TOto dig behind and around great visionaries such as Stanley Kubrick or Pierpaolo Pasolini. Discovering European thinkers too often overlooked. But also keep your breath away with two thrilling thrillers like “Where the wolf hides” and “The evil that men do”. Here are 8 handpicked books to enjoy in November and December 2022.
the books to read in November 2022
“Where the wolf hides” by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
The Shusters emigrated from Palestine to the United States to raise their son Adam away from the war. They live in Palo Alto, where the wind of anti-Semitism does not seem to blow and life flows smoothly. But when Adam turns 16, the American dream cracks: a terrorist breaks into the synagogue and kills a girl, someone proposes to teenagers from the Jewish community to attend the self-defense course, held by a mysterious character, Uri Zvi, who has ties with Michael Shuster’s past. A short time later Jamal, an African American boy follower of the Nation of Islam, dies during a party for having ingested “domestic” methamphetamine, perhaps packaged by the silent Adam … Doubt creeps into the mind of his mother Lilach and is the engine of a thriller psychology of great power. (LB)
Where the wolf hides by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Neri Pozza, 304 pages, 19 €
“Four Hens” by Jackie Polzin
Was the chicken or the egg born first? Jackye Polzin seems to want to answer this question with a hilarious and profound book at the same time. She tells about a house, its owners and their chickens. But this becomes the pretext to talk about all of us, about the memories we keep and lose, about our continuous struggle against loneliness, the difficulty of communicating – and the beauty of sometimes being able to do so – of motherhood at the beginning of the 11th century, the need to take care of others. Thus, the most derided bird in the world becomes the activator of a universe full of emotions. Style captures lightly, to make you look at what is, what is missing, and make you wonder where you want to be. (GC)
Four hens by Jackie Polzin, Einaudi, 200 pages, € 17
“The evil that men do” by Sandrone Dazieri
Masterful plot and plot for Dazieri’s new thriller. The story takes root thirty years ago, when Itala Caruso, a somewhat corrupt policewoman, nicknamed the Queen, is tasked with finding evidence to accuse a man, called the Persian, of the murders of three girls. But the real killer is still around and acting undisturbed after years. The sixteen-year-old Amala Cavalcante, her aunt Francesca had been, without success, the defense lawyer of Persico, pays the price. A relentless counter-offensive begins, thanks also to Gershom Peretz, known as Gerry, who calls himself an Israeli tourist but is much more. The rhythm leaves the reader breathless, adding the ability to enter the minds of human beings and create unforgettable characters. An announced success. (Giulia Calligaro)
The evil that men do by Sandrone Dazieri, Harper Collins, 544 pages, € 20
“Kubrick’s cube” by Giancarlo Grossini
Indulge a critic’s obsession. Reasoning on the attraction that drives you to see and review A Clockwork Orange. Not the author’s favorite film, but the unavoidable one. This stimulates him to think about the film that Stanley Kubrick made in 1971, a cube with changing faces, which tells “the very simple story of a villain named Alex, determined not to change his evil nature”. Between fairy tale and psychoanalysis, play (the repertoire of recurring elements), serious analysis of the shots and incredible cross-references (Aldo Fabrizi, Boy George), a benevolently self-inflicted Ludovico Cura. (Paola Piacenza)
Kubrick’s cube by Giancarlo Grossini, Bietti, 106 pages, € 4.99
“My Parents / All This Doesn’t Belong to You” by Aleksandar Hemon
The fulcrum of this double memoir is the point of no return in the life of the Hemon family: the end of Yugoslavia, the siege of Sarajevo. Aleksandar, in 1992, was blocked by the war in the US and chose to write in English. The father and mother moved to Canada in 1993 and added a chapter to the family history of migration. The book narrates the years of the Tito dream, the social ascent of the Hemon, from the perspective of adults who have reconstructed a living space elsewhere and from his as a child. And the fairytale tone of the tales gives the story a universal value. (LB)
My parents / All this does not belong to you by Aleksandar Hemon, Crocetti Editore, 400 pages, 20 €
“Via Polara n. 5 ”by Nicola Schicchi
An ironic and refined pen opens the door to a house of other times, corridors and dark furniture, the large table around which the family, children, sons, brothers-in-law, cronies and grandchildren sit down for gargantuan bullies. All marked by the paralyzing silence of the great head of the house and lineage, Commendator Giorgio Mandalà, magistrate and beast of the defense lawyers, of the Arbëreshë ethnicity, the eastern community that populates one side of Sicily. From the 1920s to the 1950s, grim aunts, veterans of the Albanian countryside recycled into politics, miserable tailors, unspiritual papas, tragic and comic characters move on the stage of Via Polara 5. Each rightfully protagonist of his space in this original family memoir. (MLG)
Via Polara n. 5 by Nicola Schicchi, Sellerio, 351 pages, € 15
“Corpo Mente” by S. Plastina and EM De Tommaso
“The greatest philosopher of all time may not be born yet, of course! But he could also be among those we have forgotten or reduced to silence, which implies that he could also be a philosopher »write the two professors of the University of Calabria. Yes, but what happened to women in the history of philosophy? If much is known about Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir, the names of many are often unknown, or ignored. The authors have collected the contributions of the many thinkers who have developed often disruptive thoughts towards the classical problems of Western philosophy. Starting with Christine de Pizan (1365-1430) who identifies the inequality of education as the cause of gender inequality. (Sabina Pignataro)
Body Mind of S. Plastina and EM De Tommaso, Encyclopedia of women, 400 pages, 18 €
“Pasolini. The body of the city ”by Gianni Biondillo
An author’s essay on Pasolini’s footsteps, in search, with him, of a place to call home and a language to express an unconformed truth. Biondillo gives his architect’s gaze and retraces the steps of the Casarsa poet, from the Friuli of his desperate youthful vitality, to suburban Rome still fertile to the innocence and natural instinct of the “children of life”, up to places not contaminated by homologation of the Third and Fourth World. Pages that immerse themselves in Pasolini’s words, return his desperation and anger, approaching with the sensitivity of the artist, through the soul, to what we too often take for known about him, not really knowing it. (GC)
Pasolini. The body of the city by Gianni Biondillo, Guanda, 192 pages, € 15
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Books to read in November and December 2022, the news – iO Donna