This Is What a Librarian Looks Like A Celebration of Libraries, Communities, and Access to Information by Kyle Cassidy

This Is What a Librarian Looks Like A Celebration of Libraries, Communities, and Access to Information by Kyle Cassidy will be published by Hachette Books on May 16th.

This book is plenty of faces and words of librarians from the East to the West Coast of the USA. A real big thanks and a tribute to all the Librarians and their special work in the USA and what it means to them to be librarians.

The project by Kyle Cassidy at first was a series of pictures put together of various librarians from Massachusetts to California, for remarking their immense and important work.

Later the idea of writing a book about this topic.

I would have been lost without the library of  my city, Gubbio. I am italian.
I still remember the first time I visited that.
It was a tiny, tiny little library at that time.
Situated in a very central street I asked for some information about Marie Antoinette and French Revolution.
To me that library meant the complete discovery of culture.

Every book I bought in my life has meant sacrifice because books were not considered so much important in our house, and money necessary for a living.
I have always felt a great attraction for them but so: what to do?
When I started high school I sorted out all my problems and that library and my librarians Ottavio, Ivana, Gioia, Massimo Nicoletta my best allies.

I read and researched, being avidly curious of all the possible knowledge of this world.

Libraries are places of discoveries I learned with the time.
I still remember when with my schoolmates we rushed at the library for trying to discover the italian translation of the latest chapter read at school of The Dubliners written by James Joyce...We were 14, personally at my first year of english and well yes our english teacher introduced to us all the book of The Dubliners. Yes edited for school but trust me, for people with a very good english not for beginners! A language is like to climb a mountain and it is a never-ending work.
I will always have some existential problems I'm afraid with James Joyce and it's not his direct fault. Sorry mate...

Later, once discovered the translation the following desperation: "Bloody hell, this is funny:  how can we put all of it in english now?" discovering sadly that well, we didn't sort out anything. Frustration.

But libraries could also become plenty of teenagers in the afternoon when some of our teachers told us certain books weren't yet for us because too dirty or prohibit.

Be sure that in the afternoon librarians surrounded by teenagers plenty of acne in search for that so-called prohibited book all curious to discover  which parts of that certain book dirty or why it was a book prohibited for us. You go for transgression there is nothing to do in particular in the teenage age.
I remember the astronomic phase. I I studied per hours stars and planets, for a school research and for personal pleasure.
I have always cultivated the secret ambition to going to the Moon soon or late :-) When I was little I didn't want to become an attorney, or a dancer but an astronaut. Sagittarius. It's just this...
Since there I lost the count of books I read thanks to this library during the years. Psychology with Milton Erikson, Jung and Freud  philosophy and history, italian literature, policy, sociology, self-help, romances, historical fiction and non fiction. All Ian Fleming with his 007.

Wilbur Smith once said  in an interview that he wasn't born rich and he started to appreciate books thanks to libraries where he read a lot of great literature suggesting this modality for everyone.

It's what I would want to suggest to everyone.

A library as also remarked very well in this book is not just a library. There are internet connections and possibility to surf the web thanks to free wi-fi.

Libraries organizes encounters with book authors and it is stimulating.

They're compassionate places and they are places where you can interact with people in love for culture as you are, most of the American librarians I see are also best-selling authors, and they write and publish books. We speak of men and women of great culture and that can give you suggestion, help, advice with great competence.

Did you know that the first library in the USA, Philadelphia, lending books wanted by President Benjamin Franklin?

Also in the USA the biggest problems met by libraries and librarians are money. Cuts are everywhere. Culture one of the main voice cut out by main voices because considered unnecessary, although a country without culture, with ignorant people can't produce anything good at long.

A library will also lent to you various magazines and newsmagazines for personal research or just because you want to read your favorite newsmagazine or magazine, without to speak of DVDS!
A library is human.

Beautiful the portrait of the library of Shutesbury in Massachusetts and the founder Mary Clarke. I read this story in the Boston Globe time ago.
Recently a lot of polemics, the library offers yoga classes, live animal programs, science demonstrations, picnics, book clubs, nature walks lead by botanists.

Memories mixed with the various experiences of the excellent contributors of this book: Neil Gaiman, (the first contributor) George R.R. Martin, Nancy Pearl, Cory Doctorow (you'll love what she will write), Paula Poundstone, Amanda Palmer, Peter Sagal, Jeff VanderMeer, John Scalzi, Sara Farizan, Amy Dickinson and many others.

I appreciated the historical weight given to President Benjamin Franklin and his idea of a library for everyone but you will also discover many other of personal stories of libraries, starting from the remote past and at the same time the American story of Libraries like also of the Presidential ones.

A story I loved particularly the one of Bretagne Byrd and the Lewis&Clark Bookmobile. Bretagne explains that sometimes libraries are shelters, places the people use for being connected to the world. The project of buying a bookmobile and serving the littlest communities where in different cases no one could stop by for offering the opportunity of knowledge immensely important.
With her truck she goes here and there with her books, eBooks, internet connections and all the indispensable for giving dignity to the less lucky in term of distance with big centers.

Brava, Bretagne!



Many thanks NetGalley and Hachette for this book!


Anna Maria Polidori

Salad for President: a cookbook inspired by Artists by Julia Sherman

 I have always thought that when artists are united they create masterpieces. In this case the masterpiece is a cookbook.

Creative, inspired, amazing, sweet, complete: Salad for President A cookbook inspired by artists by Julia Sherman is born as a cookbook for inspiring you and your creativity for special events, dinner and lunches with a different touch: the one of salad.
Why?

 Salad is versatile. You can mix various veggies and an egg, chicken and various kind of salads. You can get great dishes with avocado, mango or other fruits and veggies mixed together.
You will learn how to create, add, discovering at the same time wonderful and functional dishes.
What I loved the most of this book: the great inspiration. It's spring and we should all "Think more veggie than meat."
Salad is purification but also strong ingredients. A salad is a complete or a fresh dish. 

 
Everything started when Julia Sherman, the author of this book created on the roof of the MoMa Museum a garden made by a lot of veggies. Unthinkable? Her purpose to unify creativity with good food.
 
The first foreword of this yummy  cookbook by Christine Muhlke editor of Bob Appetit. 
Invited by Sherman, ms Muhlke confessed that  to see a garden built on the roof of MoMa impressive. They could watch Manhattan, NY, an aggressive city where cement the most important element like also the perennial rush of people in "The city that never sleeps" would sing Liza Minnelli.
Thinking paradoxically that there was a garden on a rooftop of one of the most important museums of the world growing up with human rhythms, old, ancestrals, completely different from the one of the Big Apple, touching.
 
The second foreword is an interview by Julia Sherman with Robert Irwin creator of the Central Garden at the Getty Center.

Born in an artistic family, Julia Sherman went to Los Angeles where she worked in movie industry at the same time continuing to develop his artistic ideas. 

It was when she returned to NYC that the  MoMa contacted Julia Sherman for the creation of a special garden on the rooftop of the museum. Julia agreed and planted more than 50 herbs, and they were all amazingly yummy.

What I found more beauty and surreal was to seeing in various pictures this corner of green on the roof, with a lot of smiling people enjoying some time there eating and drinking as if they would have been in a countryside. More than understandably they loved the atmosphere.Real, the one a human being should experience everyday where possible. The contact with nature essential.

The garden  called Salad Garden. At the same time once the project started MoMa established an important connection with the Getty Museum of Los Angeles known for their Central Garden.

The Central Garden is a special place for a lot of people. People love to organize there great picnics, and they love to spend some quality time in a calm place, normal, distant and at the same time close to the city.

In The Central Garden there is a special section dedicated at the garden and called: Getty Salad Garden.
Creations with veggies are not new. Forget it. The Getty used a book pretty old: 431 years ago people suggested creativity with veggies, fruits, flowers. A joy for eyes a joy for mouth :-)

Plus veggies, flowers, are multi-colored. Yellow, red, orange, green, pink the best food for inspiring creative process.
When to eat a salad? Breakfast, evening, lunch, while you are in an air plane, during a moment of break. When you want. There is not a specific moment of the day. All the moments are perfect for a salad. 
 
Who helped Julia Sherman to write this book all dedicated to Salads?A lot of creative people and my sensation is that each of them loved what they prepared for Julia Sherman and for themselves and that's why these recipes are real unforgettable success.

I will mention some of them.

We will meet Alice Waters, figurehead of Slow Food movement. Francis Ford Coppola, Varda and Godard some of the filmmakers appreciated her dinners. The message of Alice is simple: "Eat seasonally, know your farmer, respect the earth and learn to cultivate food yourself."
Madeleine Fitzpatrick is a gardener, painter and performer, Yui Tsujimura is a  japanese master ceramist in love with persimmon caprese. Two members of the Boredoms, and many many more...
 
Julia and his creative friends will teach to all of us how to cook pretty quick for a lot of number of people without any kind of panic attack ;-) but also how to  prepare wonderful salads for breakfast or brunch,  impressing our guests with special salads for special occasions. 

A chapter dedicated to cocktails, soup, desserts but the one I loved the most the chapter for helping all of you to grow up your own wonderful garden because there is nothing more beauty than to see growing up some veggies in your garden! 
Trust me. I live in a countryside...I know that.

