Pablo Neruda and the creative bag

When I was little and I had flu, my mum would gift me a surprise bag from the kiosk near my home. It was a little bag with different toys and cards inside, and the "surprise" was you never knew in advance what was inside: I loved to be sick just for that!
Would I ever think that I would get older and get a book surprise bag? No, I didn't! It was a Xmas present from somebody who knows me veeeeryyy well. It is a red shopping bag with: 3 random books, 1 cd, 1 ebook and 1 movie to download. Every bag apparently has a different set of books. I got this red bag and felt already happy, I opened it and felt again like a kid!
Why is this bag even nicer? Coz it is made by people of Scampia -to say it very grossly the Bronx of Naples (have you watched the movie Gomorrah?)- by buying this bag you become  a supporter of a local book shop and book editor. For more infos (sorry in Italian) you can go here:
http://www.ilgazzettinovesuviano.com/2013/12/02/ragazzi-di-scampia-aprono-una-libreria-al-centro-di-napoli/

Among the books in the creative bag there was one about the life of the poet Pablo Neruda in Italy. One of those books I would never have bought myself, but indeed very interesting.
Have you have watched the movie "Il postino" (The postman), well if you didn't...DO, it is one of my favourite movies, with my favourite actor (Massimo Troisi, who died very young) and it also talks about Neruda, who was exiled to a small island in Italy. Actually, after watching the movie you should also visit the island I would say. Well, thanks to this book I discovered Neruda was friend with a lot of "important" people like Picasso, who helped him many times, or  Carlo Levi. I discovered that Italy made a mark on his life and his poetry and that he had a secret lover who inspired most of his love poems. A different reading for sure!

Desnuda eres tan simple como una de tus manos,
lisa, terrestre, mínima, redonda, transparente,
tienes líneas de luna, caminos de manzana,
desnuda eres delgada como el trigo desnudo.

Desnuda eres azul como la noche en Cuba,
tienes enredaderas y estrellas en el pelo,
desnuda eres enorme y amarilla
como el verano en una iglesia de oro.

Desnuda eres pequeña como una de tus uñas,
curva, sutil, rosada hasta que nace el día
y te metes en el subterráneo del mundo

como en un largo túnel de trajes y trabajos:
tu claridad se apaga, se viste, se deshoja
y otra vez vuelve a ser una mano desnuda.

Nude, you're as simple as one of your hands.
Smooth.  Earthy.  Tiny.  Round.  Transparent.
You have lines of the moon, streets of apple.
You're as slim in the nude as the undressed wheat.

Nude, you're blue as the Cuban night is blue.
There are vines and stars in your hair.
You're yellow and enormous, nude,
like summer in a church of gold.

Nude, you're as small as one of your nails,
curved, subtle and rose-colored till the dawn of day,
when you place yourself in the underworld

as in a long tunnel of clothing and work.
Your clarity fades, drops its leaves, and dresses itself,
to turn once more to being just a naked hand.

[Pablo Neruda Sonnet XXVII]

Happy 2014!!!

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions (Joey Adams)

How good was your reading year?

Are you afraid of Monsters?

A little book, a little treasure! I discovered Marjane Satrapi with her masterpiece Persepolis, and I had to read all her books after that. I must say, it is  not quite simple to find her books in book shops, but on internet you find them quite easily. This was a second hand book and it is also more precious coz it has a little note inside for the kid, to whom this book was gifted. It's a little book, you will read it in 10 minutes, but you will probably spend double of the time just to go through the drawings and look at the expressions of the characters in the book.
A little story for kids and still-kid-inside.

Merry Xmas!!!

All I want for Xmas is you!!!!
How many books did you get for Xmas?

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

Julie doesn't like her job (as 50% of people in the world I think).
Julie had only one boyfriend, now her husband, so she didn't live the changing-bf-phase of half of her friends (oh well!).
Julie is basically unhappy with her life (as many people in the world).
So what makes then Julie different from any average unhappy woman in the rest of the world? The BIG difference is that she decided to do something about her unhappiness, to make a change. How many of us do that?
And it is not that she actually managed to cook 524 recipes in 1 year while keeping on with her "normal" life (and we are talking about French cooking by Julia Child!), it is the personal growth that she undertook while cooking, it is the risk she exposed her self to that make the difference; the risk of loosing her job, loosing her husband, loosing her "easy" life.

Even though I took ages (for my standard) to read this book, it is a very nice reading, that every person that undertook, willing to or scared to making a change should read.

"So that night I made my New Year's resolution, better late than never: To Get Over My Damned Self. If I was going to follow Julia down this rabbit hole, I was going to enjoy it, by God-exhaustion, crustacean murder, and all. Because not everybody gets a rabbit hole. I was one lucky bastard, when you came down to it".

If you are interested this is the actual link to Julie blog http://juliepowellbooks.com/blog.html

And here is the trailer of the movie adapted from the book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QviX5vwXMgM with the great Meryl Streep. I must say the movie is very nice, not very usual when coming from a book.

p.s. if you are wondering if this blog is the result of the reading of this book, I wouldn't know what to answer. I don't have an unhappy life and I have already made many changes to make my life better, let's say this book maybe just gave me that last stimulus to start the blog!

...

Once I was nothing more than a kid  I opened this little book full of nice drawings and I started reading it; what I understood was that there was a Little Prince from a little planet telling stories about crazy people.
Then I read it again when I was a bit older and I got a more deep meaning of the little book. Since then I read it regularly, and every time I understand something new.
I buy an edition of the "Little Prince" in every country I visit, people think I am crazy, but what do they know of  the boa constrictor swallowing the whole prey without chewing it? They might be just the one seeing just a hat.

So welcome to the place where you will find a whole elephant swollen by a boa, where you will follow a white rabbit down a hole just to discover where he might go. This might become the place where you will start reading while walking on a street full of people, the place where you might arrive late at work to finish the chapter of the book you are reading, the place where a tea (better if green) and a good book will be your friends.

Welcome all and one, but mostly a big welcome to me!