Il Bell'Antonio - Vitaliano Brancati

Further proof that, on occasion, you can get really good books from the book-crossing shelves at Turin airport (though way too often there's nothing at all, or something that looks way too spiritual and in a language I can't understand).

I honestly thought I had watched the movie version, then two chapters into the book realized that I probably didn't. Like a number of other books by Brancati, it is an "old" story that doesn't look dated (and probably, sadly, is not too far from what still happens in some settings in the 21st century).

It reinforces so many stereotypes about Italian culture. Yet, stereotypes are not always inaccurate (actually, at least in the Italian case, they're very often spot-on despite not being exactly pleasant) and this book says quite a lot about standards of masculinity in my country...

The Blazing World - Siri Hustvedt

Oh, Halcyon books and its wonderful finds...For a change, my mom read this book before I did and liked it despite struggling a bit with it. Possibly because of my greater familiarity with academic writing (sigh?!?) I actually found it really quite accessible.

The book has absolutely everything from my point of view - art, mystery, bizarre love plots, a number of different writing styles and registers, tricky gender dynamics and a wonderful setting in Brooklyn.

Of all the questions the book raised for me, the biggest ones probably regard Siri Hustvedt herself: how does it feel to be considered the wife of a creative genius, when you yourself are an incredibly talented writer (possibly more than your better half)? And is there any chance Siri Hustvedt might have written chapters, if not whole books, for which Paul Auster got credit?

Shroud - John Banville

A book taken from the book-crossing shelves at Turin airport that manages to be so delightfully Turinese (even in its title) despite being written by an Irish author.

I didn't know anything about Banville (bad me, I mean, the guy even won the Booker Prize) and my mom, right as usual, persuaded me to read this book despite not having even read it herself.

The book is beautifully written, though at times it is possibly a bit too deep and ponderous even for me (or maybe I'm just not as good a reader as I think I am!). The shadowy identity twist from the main character's WWII years, and the decadence of the contemporary setting, however, made this an excellent read. Though, after consecutive books with big WWII discoveries, I really needed something solely focused on the contemporary world and without Nazis around!

Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

One of the last "big" buys at the local farm - nowadays I'm not 100% sure if most of the half-decent books they sell are old ones of mine, or whether there's simply another reader somewhere in the area with a similar taste in books who discards virtually the same titles.

I went in with big expectations, having watched the movie a few years ago, and it really didn't disappoint. Actually, it was in many ways better than the movie itself - the grandfather an even more complex character, Alex's writing even funnier than his spoken English (and also, Alex himself is quite a lot deeper), and really rather interesting description of Ukraine and its 20th century history.

If not one of my all-time top-10 books, then definitely one of last year's top-10. It now is in the hands of a couple of friends who went to Ukraine for a trip a month or so ago. 20p say the book will never land back on my shelf. Oh well, at least I really like those guys...

Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow

Behold, a book by Saul Bellow that I didn't fully and thoroughly adore! And my last acquisition from the £1 Halcyon Books store in Greenwich before its closure.

What I liked were Henderson's back-story, his sheer size, and a number of his inner thoughts and dialogues with himself. Then again, all of these things - except the size! - are the things I normally love in Bellow's books.

What I was far from being comfortable with was him going to Africa and playing (an arguably well-intentioned) god. When he does get things epically wrong and blows up the village's cistern, I wasn't happy that he was being put in his place. I could only think about the lives destroyed by his act and about the (very) rich white man who would then move to the next village (with all the guilt in the world, obviously, but also with his millions).

Had I read this book when it was first published I would have probably reacted differently. But it would have been quite hard, because, well, that was 28 years before I was born...

In Our Mad and Furious City - Guy Gunaratne

I'm kind of surprised I even remember the password to my account. Well, the positive is that, despite the months of hiatus, I don't have a pointlessly crazy amount of books to catch up on because I didn't read that much (not quite sure that's a positive actually, but hey!).

Life, in the shape of an upcoming second child, is getting in the way. And I'm also helping my father-in-law translate his book from Portuguese (a language I don't speak) into English (a language that is not my first).

Anyway, back to a book I remember relatively little about, except that I got it at the IKEA Booker Prize event, and that I thought it was a Northwest London story that was well-written and interesting, but little more than that (if both the plot and the location remind one of Zadie Smith, then your work is really quite likely to pale in comparison). Also, I got it because its author had actually worked at the IKEA in Neasden...

So the overall rating would be "good enough": I liked the kid hoping to turn his life around by running for Brunel (a long shot, but I have great memories of playing basketball there and of their sports centre), and the depiction of the riots in the estate was quite compelling (but even here, nothing too new when one thinks of some of the biggest British books of the last few decades).