Enjoy this book. Enthusiastic, smiling, sunny, creative, plenty of fresh, delicious, sweet, wonderful salads for all tastes, you will adore it.
This book will be available on May published by ABRAMS.

I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

Lincoln Reconsidered by David Herbert Donald

Lincoln has been the most loved American President of all the History of the United States.
A legend when he was still alive, with his death became a myth.

A myth because of his anti-slavery positions. A myth because felt and seen by the folk as a compassionate man.  Lincoln loved mainly by common people.
With him, some part of black people started to obtain freedom from slavery.

Abram Lincoln started to represent not just an icon but the man who made possible and real an unthinkable dream: the end of slavery, more chances and opportunities to everyone. Dignity.
Skin color unimportant because predominant was the Human Being and not his /her skin color.
Freedom couldn't be considered anymore a privilege of white people.
His picture, like the one of a saint was in every house and in every  family of black people and treated as a relic.

Lincoln started to be considered as a demi-god.

Someone untouchable, perfect, a man of great value, not just a savior, no, but much more.
Because he understood, he saw what other people didn't see and didn't notice: that every man deserved freedom and happiness.
His horrible departure caused a profound prostration in the entire America. The legendary myth was born.

Wagons of books  written about Lincoln, wagons of ink spent for telling who President Lincoln was and what did for the USA.
David Herbert Donald with Lincoln Reconsidered doesn't want to demolish this myth and the expectations of people.
No.
Simply with these essays, - each of them interesting, firstly published in 1956 and updated for our times  well argumented, written with a wonderful style truly captivating and quick he wants to focus on  the man Lincoln and the President Lincoln, leaving alone the imaginary demigod created by the men of his time,  without re-writing the history but giving us a balanced Lincoln,  maybe more fresh, with his humanity, positions, policy, social contest.

Mr Donald is also the author of Lincoln one of the best biography of President Lincoln with which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

I thank NetGalley and Open Road Media for this e-book.


Anna Maria Polidori

Thanks Trobadour/Matador!

I thank Troubador, Matador for these two beautiful books .

 

I picked up Letters to Strabo by David Smith and The Seven Letters by Jan Harvey. I started to read The Seven Letters!

Anna Maria Polidori 

How to be a Hepburn in a Kardashian world The art of living with grace, class, style by Jordan Christy

How to be a Hepburn in a Kardashian world The art of living with grace, class, style by Jordan Christy  on bookstores and on Amazon this April 4 is a book plenty of modern smart advice for girls of all ages.

Starting with the premise that Jordan Christy was object of bullish when she was little and so she lived difficult years thanks to these nasty school companions, later she constructed a very successful life. A husband, children, a beautiful work.

Sure she felt often that she wasn't the first choice, but all the opposite. So if you feel the same sentiments this book is for you.

The book space from the perfect CV (curriculum vitae) the perfect job interview, and once found the job how to keep it, to other social aspects of life.

Love for example but also how to cultivate friends - and never let them go with tips and advice -, the best dress to wear, the so-called social media Etiquette, food, make-up, you can be sure that with this book you will create the perfect imagine of yourself and if you think that you are lacking somewhere Jordan Christy will support you! with her advice and her suggestions.

Beautiful and interesting book.


I thank NetGalley and FaithWords/Center Street for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

Second Chances An Inspiring Collection of Do-Overs That Have Made People's Lives Brighter by Erin McHugh

Second Chances An Inspiring Collection of Do-Overs That Have Made People's Lives Brighter by Erin McHugh, published by ABRAMS on April 7th, is a self-help book for whoever wants to try again for something. A big or small dream.
Another chances...
Projects not anymore taken in consideration, or a dream that, for a certain reason at some point become reality.
It can be a big or a little dream.

In the book you will find wagons of people with their life and their direct evidence, that in this life our dreams must be cultivated. At first broken dreams. Each of these people, women, men, will tell you their second chances in their life and that, yes, second chances are possible.
They will let you show how, when and why to them a real second chance became reality.

So, what are you waiting for? Find your second chance, capture it and realize it thanks to this book very interesting, energetic and optimistic. 


I thank NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

The diary of Miss Idilia edited by Genevieve Hill

I went last Wednesday at the local second-hand charity bookstore Books for Dogs to Umbertide.
I stayed there at long for trying to see which books I could bring and read at home. I don't pick up
anymore a lot of books because I have plenty of  great reads, but every bookworm can understand the
feeling ;-) of compulsion. Here it's what I found last months. Not bad ;-)



I noticed Stoner by Williams close to a book by Huxley, remarkable authors like Dickens and Thomas
Hardy, in the section classics and the best literature for everyone and every taste.  Satisfied of my choices I was ready to go, when I though it would have been great to give another last look.

