Tutta la Vita che Resta - Roberta Recchia

 

One of the Italian books that I just have to read every now and again. Melodramatic to the ninth degree - with somehow managed crisis after somehow managed crisis and the very occasional brief interlude of something resembling calm. 

Yet, this is not the utterly unbearable A Little Life. I actually got to feel something for the characters, and in all this drama I didn't think that the author was simply riding on the readers' emotions (and their manipulation), but was actually telling a genuinely compelling story and touching on a variety of themes with skills. 

Obviously, a number of plot twists were rather predictable - ranging from the family eventually finding a way to patch things up, to the solution of the initial crime, to the disappearance of central yet ultimately expendable characters. Still, this remain a book that I enjoyed way more than what I had expected.  

Lucy by the Sea - Elizabeth Strout

 

I feel like I have written this before, but while I very much love the writing of Elizabeth Strout and the atmosphere that she is able to create with her books, all of them - perhaps with the exception of the ones about Olive Kitteridge - blur into one. Lucy by the Sea was a clear demonstration of that, as I remembered having read My Name Is Lucy Barton, but in spite of its title I couldn't for the life of me recall who Lucy Barton actually was...

I have yet to find a book whose handling of the recent pandemic I find compelling, perhaps because it's something that we have all lived through. On the plus side, at least this book was a clear upgrade compared to the rather miserable Day by Michael Cunningham. 

What I did like about this book, though, was the narrative arch of William (Lucy's husband). I must confess I was rather ticked off by the brave "knight in shining armour" (who at the same time has the foresight of "the stoic man of science"), but in the last few chapters it was really interesting to see his own daughters discuss with Lucy the probable selfish reasons behind some of his actions, and Lucy recognizing them - perhaps having known that was the case all along, and reclaiming her own agency.  

The New Life - Tom Crewe

 

A novel I literally just stumbled upon by coincidence, as I was looking for something at least somewhat inspiring in the catalogue of my Italian e-library (and yes, I did read this in translation - shame on me, the things I do for convenience...). What attracted me of this book was its title, its cover (yes, I do judge books by their cover!) and the fact that the author and I came very close to studying together. 

It took me two weeks to read this book, but really only because life got in the way in a pretty major way and we moved to a new house (a whole 200 mt down the road, but the move felt transatlantic). 

I appreciated this book for a variety of reasons. Its didactic nature when tackling the theme - and the acts - of homosexuality (in a way that wasn't too dissimilar from some of the works of David Leavitt), its ability to re-visit, re-shape and re-create history (and here the most immediate comparison for me would be Pat Barker, most likely because I've just finished reading her), and the degree of honesty with which it discusses the double-standards that queer men and women had to deal with in the late 19th century, much like in the early 21st. 

That said, in a way that is typical of many first novels, I also felt that the author didn't quite know how to wrap up his book, and the last couple of chapters feel abruptly squeezed in at the very least. 

My Friends - Hisham Matar

One of the many books suggested by my mother, and yet again one of her many on-point suggestions. I greatly enjoyed reading this, but for me it was very much a story of two halves. 

The first half, with the main character's walk from King's Cross to his home in Shepherd's Bush was a work of art, introducing me to something I didn't know about (the shooting from the Libyan embassy in 1984), talking about something that I feel I know so well (that part of London, in particular the shout-out to the caryatids of St Pancras New Church, right outside my beloved undergraduate student hall), and making me think about some of my favourite London writers (Kureishi obviously, given the period being discussed and the immigrants' stories). 

The second half, however, was just a bit much. While it is true that wars are being increasingly fought by middle-aged men, I found it a bit far fetched and hard to buy into that two semi-intellectuals would find themselves at the forefront of the violent actions of the initial phases of the Libyan Civil War, and  reading about their discovery of Ghedaffi in hiding really appeared excessive to me. 

I Giorni di Vetro - Nicoletta Verna

 

Once in a while, it's quite good to realize that there are contemporary Italian writers that, well, know how to write. Like so many in her generation, Verna appears to have a remarkably sombre approach to writing, but even then the story is truly a compelling one. 

The reader understands both the appeal and horror of the titular Vetro, and the deep flaws of his friend (and Redenta's father) get more and more disturbing as the pages turn. Yet, what stands out is the inspiring forms of resistance (be it to a regime, to societal norms, or to family members) that the book celebrates in what feels at times like a touching tribute to Fenoglio. 

