 9 p.m., the headquarters of Confindustria Alto Adriatico will host a discussion on our latest editorial project, The Sports Workshop, published in June by Marsilio Arte. This event, organised by the Pirelli Foundation, will feature Antonio Calabrò and Luigi Garlando, a writer and journalist for La Gazzetta dello Sport. Together, they will look at sport as a form of participation, involvement, community, and civic engagement. It will be a unmissable opportunity to reflect on the many facets and manifestations of sport, including what goes on behind the scenes and in the world beyond the performance.

    pordenonelegge
  • 03 September 2024 Festivaletteratura The twenty-eighth edition of Festivaletteratura will be held from Wednesday 4 to Sunday 8 September 2024. The Festival will return to fill the squares of Mantua with a ... +
  • 03 September 2024

    Festivaletteratura

    The twenty-eighth edition of Festivaletteratura will be held from Wednesday 4 to Sunday 8 September 2024. The Festival will return to fill the squares of Mantua with a calendar full of events. Over 300 sessions in 5 days, where, thanks to the power of literature, we will question wars and democracies, compare different generations, and explore ancient peoples and distant cultures. There will also be discussions on the body and artificial intelligence. The international guests this year include: Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner Nathan Thrall, 2023 Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch Mona Awad, Emmanuel Carrère, Olivia Laing, Deborah Levy, Tobias Wolff, Joël Dicker, Peter Burke, Jessa Crispin, Michael Ignatieff, David Quammen and Richard Sennett. To see the full programme click here.

    Festivaletteratura
  • 26 August 2024 Premio Cortina 2024 On Saturday, August 24th were announced the winners of Premio Cortina d’Ampezzo, the literary prize awarded since 2011 within the cultural event "Una montagna di libri". To win the ... +
  • 26 August 2024

    Premio Cortina 2024

    On Saturday, August 24th were announced the winners of Premio Cortina d’Ampezzo, the literary prize awarded since 2011 within the cultural event "Una montagna di libri". To win the 13th edition of the prize was the author Michele Masneri, with the book"Paradiso" (Adelphi), whereas the author Marco Berti,  with the book "La montagna non ride e non piange" (Solferino) was awarded the "Premio della Montagna Cortina d’Ampezzo". The two selection juries were lead by  Gian Arturo Ferrari and Marina Valensise.

    Premio Cortina 2024
  • 16 October 2024 Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024 From 16 to 20 October, the Frankfurter Buchmesse, now in its 76th edition, will be held in Frankfurt. One of the world's leading book fairs, it is the ... +
  • 16 October 2024

    Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024

    From 16 to 20 October, the Frankfurter Buchmesse, now in its 76th edition, will be held in Frankfurt. One of the world's leading book fairs, it is the most important in Europe in terms of literary rights sales. In keeping with tradition, each year the fair features a Guest of Honour country, and in 2024, after a 36-year hiatus, it will be Italy’s turn. Italy will be represented in a pavilion designed by the architect Stefano Boeri, under the theme "Roots in the Future", devoted to Italian culture. Here Pirelli will showcase its corporate culture, presenting its story through books and videos. The display will highlight the company’s core values: innovation, technology, and art, as well as its multidisciplinary corporate culture. A series of Pirelli publications will be on show, from those of the Pirelli Foundation to the Pirelli HangarBicocca catalogues, a commemorative book marking 50 years of The Cal, and the company's Annual Reports. Over the years, many prominent Italian and international authors have contributed to these works, including Emmanuel Carrère, Javier Cercas, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Adam Greenfield, Lisa Halliday, Nicola Lagioia, Joe Lansdale, Javier Marías, Ian McEwan, John Joseph "J.R." Moehringer and many others.

    Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024
  • 08 October 2024 Marina Ivanovna Cvetaeva Marina Ivanovna Cvetaeva was born in Moscow on 8 October 1892 and died in Yelabuga on 31 August 1941. A Russian poet and writer, she began writing poetry ... +
  • 08 October 2024

    Marina Ivanovna Cvetaeva

    Marina Ivanovna Cvetaeva was born in Moscow on 8 October 1892 and died in Yelabuga on 31 August 1941. A Russian poet and writer, she began writing poetry at the age of six, creating compositions in Russian, French, and German. During Stalin’s regime, Cvetaeva moved to Paris, only returning to Russia in 1939, where she was soon sent to a labour camp. A few years later, she took her own life. Her works were rehabilitated in the 1960s, and today Cvetaeva is regarded as the greatest exponent of twentieth-century Russian Symbolist poetry.  

    Marina Ivanovna Cvetaeva
  • 02 September 2024 Giovanni Verga Giovanni Carmelo Verga di Fontanabianca was born in Catania on 2 September 1840 and died in the same city on 27 January 1922. Verga was one of the ... +
  • 02 September 2024

    Giovanni Verga

    Giovanni Carmelo Verga di Fontanabianca was born in Catania on 2 September 1840 and died in the same city on 27 January 1922. Verga was one of the greatest Italian writers of the twentieth century and is considered the greatest exponent of the Verism movement. In fact, the author uses a direct language, close to the language of his characters, who are often excluded or marginalised, and tries to convey the facts described by distancing the author's presence in the text. His works include: “Mastro-don Gesualdo”, “The House by the Medlar Tree” and “The Story of a Songbird”.

    Giovanni Verga
  • 17 August 2024 Aldo Palazzeschi Aldo Pietro Vincenzo Giurlani, better known as Aldo Palazzeschi, was born in Florence on 2 February 1887 and died in Rome on 17 August 1974. In 1905, the ... +
  • 17 August 2024

    Aldo Palazzeschi

    Aldo Pietro Vincenzo Giurlani, better known as Aldo Palazzeschi, was born in Florence on 2 February 1887 and died in Rome on 17 August 1974. In 1905, the Italian writer assumed the surname of his maternal grandmother, and it was under this name that he became famous, first as a twilight poet, then as a Futurist, but always with a very personal style. His most famous novel is The Materassi Sisters, published in 1934.

    Aldo Palazzeschi