A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro

A very battered copy of this book made its way to me from the Turin airport book-crossing shelves (via my mom). And maybe it could have stayed on those shelves and waited for someone able to better appreciate it.

I absolutely love Ishiguro when he writes about posh British people, or about a dystopian British future, but whenever he writes about Japan he somehow sounds trite to me (and in terms of how he "sounds", well, in interviews he just gives me the impression of being a British aristocrat).

An Artist of the Floating World had virtually the same effect on me - I just find Ishiguro's portraits of Japan quite unimaginative, despite liking his decision to tell the story from a woman's perspective, and despite wondering whether the narrator is telling her own story or that of "a friend".

Seta – Alessandro Baricco

A book that my wife received from one of my relatives some ten years or so – probably given to her because back then her Italian wasn’t yet absolutely faultless like it is now and/or because she had liked Novecento.

And I actually kind of liked it, which came to me as a rather big surprise. Not so much because I don’t normally like Baricco, but mostly because I’m often not too fond of the people who cite him as one of their favourite authors (unless they are 16 or less, in that case all, or at least some, is forgotten). Yes, I am an awful snob. I honestly have to admit that spending an hour reading this story (defining it a novella would be too much) was quite enjoyable. Yet, I don’t have that much to say – yes, the book was nice enough, but has the literary weight of its silkworms.