And while the surprising spin towards the end of the book (the identity of the mysterious Diaz) is really rather expectable, the surprise in the very final pages (what happened at the ball that marked so much of Redenta and Bruno's lives) is truly surprising. 

The Regeneration Trilogy - Pat Barker

 

What an absolute work of art! And to think that Pat Barker studied history (what I teach...) at the university where I work, and I actually had to discover her because my auntie told my mom about her. In my defence, she did graduate a few decades before my arrival at least...

The Regeneration Trilogy is possibly the best WWI book(s) I have ever read. Barker has a truly unique way of describing, through her characters, the ugly beauty of war, how it plays with the minds of soldiers who can never leave war behind and are often attracted to it for various reasons even when given a chance to leave. 

Her ability to weave real history and fiction together in an inextricable mix is also remarkable, and the last few chapters of The Ghost Road are an agony to read, as the reader clearly knows how things are going to end for Billy Prior, the beautifully troubled and scarred main fictional character of the trilogy. 

Empty Hearts - Juli Zeh

I didn't quite know what to read at some point this summer, so I landed on another book by Juli Zeh as I had greatly enjoyed Unterleuten. 

Empty Hearts wasn't quite as good a read. The wacky premise (an agency that identifies, recruits and trains potential suicidal terrorists to then assign to organizations) reminded me a bit of some of Franzen's most original plot twists. The problem for me, however, was that it's something that becomes very quickly hard to sustain and would place any author in danger of having to jump the shark in order to reach some sort of conclusion. 

And ultimately Juli Zeh jumps the shark here, without great results (at least for me). 

Prophet Song - Paul Lynch

Every now and again I have to read a dystopian novel. And every now and again I have to be reminded that I don't really love them. Unless they are The Road. 

Prophet Song is undeniably good, but the fact that the dynamics between the frictions between the two warring factions are never discussed (the novel begins as the situation is already beginning to spiral out of control, with almost no explanations) made it quite hard for me to "buy into" the book. 

That said, I really was impressed by how the author makes the reader realize that so many of the main characters' decisions are, ultimately, wrong, yet dramatically understandable and justifiable. 

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

 

What a book!

And to think that I picked it up almost by chance, because I loved its title and the cover picture. Just like with James Baldwin (the world's most banal comparison, sorry!) I was astonished by how current it felt despite its year of publication. 

The exoticization of black people by many well-intentioned whites who then get scared (or sceptical, or bored) is something that I see - and am most likely guilty of - on a daily basis, as is the slipping through the cracks of formal education of countless black students. And let's not get started on the hopelessness of certain excessively cerebral approaches to politics of some people whose problem is not so much their privilege (though that's an undeniable fact), but rather their complete isolation and inability to imagine a world in which their idea(l)s are not the most important thing for everyone. 

Sono Mancato all'Affetto dei Miei Cari -Andrea Vitali

File this under "Italian book read because the title was appealing" (in this case the loose translation is "I died and left my loved ones"). Also file this under "very low expectation, and just read for harmless entertainment". 

If anything, the book did give me something more than I was expecting (which really wasn't much). It is quite well-written, and ultimately does a good job of explaining the position of everyone in this clashing family and how everyone is both in the right and in the wrong most of the time. 

Bonus points for not pretending that the narrator's death at the end was a surprise (it was in the title!) malus points for having a dead man narrating the story (for me it didn't work in Sunset Boulevard, it was unlikely that it would work here...). 
 

Le Madri Non Dormono Mai - Lorenzo Marone

 

A book that I read on my phone as I couldn't really carry anything bigger with me as I jogged for 800 km along the Camino de Santiago this summer. 

And despite being dog-tired, I did manage to finish this and a couple of other novels, but none really impressed me that much. 

Crucially, with this book, I kept on wondering whether it is better for a man to tell the story of those Italian mothers who have to raise their children in jail, or whether we should wait for - dare I say it - a woman to do that. On top of that, the depiction of poverty and crime in Naples really feels gimmicky (here, as in so many other depictions). 

Fame d'Aria - Daniele Mencarelli

 

Another book that I borrowed from my hometown's e-library chiefly because of its appealing title (loosely translatable as "hunger for air"). 

Because of the themes it deals with (a desolate father running away with a disabled child who is growing into a man, the poverty of those who have a job and because of that are not supported by the state, the drama of the daily challenges that families on the brink have to face) one can't not like the book. 

