The Overcoat and the Nose by Nikolaj Gogol

How could I not read Gogol for so long? How, how, how?

Dostoevskij said "We are all born under Gogol's overcoat", and after reading him I can fully understand what he meant. Most of the writers were inspired by him, by his sarcasm, by his talking to the reader.
Maybe in this sense it was good I read him "later", so I could still appreciate the writers he inspired.

The strong idea of reading Gogol came after watching a great movie: The Namesake, adapted from a great book by Jhumpa Lahiri, in which the main character is called Gogol after the writer, for a circumstance that you should discover by reading the book or watching the movie. So after that I had a strong desire to read Gogol and understand why there was such a feeling toward this writer.

The writing is so sharp and somehow funny, a must read in everyone life!

Maus by Art Spiegelman

I finished this book weeks ago, but I was not ready to write a review. The punch in my stomach was still strong and bleeding; a book that you can only pretend to not have read to maybe try to forget it.
But let's start from the beginning. Maus (the German for "mouse") is a graphic novel, the main characters are indeed Mice and Cats, in an eternal fight for survival.
But soon you would forget about the identity of the characters and you will just be left with the "ass-holes vs innocent fight". That the book is about the Holocaust you will need just few pages to understand. The book is  actually a memoir of Vladek Spiegelman, the father of Art, a survivor of Auschwitz
You think it has been said already everything about it? Well, I personally never get tired of reading of such an absurd and WRONG period of our times, but, in general, this book will still tell you something you haven't found elsewhere.

The graphic makes the words stronger and more incisive, and the narrative will just tell you things without any filter. No imagination, no suggestions here are possible.The truth, nude and crude as it is.

I think this book is important for the new generations, that won't have the direct narrative from fathers and grandfathers, and that won't probably have that curiosity to understand a period too far from them. This is a good way to give the message and to keep the memory up for one of the worst and tragic period of our history.

The melancholy death of Oyster boy & other stories by Tim Burton

It happens like this, you fish through second hand books and one of them just pop out silently screaming to be bought. That's what happened here.

You go back home and read aloud what I like to define "bed stories for adults".
The stories are all so sweet and funny at the beginning, all in rhyme, which gives them a happy touch, then the laugh would immediately stop in your throat to give space to deep sorrow.




Creepy, creepy, creepy, but so addicting!!! A little treasure!

I will miss you Oyster Boy...

Stoner by John Williams

I would like to tell you something it was not already said about this book.Well, you will find all about the fact that it is a book where nothing happens, the simple story of a man who slowly become a professor. The average story of a man that lives his life without too many emotions and shaking events, but that for an unknown reason you would still love this book and would not be able to close it.
Hold on a second...Really? No 'cause I think in this books there are lots of things happening: there is a man that changes his designed destiny of farmer first and agrarian then by simply listening to a class on literature. I saw a man that fishes for love and even if he has been really unlucky, and yes, also at time very lazy, still accepts happiness when it crosses his way.
Many describe Stoner as a "stone", listless, indifferent, apathetic, a man that accepts everything that happens in his life without fighting. I saw, instead, a man that just saves energies for things he likes, that understood which are the flights worth fighting for, that looks for answers in his books rather than in people, that is able of very strong lasting feelings. Yes, mostly an unhappy, melancholic man, but able to find delight in small things.
A slow, introspective book for misanthropic minds.

           "The True, the Good, and the Beautiful. They’re just around the corner, in the next corridor; they’re in the next book, the one you haven’t read or in the next stack, the one you haven’t got to. But you’ll get there someday. And when you do—when you do"

P.S. It was years I wanted to read this book and finally I got it gifted from a person in a reading group on Anobii (btw feel free to add me here). A person that I don't know in the real life but that got the right book for me. I love the connection that can be created through books.

Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler

The first book read in this 2015 and I think my year couldn't have started better on the reading side. Thanks mum for this precious book! But let's start from the beginning (or at least let's try)...

This is the story of Barney Panofsky, or better, his autobiography. Did you say autobiography? But the author has a different name! Yes, you are right, this is indeed a story in a story. Some say that Barney is the alter ego of Richler, but the author has never confirmed this theory. So here starts already the brilliancy of the book!

The book is structured in three parts, one for each wife of Barney: Clara, the artistic wife; the second Panofsky's wife, whose name will never be declared; and Miriam, the only true love of Barney.
Between a glass of whisky and one of cognac Barney would try to describe his life in chronological order, but the intent is very soon lost with the many digressions and memories that are brought continuously in the book.
After few pages it would be already clear that Barney is selfish, drunken, misogynist, chauvinist, social climber and more...
But still I could not avoid to love him (and neither would you) and to want to have a whisky with him, talking about love and life.
Yes love, not the right person to discuss with, you say? Oh well, how to tell that you are wrong: his first wife killed herself in depression and he doesn't even dare to give the identity of his second wife, but Miriam, oh Miriam, I want to be loved as she was (and I am by the way). Barney is simply drunk in love, and yes also of lots of alcohol, and this part in the love matter would obviously create him a lot of problems.
The leitmotif of the book is the presumable killing of his best friend Boogie. The first intent of the book is indeed to defend himself for the murder accuse. Between digressions and memories Barney will eventually give his version of the fact. Will the society believe him? And would you?  The reading will tell...and trust me you will laugh, a lot, but don't get surprised if all of a sudden you would just like to cry.

Thanks Richler, I really needed this!

I read a lot of crazy, brilliant reviews on this book, and please do as well.
Next on the list is to watch the movie, I might get highly disappointed, but I want to take the risk.

Sorry for this confusing, crazy review, but I wouldn't know how to describe better this book.

I would suggest to read the book with this soundtrack , from an Italian musician, who recently passed away.

At the next book...

Post-Christmas' collection

How many books did you get for Xmas? Here is my collection: books I received, bought, brought back to read again and stole from my mum.

One I have still to open, some I got in a "secret box". Not bad!

In the hope that they would bring a bit of happiness in this 2015 that definitely started on the wrong foot.

Pen not guns!!!

"The response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation."

The Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg