Italian Books

'Our chimeras are those that most resemble us' (Victor Hugo).

Wonderful and cruel territories, of distant worlds and of the human soul, explored through the actions and doubts of multifaceted characters, both determined and fragile, both fantastic and dramatically real. Is love salvation or damnation, when does it come to bear its extreme moral consequences?

What can you do if you can sacrifice the power of your freedom and liberty? What happens when he sees the loss come back to his senses and his fear? Is it worse than rancor? If it can be configured incorrectly?

The question I ask about is the story of Chimerica: the story of warriors, of magic, of ancient orders, of demons and dragons, of the story of vile gains and noble revenge, of the intrigue of dynastic intrigues carried out without scruples, along the border between peace and destruction, on the field where courage and horror caught in the heat of battle are measured

Thriller

'Oaks Don't Make Lemons' is an epic, intimate, and choral novel spanning fifty years of Italian history, from World War II to the Years of Lead. A story of the Resistance, of passions, of families torn apart and mended, of struggles that leave scars, but also of the strength to stand firm. The protagonist is Delia, a former partisan, an unforgettable woman who faces war, love, and loss by building - stone by stone, voice by voice - a real and symbolic place: Cantuccio, a concrete and ideal refuge, a space for sharing, hope, and memory.

Around her and after her move Irma, Mauro, Angela, Carlo, Sandro, Lettèria, Gigione, and many others, vivid characters who intertwine in a narrative woven like a tapestry of voices, dialects, scars, and dreams. Set between Florence and Campi Bisenzio, 'Oaks Don't Make Lemons' embodies History with a capital 'H' - the torture at Villa Triste, the Liberation, the Piazza Fontana massacre, the contradictions of the extra-parliamentary left - but filters it through everyday gestures, silences, pots on the stove, unspoken words.

Each page is imbued with a living language that alternates lyricism and popular speech, a language that sings, cries, resists. It is a novel about legacy - political, emotional, ideological. About the way memory passes, hides, reveals itself. And about the courage not to be overwhelmed by the past, but to understand it in order to move forward.

'Oaks Don't Make Lemons' is a historical novel, yes. But it is also a novel of existence, a novel that questions what it means to resist: injustice, disenchantment, pain, time. And she does so with a writing style that's both cultured and full of humanity, embracing each character as if they were a true story, to be protected. Because a happy life means having fought

Because behind every woman lies a universe shattered and reassembled. A secret story, a silent battle, a light that refuses to dim. And perhaps, ultimately, our greatest victory is precisely this: to continue to shine, even when the world seems designed to extinguish us

'You like it darker? Fine, so do I', writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life - both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel 'the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind', and in You Like it Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

'Two Talented Bastids' explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In 'Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream', a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny's most catastrophically. In 'Rattlesnakes', a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance - with major strings attached. In 'The Dreamers', a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. 'The Answer Man' asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful

Plague opens the Iliad, the first work of Western literature, and from then on it has been a ubiquitous theme. The reasons are many, but they all boil down to the fact that plague is frightening, and fear fascinates. It generates terror because it is a disease against which for millennia there was no defense, arriving suddenly and each time claiming many victims in a short time; but plague is also frightening because it brings with it famine, poverty, and overwhelms institutions, so that the fear of death by plague is compounded by the fear of death by starvation and a violent death. The reactions of governments and populations to epidemics have always been the same: isolation, panic, disbelief, institutional distrust. Observing these reactions reveals to us that societies always stand on a precarious balance and are much more fragile than we might imagine

Thriller

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed 'The Lost Village,' since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother's entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left - a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn - have plagued her. She's gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

But there will be no turning back.

Not long after they've set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:

They are not alone.

They're looking for the truth...
But what if it finds them first?

My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists

The Stolen Masterpiece is a gripping spy story that explores the dark side of the art world, including unscrupulous dealers, greedy traffickers, and unscrupulous financiers.

Gabriel Allon has just begun restoring a precious Titian in Venice when he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the lagoon... and finds himself caught in a desperate race to recover a lost masterpiece that may be by none other than Leonardo da Vinci. The painting, a portrait of a beautiful young woman mistakenly attributed to an unknown artist and hidden beneath an insignificant canvas, had been in storage at the Vatican Museums for over a century, and when it disappeared one night during a strange power outage, no one noticed.

The only ones who know are the ruthless mafiosi and financiers who commissioned the theft... and the mysterious woman who died in Venice. A woman without a name. A woman without a face. Called upon to solve this seemingly perfect crime, Gabriel Allon follows the trail of the stolen painting in a breathless race that takes him from the art galleries and auction houses of London to an enclave of unimaginable wealth on the French Riviera, culminating in a shocking crescendo in St. Peter's Square, where a pope hangs in the balance between life and death