Yet, it also reads as excessively melodramatic (or perhaps excessively influenced by the well-meaning values of the Italian petit-bourgeoisie) to really leave a mark on me, or go beyond being the kind of book that one has to read every now and again. 

The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen

 

I read this book because, well, it's Franzen and I've read every other Franzen novel (I believe - I know I could check on Wikipedia, but I can't be bothered at the moment). 

Despite the low expectations, I enjoyed this book "enough". That said, I was a bit at odds with the scheming police officer's background. Indian people have got a little less than zero visibility in North-American literature as as I know, and in here Jammu essentially comes across as the Palpatine of St Louis. On the other hand, Franzen does look at one individual and the influence she has on "her people" (both in terms of those around her in general, and the Indian community in the city) and does not seem to make (too many) harsh generalizations. 

The book packs in a lot. As is the case at times with Franzen, it probably packs in too much. And by the time the final pages come, the novel and its author definitely jump the shark. 

Silverview - John le Carrè

 

Only picked up this book because of the dearth of remotely readable titles in the Southwark e-library, but I really didn't feel the need for a half-finished le Carrè novel that had been left behind until after his death. 

I do understand that le Carrè had four children and they might have to find a way to live off their father's royalties, but I was assuming they would have enough of the money coming in from his 454078 bestsellers and respective movie rights. 

Besides questioning the decision to publish (and edit on behalf of a deceased author) this novel, I must admit that the book is actually OK, and I do enjoy the late le Carrè's faith in the - often excessively idealistic - younger generations. Yet, I felt that Agent Running in the Field or A Legacy of Spies would have been much more fitting final novels for one of Britain's greatest authors of the last century or so. 

I Titoli di Coda di una Vita Insieme - Diego De Silva

 

A book that I only got because I was out of ideas, it was on the landing page of my library's e-library, the title was catchy (it roughly translates as "the closing credits of a life together") and the picture on the cover was nice. 

All very valid reasons when picking an unchallenging read, and unchallenging it was. Too unchallenging actually. 

Noah Baumbach couldn't make separations fully interesting in A Marriage Story, and so it's rather unsurprising that a minor Italian author didn't manage either. Yet, I really could have done without the male protagonist's return to his only summer home with all its sappy poetry. And I do realize this is a male author, but damn this separation feels oh so very one-sided, and it really looks as if De Silva went out of his way to make the reader side with the husband. 

Trust - Hernan Diaz

I probably should stop reading novels just because they won a prize, though in this case Trust had won the Pulitzer, not a random local award handed out in the courtyard of a primary school!

What the novel doesn't lack is ambition, as it tackles the Great Depression from the perspective of four people deeply connected to the events and - each in their own way - rather influential in shaping the experiences and perceptions of their fictional contemporaries. 

What it lacks, however, is something truly gripping. The conflicts - open or tacit - between the various forces and characters often feel petty, and the final chapter, with tokenistic surprise element, is rather uninspiring and doesn't leave the reader (or at least it didn't leave me!) with any particular desire to find an answer to the last unanswered questions of the novel. 

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks

I must admit I had heard of the book, and assumed it was a semi-humorous novel (in my defence, I suspect I wasn't the only one) and not a series of case-studies, narrated with remarkable tact, covering the stories of a number of psychiatric patients. 

This book ended up being a very "informative" read, if one can label it as such, despite really not being what I had initially envisaged. The loss - of control, of inhibitions, and often of self - of the people described in the chapters is absolutely terrifying and has remained with me for quite some time. 

Yet, like a lot of other people, I suspect. This book (un)covers aspects of human life and illnesses that I find so disturbing that I would almost prefer not to think about them (not something that I am proud of, but something that I still need to acknowledge). 

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

Not really a book I would have ever picked, but hey, we went to a wedding in Corfu and the reception was held in the location that had been used to film the TV series about the Durrells, so why not...

I do understand that lazy days on the Mediterranean and expat family life can be very appealing to certain readers, but this really isn't for me. I just didn't have much time for the explorations of local mountains and bushes, or for the poetically stereotypical Greek characters on the island. And the lives of very wealthy and entitled Brits hasn't been interestingly dissected since E.M. Forster. 

Also, for a book of this length and levity, it took me a surprisingly long time to finish it, which really can't be a good sign. 

Day - Michael Cunningham

It had been years since I had read anything by Cunningham and I was very excited to read this book. Too excited, as it turned out. 