Sometimes we don't see the most important books, sometimes we rush and we abandon the most precious gems alone.

It was there, pretty shy, hidden, it didn't want to be found to me.

Or yes, who knows?

Little, hardcover, new in the aspect and it is a genre I love a lot.  The diary of Miss Idilia edited by Genevieve Hill published by Short Books after 145 years.

An incredible story. There is in the cover a girl, writing on her desk a diary.

I found it intriguing. I read the back cover's first lines and then the first pages.

I was shocked.
Possible?

As a reporter I followed a case years ago of a missing elderly woman and I can tell you that when
someone is missing the family falls in a terrible spiral and the world turn upside down.
They fall in a condition of unknown because any certainty is gone.

A homicide is different. There is a body, a cause of  death and a reason why that man was killed. Soon or late the responsible will be found. There is logic in the illogical  criminal act, but you can explain.
You can bury the person killed. You can cry in a grave the departure of your beloved one. You can
start to mourn, you can start to heal.

When a person disappear you don't have these "psychological supports", no.

The family understand something: that the missing person is like vanished. The missing person become a phantom without anymore corporeality. The common compass of normality is gone for a long time (since the person is hopefully found dead or alive) and it starts a long process of nervous exhaustion.
When a person disappear it's a  mental work of conjectures. All the time.

I brought the book home decided to read and review it.
I read it yesterday.

It is touching, sad, unbelievable but believable at the same time because the obvious sometimes is never taken in consideration and I thought while I was reading The Diary of Miss Idilia at the potential
destiny that this girl would have had in case her fate, her destiny not so cruel.
Idilia was in fact a bright, intelligent girl.


It's tender the beginning of this diary. Idilia was sad and started this diary in fact dedicating it to her friend Gwendolyn emigrated in the USA.

"My dearest Gwendolyn..." she starts to tell her. Idilia wants to tell to Gwendolyn all her days and
her life, sharing although it is no possible at the moment to discover where Gwendolyn is, all her
thoughts with her. The two girls promised to each other of not sending any letters but sharing a diary once per year for reading the adventures lived by each of them in a year but Gwendolyn didn't send her in 9 months any news, any address apart for a postcard sent from New York.

It was common in the past to sharing journals with family members, or diaries also in the immense land
of the USA. People shared thoughts but also pictures, recipes, articles and so on. It wasn't an uncommon way to do. It wasn't an eccentricity of these two girls.

Although Idilia thought that the behavior of her friend irritating all her thoughts were with her, imagining that she was still close to her.  

Gwendolyn, Genevieve and Idilia are all Scottish and very united. They have their life to realize and each of them hope to be successful in some field. Life is still in the dreaming phase of the existence.

The future, although didn't give to any of them great success in life  brought a posterity success, because involuntarily Gwendolyn the protagonist of the diary of Idilia for example. 

Who knows? I love to think that maybe if Idilia wouldn't have had the purpose to write to her distant friend, she wouldn't never have written such a detailed diary; and her death although the remains of her body found, maybe would have remained still a mystery without bringing some peace to the family. 

Thanks to this diary it was all clear. The diary later passed at the closest friend of Idilia,  Genevieve.

The main protagonist of this story: Idilia. Unfortunately the diary couldn't be published by Genevieve because of the opposition of Idilia's parents.


Idilia at 17 years was a rebel moment and yes the portrait of her parents not great at all but it's a  classic between parents and teenagers.

The story of Idilia this one: the entire family, Idilia had other two siblings decided to afford to
Rhineland in 1851 for a vacation. Rhine located in Germany was in the past visited,
explored and  great inspiration for many writers and creative people including Lord Byron.
Nobles appreciated the stunning places, peace and possibility of developing new projects thanks to
these wonderful peaceful, enchanting lands. With the time Rhineland became also the favorite
trips of the so-called new riches, merchants etc.

The family of Idilia, the Dubb from Edinburgh part of these new rich.

The diary of Idilia is very beauty, very well written. Idilia had a real gift for describing, telling, giving out what she had in her mind and what she was observing around her, never forgetting a great class and research in writing.
Idilia is impressive for profundity of analysis and research of particulars and like every 17 years old
girls she had problems with her mother at first because she broke up with Henry, a boy her mom was
seeing with pleasure close to her and later with her dad because of her rebellion. Like all the 17 years
daughters of this world Idilia was discovering life.

Idilia in this diary tells the story of the trip of her family to Rhineland and how she fell in love for
this boy Christian Bach. The romantic meeting in the ship, the discovery of passion later, the visit at a wonderful castle in ruin the Lahnec castle once in Rhine.

Maybe a premonition but after an afternoon Idilia spent with Christian and Christian told her a certain tremendous legend, Idilia wanted to return  home as soon as possible.

But that one will be her end and no one, no one once the girl started to be missed searched for her in
this castle.

Just several years after in 1860 years, when it was decided to renovate the castle some some human rests found with some rings and other personal objects and a diary:

Idilia after all that time was found. 
 
This journal, this diary wants to give a last voice, a last justice to Idilia and her horrible death and she wants to let you discover a beautiful soul.

Unheard, the poor girl tried all her best, but the old stairs connected with the tower collapsed and
Idilia remained blocked in the castle's tower. She couldn't abandon the tower anymore dying starved but first of all dehydrated.

Christian was serious in his intentions, reading the diary you will discover it. Once he discovered what
happened to Idilia,  his presence will be constant during the mourning time.


Enjoy this book. It's a real gem in the panorama of diaries and it's the best legacy left by Idilia Dubb
at this world. A life not lived in vain but read thanks to this diary by a lot of people in the world. Her words will resonate forever and she can now smiles at this world, in peace, wherever she is.






Anna Maria Polidori

The History of Newgate Prison written by Caroline Jowett

Newgate: you pronounce this name and the horror rise in the mind of the people, because of all the London's prisons no other one has been so characteristically brutal like this one for inmates.
The idea of a new prison started to pop up in the mind of Henry II in 1188. Newgate worked for more than 700 years. It was dismantled a century ago.
In this new book released by Pen& Sword The History of Newgate Prison written by Caroline Jowett,  you will find all that you want to discover about this prison. The book is very well documented and written with love.

I found it very informative, interesting, plenty of great information. The book is great for students if it's necessary a research, but also for all the people in love for History.

I can tell you I requested this book at Pen & Sword because thanks to Dickens and Peter Ackroyd (in this second case his biography of London) I read a lot about Newgate. I wanted to discover much more and I can tell you that I was satisfied. Every historical period meant something for this prison. They are all analyzed with punctuality and passion. The book contains a lot of curiosities as well.

You will discover the various cruel punishments for inmates, customs, guidelines for inmates, why people fell in jail in the remote past. The ritualism of death penalty, food, habits.

Every place build a reputation and with the time Newgate for tourists  at London became an attraction and a place to visit while the walls of the prison became populated by wagons of graffiti of the inmates.Graffiti that told the stories of the various inmates.

Newgate maintained its infamous reputation till the end.
In this prison spent their time people like legendary Robin Hood, Ben Jonson, John Cook, the pirate William Kidd,  our italian Giacomo Casanova. He, ahem spent some time in Newgate for bigamy!

I thank Pen&Sword and NetGalley for this book.

The book released this May 19 2017.

 

Anna Maria Polidori

Channel of Peace Stranded in Gander on 9/11 by Kevin Tuerff

Where did they go? All the rest of airplanes or some of them flying for return to the USA from Europe the day of 9/11?

9/11, the world is too focus on the immense tragedy of NYC where more than 3000 people lost their life.
USA was under attack. The Twin Towers collapsed, the Pentagon under attack, and thanks to the patriotism of some passengers of the  fourth airplane, the fourth plane landed distant from the White House in Pennsylvania.

Slowly slowly we learned who these heroes were, firefighters, we listened the last conversation between a husband and a wife. A man, the vice-chief of the Carlton-Fitzgerald. His end close. "You'll be fine" he said to his spouse before to seeing just darkness and death when the Twin Tower collapsed.
We have seen wagons of people losing their life in a way or in another.


But...The rest of people back to the USA from their trip of vacation or business where were re-directed considering that NYC was in chaos and the entire USA in alarm?

In this book Channel of Peace Stranded in Gander on 9/11 by Kevin Tuerff  there is the rest of the story looked through the eyes of Kevin Tuerff and his (not anymore)  companion Evan. Back from a trip to Europe they ended up in the city of Gander in an island called Newfoundland, Canada.
No one told to them what happened while they were flying back to the USA. Mr Tuerff went later from the economical class to the first class and asked to do an international call.
He understood that it was a real big tragedy and yes the Twin Towers were collapsed and yes the country sounded under attack.

At the same time the place where they arrived just 10.000 souls gave hospitality at more than 6.500 people. 38 airplanes landed in Gander in the while in fact and the mayor of that time Claude Elliott asked for help because there were 6.500 people who needed extra-help and comfort.

People where busy for giving food and water and warm beverages to all these people till late.

