LE NOZZE DI GALIA, DI FRONTE AI BOSCHI, Abraham B. Yehoshua (1960,'63)

• Country:  ISRAEL
• Original Title: כל הסיפורים (KOL HASIPURIM)
• Italian publisher:  IL SOLE 24 ORE S.p.A.
• Publication dates: 1960, 1963, 1st ITALIAN ED. 1999 [ED. IL SOLE 24 ORE 2011]
• Pages: 79
• Translation:  ALESSANDRO GUETTA
• ISBN #:  9-771973-564394-1010

• Main carachter: GALIA

- Two short stories to start entering the kibbutz life and everyday Israel world.
- Di Fronte ai Boschi is a beautiful story of a forest ranger that is not a real forest ranger but an eternal studious in search of the silence of the wood, and then waiting for a fire that actually may never come. Introspective.

ALLA BAIA E ALTRI RACCONTI, Katherine Mansfield (1922)

• Country:  USA
• Original Title: THE GARDEN PARTY AND OTHER STORIES
• Italian publisher:  IL SOLE 24 ORE S.p.A.
• Publication dates: 1922 [1st ITALIAN ED. 1978]
• Pages: 79
• Translation:  FLORIANA BOSSI
• ISBN #:  9-771973-564394-1009

• Main carachter: BURNELL

- Smell of austral lands...

IL SOTTOTENENTE GUSTL, Arthur Schnitzler (1901)

• Country:  AUSTRIA
• Original Title: LEUTNANT GUSTL
• Italian publisher:  IL SOLE 24 ORE S.p.A.
• Publication dates: 1901, 1st ITALIAN ED. 1984 [ED. IL SOLE 24 ORE 2011]
• Pages: 58
• Translation:  GIUSEPPE FARESE
• ISBN #:  9-771973-564394-1008

• Main carachter: SOTTOTENENTE GUSTL

- Funny and fast reading, up to page 27...
- So crazy, tragicomic Gustl, looks like a friend of mine...

SOTTO IL CRINALE E ALTRI RACCONTI, Ernest Hemingway (1972)

• Country:  USA
• Original Title: THE FIFTH COLUMN AND FOUR STORIES OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
• Italian publisher:  IL SOLE 24 ORE S.p.A.
• Publication dates: 1972 [1st ITALIAN ED. MAY '11]
• Pages: 103
• Translation:  VINCENZO MANTOVANI
• ISBN #:  9-771973-564394

• Main carachter: HENRY, IL PELATO

- I liked this 4-stories collection that I red in 2 hours.
- Very sad the last one, Sotto il crinale, but so true facing the desertion issue during the Spanish civil war. So cruel thinking to leave those moments, in which you as a soldier are pretty sure to going to die but you cannot go back, or you will killed anyway by yours.
- Hemingway writes in such a way that it would be hard to say that he was not there.

NEW YORK, THE NOVEL, Edward Rutherfurd (2010)

• Country:  USA
• Publisher:  BALLANTINE BOOKS
• Publication date: 2010
• Pages: 863
• ISBN #:  978-0-345-49742-0

• Main carachters: PALE FEATHER, MASTER

- Contents veeeery interesting, but I found the book a bit too long.

- I enjoyed the first part, but I was anxious of reach the end, Twin Towers chapter.

IL PICCOLO PRINCIPE, Antoine De Saint-Exupéry (1943)

• Country:  USA
• Original Title: LE PETIT PRINCE
• Italian publisher: BOMPIANI
• Publication dates: 1943 [66th ITALIAN ED. SEPT. '09]
• Pages: 125
• Translation:  NINI BOMPIANI REGOLI
• Illustrator: ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY
• ISBN #:  978-88-452-4741-5

• Main carachter: LE PETIT PRINCE
  

- Finally, I did it. At 34 years old I read this book.
- What does really intrigue me is the author's life, an adventure, started in an aristocratic family and ended tragically with a flight accident. IF it ended like that because his aeroplane just disappeared and it has been never found. He maybe left the planet Earth and head to another planet...?
- It is a little simple (?) story that can be read in 5 minutes with lightness, but it may be also read carefully giving an interpretation to every single sentence.
- The author wrote the novella in New York. Was the original language English or French?...
- The Prince, he's not that nice when he does not reply to questions!..on the contrary he always wants an answer!

IL SENO, Philip Roth (1972)

• Country:  USA
• Original Title: THE BREAST
• Italian publisher:  IL SOLE 24 ORE S.p.A.
• Publication dates: 1972, 1st ITALIAN ED. MAY '11 [ED. IL SOLE 24 ORE 2011]
• Pages: 76
• Translation:  SILVIA STEFANI
• ISBN #:  9-771973-564394

• Main carachter: DAVID KEPESH

- Last Sunday I got this book with a newspaper, and I red it in a my-wife's-one-day shopping in Milano, trying to find comfortable places to sit between shirts, skirts and shoes.
- The author has a great fantasy. The idea of a man becoming a breast is at least bizarre, but it works. In 76 pages he created an easily reading story, that might have inside many interpretations.
- Going through the reading, I felt the enormous sadness of suddenly being in that state, and the funny & laughable image of this huge breast, that with my mind I tried to put into a real situation..!
- Good example of metamorphosis, I like Roth's writing style.

NON ORA, NON QUI, Erri De Luca (1989)

Erri is the boy on the right, with his mother and little sister Fiorenza

• Country:  ITALIA
• Publisher:  FELTRINELLI EDITORE MILANO
• Publication dates: SEPTEMBER '89 [6th ED. DECEMBER '10]
• Pages: 100
• ISBN #:  978-88-07-01389-8

• Main carachters: The author and his mother

- I should write this post in Italian because the book is Italian and the emotion that it gives too. But I decided to write this blog in English and I am going to continuing doing that.
- I first heard about this writer, now pretty famous and regarded, some month ago, I put his name in my authors' wishlist in the website where I buy literary stuff. Then, a month ago, invited in a TV show, I saw him talking and debating about several issues, such as politics, people, love. I decided to buy one of his novels, and I ordered the first one, which received very positive reviews.
- I started reading. It started slowly in the first pages, but then...some exctract (but I have to put it in Italian):
"[talking about his mother] Io sono seduto, sono voltato al finestrino e tu guardi me. Non mi riconosci. Sono un uomo entrato nella sessantina e tu hai la metà dei miei anni." Gloomy, veeery gloomy.
- The story of an old man who meets his mother in a photo. It is in part autobiographical. 
- Simple, short, intense story, not useless boring paragraphs...I liked it! 

A CONTRACT WITH GOD and other tenement stories

• Format:  ONE-SHOT, FIRST PRINTING
• Publication dates: OCTOBER 1978
• Country: UNITED STATES
• Publisher: BARONET PUBLISHING COMPANY, NEW YORK
• Pages: 196
• ISBN #: 0-89437-035-9

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• Author, Illustrator, Cover Artist:  WILL EISNER
    

• Main carachters: FRIMME HERSH, EDDIE, MISTER SCUGGS, Bennie & GOLDIE

- It is considered (erroneously..?) to be the first graphic novel in comics history.
- Four simple stories, mirror of an American society in the '30s. I like the original sequence of drawings and words, I like the use of every single page.

- Ahahaha...I enjoyed this "Super" Mr Scuggs and the way he leads his tenement and treats its tenants...