I am now honestly wondering if The Hours and A Home at the End of the World were really so ground-breaking, or whether I had simply read them at a time in which gay American literature was a complete unknown to me. 

I found this book to be of a borderline astounding banality (hey, most likely I didn't get its meaning!), but I felt that the pandemic was just used a useful literary tool, the characters were not just unlikeable (which I can live with, we don't always need to love a novel's characters) but also unremarkable. And seriously, when the great idea is interrupting the narrative and only looking at one day in a number of consecutive year, there must be something wrong with your work (I mean, if David Nicholls, with his mass-appeal and lack of pretence, had done it better, you must really go back to the drawing board!). 

Expo 58 - Jonathan Coe

Yet again a novel that was suggested to be by my mother, and one that I didn't find particularly exciting at the time (and, oddly, one that I thought was surprisingly non-comical despite being by Jonathan Coe).

I read it a few months ago, and I already remember very little of its plot (a main character who is torn between his routine British life and the excitement of the Brussels Expo, some relatively low-level spying over ill-thought-out projects, and a fairly predictable love triangle). 

What has stuck with me, though, is the general hopeful mood of the era, at least in Western Europe, and that is really something we could do with these days. 

 

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - David Foster Wallace

 

OK, I felt like at some point I had to read something by David Foster Wallace to understand what the fuss is about. I couldn't start with Infinite Jest because, you know, it's 4 trillion pages. And I couldn't start with The Pale King because it felt wrong to start "from the end". 

Instead what I picked is a book that I had heard about and assumed was going to be a light read. And what a light read it was. Just a series of anecdotes stating the absolute obvious about the world of cruise ships, something that has a little less than zero appeal for me. 

I do understand that most of the material was initial written for Harper's, but I'm quite positive I'd find it all rather underwhelming, trite and, crucially, supposedly funny but really rather banale. Sitting in the dentist's waiting room, I'd pick up an old copy of Grazia over this every day of the week. 

Death in Her Hands - Ottessa Moshfegh

This is another book by Moshfegh that I've recently read. And this one I've actually liked, at the very least for the most part. 

At times it read a bit like Olive Kitteridge minus the humour, at times like The Lovely Bones with a smaller touch of paranormal. In general, it was compelling if not gripping. 

The novel is a nice exploration of solitude and ageing, but also of some people's innate yearning for adventure and thrills. Yet, by the end of it, the unreliability of the narrator made the novel unravel a bit too much for my (complete) liking. 

Flesh and Blood - Michael Cunningham

I read this book because I couldn't get my hands on Cunningham's latest novel. 

Surprisingly, it didn't make me think of the other Cunningham novels that I had read, but rather of a relatively unsuccessful Eugenides or Franzen book. I do realize that very often Cunningham looks at his characters' family background in order to explore the lives and actions of the younger generations, but this attempt felt particularly botched. 

The most problematic character of all for me was Constantine, whose gradually revealed flaws seem to be sprinkled throughout the book without much planning. All in all, this to me looks like a book that would have loved to be a great American novel but falls considerably short. 

Squeeze Play - Paul Benjamin

A novel that I read only because I was curious to read something by Paul Auster when he was writing under his pen name. After all, I loved Smoke and in it William Hurt's character is Paul Benjamin. On top of that, with time I have grown to like Auster's obsession with baseball. 

I had pretty low expectations of this book, and I'm pleased to see those low expectations were met. A quick enough read. An easy enough read. 

Nothing much beyond that. As far as noirs are concerned, this feels a bit out sync with the canon because it was published in the 1980s, but it's probably of a quality similar to that of hundreds of other novels of the same genres that have been forgotten with time (and if this one is still published somewhere, it's only because Paul Benjamin was Paul Auster). 

La Quarta Versione di Giuda - Dario Ferrari

Despite being utterly fed up with detective stories, I gave this book a try because I liked La Ricreazione E' Finita so much. 

And I have to admit that Ferrari somehow managed to make me enjoy a book that is both about a murder (well, two by the end of it) and religion (there are few things I dislike as much as literary Catholic-bashing, despite being really, really, really far from being a fan of the Catholic Church). 

Perhaps it's his multiple mentions of Sciascia, or perhaps it's the fact that Ferrari's defence of the poor and oppressed doesn't feel tokenistic, but for once I am honestly glad I read an Italian crime novel (despite the fact that the citations from Borges left me rather unmoved). 