Generosity passed also through supermarkets and restaurants. They all donated food. It was a refugee shelter the one created for the American guests per days.

People were also cured. Diabetic ones, pharmacists, everyone tried all their best for keeping like at home everyone, and for giving them all the necessary medications.

But not only: mr Tuerff wants to remark the solidarity of everyone. Who donated their own beds, someone offered free passages to people by car, act of kindness to them maybe unknown because the people of this little town strangers.

Once returned home after a real big adventure but consider the strict measures adopted by the US government that days mr Tuerff didn't never forget what happened.

Active also in other humanitarian situations and fields  like the Katrina Hurricane and for environment, Mr. Tuerff returned for the 10th anniversary of the Terrorist attack to Gander.
Great connection with the administration of the city, the foreword of this book written by the old mayor of the city.

This book wants to help people to understand the hidden part of this big sad story, and at the same time wants to remember how big c generosity and kindness from people is.

The 25% of the royalties of this book donated at the association Gander Refugee Outreach, an organization that brings refugee from Syria to Canada.

What done by this little town ended up also in a Broadway musical called Come From Away.


I thank NetGalley and Greenleaf Book Group for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

The shape of ideas by Grant Snider

The shape of ideas by Grant Snider, illustrator, is a book that will be published by Abrams on May 9th.
It is a comic self-help ;-)  book this one  about men, ideas and creativity.
It is the best self-help book I have ever read in my life because comically it has been in grade to give us an idea of creativity, problems connected with creativity and what can inspires us and what we should avoid. Plus I loved the wonderful illustrations, some of them just spectacular.

What is creativity? It's that process able to present to the world thanks to you something new.
It can be a new book, a new piece, a new invention.

I was impressed by the beautiful drawings, some funny, other ones meditative according to my point of view created by Mr.Snider.
In ten chapter, from inspiration, passing through improvisation, exploration and at the end pure elation, he photographed the creative process. It became always more vivid, real, not anymore a metaphor.
If necessary this book  will also clear your mind.

It's a comic book of course mainly but what comic can do, and that's why it is so powerful, is that will let you give a new motivation, a new key, it will let you think a lot because it's a pure immersion in the creative world, stimulating your ego, your passions, giving you new feedback for going on.
And it will define you, and your being creative, bautiful mind.You will recognize yourself in this book.

Many tips and advice I suggest the book to all the creative people. It can also be a great gift if you have a creative friend!

Many thanks to NetGalley and ABRAMS for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

Why I March Images from the Women's March around the world

I remembered I saw many pictures of the march of January 21st from my smartphone the day after. It was amazingly beauty.

My friend Meg, aunt Bobbie from Memphis, Marie-Louise from California, different part of the USA different personal histories of these three women, but all united, in their 20, 70s and 40s for fighting. Fighting for women's and people's rights and mainly against Donald Trump's ideas.

5 million of people in 82 countries of the world protested against the new course of the world wanted by the new President of the USA.

Why I March Images from the Women's March around the world is a book published last February 21 by ABRAMS Books just a month after  the most important and pacific demonstrations of women that the modern history remember.

The most colored one, the most pacific one, the biggest one, the most united one. Women of the entire world, of all the possible skin color, religion, faith, united for a pacific protest.
The movement of the Women's March involved all the Planet, Antarctica included! Did you imagine it?

All royalties of this book it's important to remark it, donated to nonprofits affiliated with the march.

Why marching? And why is it important to continue to protest?

First of all because we are women and only women can change the head and the mind of a man. In this case the president of the USA.
A too much ambitious project this one?
No, because we, women have  powers unthinkable for a man. We give  life at this world with new children, we educate them. We are culturally different and more strong than men under many aspects.

That's why if a miracle is possible it will pass through all of us and our determination.

In this stunning beautiful, colored book plenty of great  pictures by Getty Images, the souls of  many participants in every corner of the Globe.

As said by Tamika Malory in the book: "When you feel that we are not taking care of one another properly, put your feelings aside, put your pride aside, and stand up for the most marginalized people in this society. Because if you stand for them, you stand for all."

Clear also why the Women's march organized in the entire world the day after the Election Day with a massive success and a biggest participation than not during the Election Day for example in Washington: Donald Trump wants to create a world closed to immigration, closed to novelties, closed to a good sanitary system, closed to many rights conquered by various minorities after long fights during the Obama's administration.

Angela Davis in the book: "...The Women's March represent the promise of feminism as against the pernicious powers of state violence. An inclusive and intersectional feminism that calls upon  all of us to join the resistance to racism, islamophobia, to anti-Semitism, to misogyny, to capitalist exploitation."

From the various pictures...

A smiling pic of a lady in a wheelchair holding this: "Not usually a protester, but Geez..."
Somewhere else a motto is changed: "I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept." This new motto better than the old one I knew!

Someone suggests in colored posters to the President: "Think before you Tweet." We all know that the President loves to tweet a lot.

Other women launch an environmentalist message: "Love Mother Nature and all her creatures."

I loved this one so badly: "We are the granddaughters of the witches you could not burn."

While Washington's Women's March described Trump as narcissist Boston use the word: "Dicktator!"

A smiling young man with I guess his little daughter on his shoulder and a poster where written: "I count."

In Oregon like in Philadelphia women are more than sure that "The future is Female."

Someone is also worried for the future of press. In Los Angeles the picture of a lady: "No freedom without freedom of press."

Boston and dignity: "All Mother's Earth Creatures deserve a healthy home."

In Santa Fe a group of girls: "Fight Like a Girl."

In Miami, Florida a poster says: "I can not, I will not, I do not see a future without equality."

In the section South America, women particularly asked this: "Make America Kind Again."

South Africa: "No fascist USA" and Cape Town: "It's time for women to stop to be politely angry."

Europe thinks women should "Resist." Paris: "There is not a Planet B."
London: Rising Women, Rising World."
A suggestion for President Trump from London: "Make Love, not Walls." Barcelona, Spain: "My America welcome refugees!" London: "Make America Think Again."

In Asia: Tel Aviv: "Hate is not great."

Australia and New Zealand. From Sydney: "Feminism back by popular demand" and: "If you are not outraged you are not paying attention."

But maybe the most beautiful pictures, the one of Antarctica, because they arrive from one of the most remote part of the Planet, where women and men expressed feelings like: "Save the Planet" "Save the Whales" and "Penguins March for Peace."

What I loved the most of this march is that through these pictures I haven't seen apart I think two or three gestures I can consider rude, any impolite behavior, but the correct protest  for the future with a lot of smiles, determination and optimism.

At the end of the book you will find a lot of information, sites and resources for: free press and journalistic research, civil liberties and legal defense, education, arts, health and reproductive rights, immigration etc so that this book will start to be also an active instrument in your hands  and a powerful vehicle for continuing this march in your corner of the world for all the freedoms you think that you must fight for.


All united: Yes We Can!


I thank Abrams&Chronicle Books for the physical copy of Why I March Images from the Women's March Around the World.


Anna Maria Polidori

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Sara See

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Sara See released this march 21 is like a very good cup of tea: intense, vibrant, low, delicate, calm, refreshing and precious.

When you drink tea you take your time for absorbing the moment, isn't it true?

Cuddled by a warm sensation and a moment suspended by the time.

You don't rush, you enjoy to taste the intensity of tea, its warm, its delicacy.
Drinking tea is a ritual in slow motion for loving yourself.
A moment dedicated only to you.
Tea is a philosophy of life.

I am a tea lover and I lived reading The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane like this­.
I can compare this book at the best cup of tea I have ever drunk.
The book has its own times, narration is quiet, meditative, sweet, peaceful, absorbing, wise, tender.

This wonderful book written by Sara See follows in the narration the times of tea and the times of a different philosophy and religion explaining to us the importance of tea for the East part of the world and what it means to them this commerce.

Lisa See is enchantingly poetic in describing the microcosm and little society of Akha like also all their traditions, most of them ancestral, old like the Time and the World and her writing-style is captivating from the first words.

The narration of the book is in first person and they're the words of Li-yan, the daughter of a-ma and a-ba to resonate.
Her mom very considerate in the tribe, a woman magical for many ways.
She knows the old traditions and sacred guidelines of her tribe.
Li-yan grows up more modern and rebel and in a society in evolution falling in love with a guy called San-pa that for magical reasons not at all good for her.

It was intriguing and captivating to learn which were the most profound  animistic traditions of Akha.
They believed in them keeping the society very united. Each person had his/her own place in that specific land and tribe.

Many rituals, from birth to departure passing through acts of purification described with great intensity and penetration giving to the reader the exact mirror of the mentality of that wonderful people and creating so a big impact to the narration of the book, dense and felt from the beginning to the end.

Nature, magic, work, descriptions are poetic and together create  a spectacular masterpiece.

The reader is transported in distant lands with great poetry and for some while our dimension will be forgotten, falling in a complete different atmosphere for mentality and spirituality.

You will stay relaxed while you will read this book because this book is a book of hope, a book of traditions, a book of strength and sacrifices of women. A book of past, present, memories, new beginnings. And a book with a different time. More absorbing.
You will notice a complete different writing-style only when the narration will involve the USA. Quick, modern.