The Man in the Red Coat - Julian Barnes

Ok. This one is on me. The other week - short of ideas - I picked the first Julian Barnes book that was available in my Italian e-library. 

I read it was about the life of a doctor (Pozzi) whose portrait had been painted by Sargent and I mistakenly assumed this would be a work of fiction along the lines of Flaubert's Parrot. 

Instead it was a couple of hundred pages of pedantically detailed accounts of the lives of Pozzi, his family, and his circle of posh friends. Even the occasional humorous remarks by Barnes didn't hit the mark with me as I read this book while on auto-pilot, having lost all interest in it after a dozen pages. 

Reminder: maybe don't read reviews beforehand, but at least read a book's synopsis next time...

McGlue - Ottessa Moshfegh

The other day I thought of the student who many years ago gave me My Year of Rest and Relaxation and decided to read the other Moshfegh books I could get my hands on. Obviously, I couldn't find them in my London libraries, so I had to read them in translation (and in doing so I discovered that Moshfegh's translator is a lady I had met years ago at a literary festival). 

McGlue ended up being easily my least favourite novel. Despite being short (it can actually be labelled a novella) it took me a while to finish it, in part because of the rambling nature of the prose (I had as much interest in this fictional alcoholic ramblings as I have in the real ramblings of the local alcoholics on the Thames Path), in part because I really had no interest in discovering whether McGlue killed his friend or not (the exploration of their relationship came in way too late for me to actually care about the murdered). 

And ultimately - sadly - it really didn't matter to me whether McGlue would spend his life in a cell or get executed. Partly, perhaps, because it doesn't matter to him (and that makes the novel a hard sell, at least for me). 

The Wind Knows My Name - Isabel Allende

What's cooler than being cool? Ice cold!

And what's cheaper than trying to write something supposedly moving by brining in children? Adding the Holocaust!

I have long stopped enjoying Isabel Allende novels (actually, I think I only ever really enjoyed Paula), yet I keep on reading them because the Southwark library is so desperately under-stocked. 

And I also read them because they are easy. Yet, this novel is not just the standard "easy" and "sentimental" Allende novel, it's also - as mentioned above - really rather cheap. I hope it's not actually the case, but to me it read as if she was exploiting the suffering of fictional (yet fully believable) children across centuries to sell a few copies and make a few readers feel like they've read something deep about the tragedies of contemporary society. 

Elizabeth Finch - Julian Barnes

In a desperate effort to read recent books, I borrow the latest novel by Julian Barnes. 

At first I thought it was a notion-filled hodgepodge of notes that Barnes had lying around and decided to put together in a book (similar to how I felt about Paul Auster's Baugmartner). 

By the end I actually found it a pathetic novel, somehow obsessed with the legacy of Julian the Apostate yet not even coming remotely close to the level of Gore Vidal's Julian (which - despite a literary review spanning centuries and including pretty much anyone who ever thought of Julian - is briefly hinted at and then completely overlooked). 

On the plus side, I finished it in a day (though it's a day-worth of reading that I won't get back). 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan

A book that one of my favourite students got for me (and damn, I like that so much more than a bottle of wine!) as he came to visit me on his way to Antarctica. 

I suspect the construction of the Burma Railway is something that most Australians are at least reasonably familiar with, but for an Italian it remains something shrouded in a bit of mystery and something I really didn't know much about beyond what The Bridge on the River Kwai left me with (and to think that I'm a historian!). 

Perhaps unusually, I feel that the parts of it that will stay with me the longest will not be the ones set in Burma, but rather the final chapters covering the lives of the survivors and the lasting impact of the war. I can’t quite figure out why (perhaps because war and its atrocities are way more often covered in works of fiction than the long-term personal implications of conflict?), but it’s quite similar to how I felt about watching The Best Years of Our Lives (which I was mind-blown by).

Yet, despite liking the book and having finished it months ago, it is still resting on my bedside table - proof of the fact that perhaps I should consider getting a bigger bookshelf, as I can't quite figure out what book to remove to make space for this one. 

Castelli di Rabbia - Alessandro Baricco

 

Baricco is an author that I find fairly constantly good, rarely outstanding, and sometimes just overambitious. Castelli di Rabbia is one of those books that make me err towards overambitious (and possibly, dare I say it, overrated). 

An Italian attempt at magical realism involving - among other things - trains doesn't exactly attract me. If One Hundred Years of Solitude has lost its charm for me, it's not like a more contemporary attempt at creating a similar mystique will make me like a book. 

And while some of the anecdotes and subplots might be a pleasant enough read, the most they achieved was making me want to look into the actual history of some of those events (like the construction of the Crystal Palace in London) a bit more in depth, but very little more. 

Something to Tell You - Hanif Kureishi

 

Like most of Kureishi's books, this was a pleasant read, in particular as it felt like an indirect reflection on his pretty unique life and relationships. 

Yet, the autobiographical and self-referential tones are also one of the book's main weaknesses, as I read it shortly after reading his short-story collection Midnight All Day, which already contained a number of the stories and plotlines developed in this book. 

All in all, though, this was one of the best recent works by Kureishi that I read as it gave me a sense of peace for characters - and authors - finally being at peace with themselves and with their own idiosyncrasies. 

L'Eta' Fragile - Donatella Di Pietrantonio

 

One of my customary attempts to read books shortlisted for Italy's most famous literary award. 

And one of my customary underwhelmed reactions. Obviously, we need to talk about women and the challenges they face, and how often they can mirror the trauma experienced by previous generations, but I really did struggle with the eternal bleakness of this book. 

This is a novel in which (some) women show resilience and independence, and (some) women protect other women, whereas the few men who appear are at best menacing and behind the times and, at worst, openly dangerous. Luckily there is also one stereotypical knight in shining armour who will allow one of the characters to have a moment of peace before, rather predictably, disappearing from the scene and from her life (while still maintaining a Darth Vader-esque presence in the air). Needless to say, I found that the characterization of men (and women too!) in this book left a lot to be desired. 

Fiore di Roccia - Ilaria Tuti

 

One of the recent Italian books that my mom said I could "maybe" look at. 

On the one hand, this is surely a commendable effort, in particular because of its depiction of some key contributors (the women who carried supplies up to the front) to the Italian war effort during World War I. From that point of view, it reminded me of the similarly commendable Italiana by Catozzella. 

Beyond that, though, I struggled with the heroic tones of the novel (I suspect to a large extent used to mimic the rhetoric of the time) and the sentimentality of it (despite the fact that some reviewer praised the author for supposedly not giving in to sentimentality?) is something that really has no appeal for me. 

The Pilgrimage - Paulo Coelho

OK, I've only read this book because I intend to walk the Camino de Santiago this summer, and I felt like I needed to read the book that made it ever so popular among many (already outdated) new age Italian readers in the 1990s. 

I was expecting it to be bad, but damn, not this bad!

In my mind, it would offer at least some sort of inspiration (and valuable information) for someone wanting to walk the Camino, but I found more useful information in random blog posts by improbable pilgrims. 

And the search for spirituality really grows old and uninspiring from the book's jacket onwards. 

If anything, this book could have put me off from my summer walking plans, but hey, tickets are booked already...

Anna - Niccolò Ammaniti

 

Every now and again, Ammaniti writes a good book. Most of the times though, as my high-school teachers would say, his remains a story of "unfulfilled potential". A promising start with some fairly pleasant pulp novels, flirting with very-good literature with Ti Prendo e Ti Porto Via, actual (inter)national recognition with Io Non Ho Paura and the subsequent movie (a blessing and a curse) and then so many "meh" books. 

Anna is, at the very best, another "meh" book. The dystopian race to the sea and the search for what's "on the other side" is old and stale. This is not The Road, but not even the Italian L'Uomo Verticale. This is actually just a cheap shot, trying to sell a few more copies by looking at children and their resourcefulness (and savagery) when adults are not around (and since we're at it, this book isn't Lord of the Flies either, needless to say...). 

The only redeeming feature of the book is that, at the very least, it was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that at least the mysterious virus that kills all adults but spares children can be credited with some originality. 

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt

 

It took me about a month to read this book. In part because of its fairly imposing size, but mostly because the book is full of snakes. Literally to the brim. And if my phobic self had realized that before the start, I wouldn't have even started this novel...

Yet, I enjoyed it more than The Goldfinch. It's a bit of a 21st century Stand By Me with a hint of To Kill a Mockingbird, detailing the stories that children tell themselves to explain events around them, the risks that they obliviously run and their first experiences of love or something resembling that. 

Needless to say, though, it's not exactly the kind of novel that makes me want to visit rural Mississippi anytime soon, and not just (though mostly) because of the snakes. 

Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto

 

This is a book that I remember buying with my dad as a Christmas gift for my mom when I was a little kid. Back then, Banana Yoshimoto was becoming a literary sensation in Italy, then I forgot about her existence until a friend mentioned her a couple of weeks ago. 

Kitchen has largely stood the test of time, in particular as a result of the frank way in which it talks about loss, and the presence of the transgender Eriko Tanabe and the people who gravitate around her world. 

In many instances I was even willing to "forgive" the book's sentimental passages, but I really didn't feel the need for the ending with its melodramatic night taxi ride to deliver a portion of katsudon. 

Anxious People - Frederik Backman

 

This is the second Scandinavian humorous novel revolving around suicide and loneliness that I've read. 

I'm willing to believe that the theme can be given a humorous twist, but I'm not willing to concede that this particular novel is funny (or maybe I just don't get Scandinavian pseudo-dark humour), or deep (it is the sort of novel that might satisfy an urge for people who want to feel that "life is beautiful after all" and watch the Netflix series afterwards). 

Even in this case, the long series of very short chapters might work for the busy people who read a book in 5-minute instalments while sipping on a flat-white, but not for snobs who consider themselves semi-serious readers (like me...). 

Also, my mom doesn't quite hit all her book recommendations. In particular when she starts them with "I haven't read it, but the critics are saying...". Don't trust the critics!

Questa Non E' Una Canzone d'Amore - Alessandro Robecchi

 

I have a brilliant idea: why doesn't someone write a crime novel? Maybe with a caustically ironic main character, throwing in a bit of police incompetence, with a hint of political subterfuge to add to the mix. 

Yes, what a novel idea. Which is exactly what Robecchi must have thought (and, sadly, exactly what editors and readers alike have thought, given the number of sequels that this book has spurred). 

The author appears to be in love with himself, his own sense of humour, and his imaginative metaphors. Much like most authors of books entirely made up of 4-page chapters. Too bad I don't even begin to consider them remotely and/or potentially serious or respectable. 

Baugmartner - Paul Auster

 

And thus one of my favourite authors got a book published just by virtue of being Paul Auster. 

This book has no redeeming features. It is a series of short(ish) chapters in the life of the titular character as he grows old. A lot of them look like they were put together haphazardly, and Auster most likely recycled bits and pieces of some of his previous unpublished work to put together the underwhelming story of an ageing academic. 

Auster can only be forgiven because of the tough times he's going through, but I doubt an up-and-coming writer would have been able to publish a book of this (low) calibre. 

Scheletri - Zerocalcare

 

I've read a few books by Zerocalcare, but somehow never wrote about them here (stigma against comic books, even for someone who has read a lot of them?). 

Of all the ones that I've read, this was probably the one I found most interesting (not necessarily the best, but the most interesting). It does have - as usual - its fair share of deep moments (in particular reflections in terms of what we know and what we do not know about the people around us) and light-hearted ones. 

More than anything, though, I would have liked to see something more of Secco and understand better why he is at times critical of Zerocalcare and his success (and, implicitly, his inability to deal with children, like most childless 30-something men). 

Killing Commendatore - Haruki Murakami

 

I'm not about to become a Murakami fan. Not even close. But with a dwindling supply of readable books from the Southwark e-library I found myself picking this 700-page novel that at times seems to struggle to find its own purpose. 

Yet, for a good 500 pages, I found this to be my favourite Murakami book so far (which, admittedly, is not saying much). Then it really jumped the shark, or - literally - it went down a delirious imaginary (rabbit?) hole for 150 pages before a couple of final chapters that try to provide a semi-coherent end to this story. 

Not really a great read, but to be completely frank my expectations were so low that for large sections it managed to exceed them. 

Murder Before Evensong - Richard Coles

 

Well, I guess that if I must read a run-of-the-mill crime novel every now and again (and whether I like it or not, every now and again I do have to do that...), I might as well read something by an author that I find to be at least an interesting person.

Murder Before Evensong is a well-mannered novel by someone who comes across as a well-mannered clergyman and decades ago came across as a well-mannered pop musician. It's not going to rock anyone's world, but at the very least it did not upset me as much as John Banville's crime stories mixing rural life, religion and aristocracy. 

Also, obviously, being Richard Coles, his treatment of marginalized groups (being them queer or gypsies) is really rather delicate. And the novel has enough references to pop culture to be palatable for me.