The story of this society will change with the arrival of Mr Huang - the story starts in 1988 -  the new arrival in this closed society in search for great tea.

The protagonist is intelligent and she decide to study and to become someone but then it happens the unplanned...
She becomes pregnant and helped by her mom she decides to bring the baby in an orphanage to Menghai, China.
In opposite case according to a very old tradition the baby couldn't survive.


Her big love, San-pa is back but he has a frail character and happiness maybe is still distant for this girl, considering that she discover her husband brought her in a place insecure, with drug traffickers and a commerce of opium and heroin.
She run away. She run away from San-pa, her first love, she run away for being free. Back home she will discover that she can become who she wanted to become before the arrival of her baby, and before her wedding with San-pa.

At the same time the little baby adopted a Californian family living in Los Angeles. Although Dan and Constance are growing up Haley very well, Haley will search for her mom...

The end of this book is touching.

You will discover reading this book how precious is tea and how important it is to give great quality tea to tea drinkers. It is an ethical story.
You will learn everything about tea and its commerce, like also about humanity and changes caused by the arrival of the so-called progress in the remote village where  the protagonist of the book live, with, of course, modernity able to replace religion, old habits and rituals.

Another big thematic is the search for the past, because past unforgettable. A baby is too precious for not thinking of it.


Highly recommended! for sure.

I thank NetGalley and Scribner for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

How to Lose a Marathon: A Starter’s Guide to Finishing in 26.2 Chapters by Joel H.Cohen

How to Lose a Marathon: A Starter’s Guide to Finishing in 26.2 Chapters by Joel H.Cohen is one of the funniest, humorist, nice and sunny books you can find around soon. It will be published by Abrams at the beginning of April and it is a very wonderful read for sure.

Plenty of good humor, you will discover from the beginning to the end an accurate, super-ironic tale of what it means a good and bad preparation at one of the most prestigious marathons of this world: the one of New York City.

26 chapters spectacularly funny, captivating, hilarious. I can tell you that you will be refreshed by this book because I can assure you that there are a lot of smiles and many laughs as well. 
Funny drawings of Mr.Cohen - himself - during the various phases of preparation at this important appointment.

Mr Cohen is part of the team of The Simpson, humor is his food.

The author tells, that courageously  decided to participate and lose the New York Marathon arriving at the 26.782 position. Surely as he add, he didn't arrive first. But he arrived at some point and it's a lot.
That's why also that he decided to write this book: for explaining to all of us how to lose a marathon with humor, smile and a good laugh.

From food to training, from the guidelines for joining all the most important marathons to the equipment for running successfully a marathon, without to forget the problematic of running, and the problems of the body under pressure like also the benefits for the body.

Joy and sufferance of a sport. You will appreciate the team of Mr. Cohen (Mr Cohen joined a charity donating some money to it) in NYC focused in carbohydrates meetings with pasta before the marathon and the memorable day: the marathon one, suffered and told for the joy of everyone.
I enjoyed the most reading this book for its lightness, good humor. It is a refreshing book.

It's for all of you: sedentary and sportive human beings and this book released this April 4th will wait all of you. It will present you great humor, a sunny reading, good mood in this arrival of spring.

Oh, and in case you would be tempted at the end: Happy Running! of course.

I thank NetGalley and Abrams Books for this book.



Anna Maria Polidori

The Laws of Success A spiritual guide to turning your hopes into reality by Ryuho Okawa

The Laws of Success A spiritual guide to turning your hopes into reality by Ryuho Okawa is a tender book although the topic is aggressive.
We speak of personal success and how we should reach it. With  grace and integrity.

Forget an aggressive approach, the author thinks with love and ethicity.

I decided to choose to read the two books in publications these weeks by Mr Okawa (the other review will come soon) because I do love the Japanese approach at life.

It's less aggressive, surely more compassionate and real than not the ideas developed with the time in our part of the world.

Yes because success as explain the author is not a selfish condition, it's not a point of arrival in our life that we reach oppressing other people, reducing them in misery.
Success, assures Okawa is a product of compassion and love.

Most successful people in fact are not egoist, are not selfish, but are able to donate love and share with others the luck and fortune they have had along their way.

The author describes the heart of love and how you can cultivate it, staying in contact with the world and with people, trying to understand societies also very different from the one where you live in.

True love must be cultivate always. True love doesn't never end and the research for immortality and eternity can't never stop although our life one day will end, but it's indispensable to touch that sparkle of eternity we are made of.

I loved the parable told by the author for describing the search for success and the long trip of a man searching for it. Very wise.

Forget that successful people don't find and don't prove joy. They do, they are also noble people. A word maybe not anymore used in these times but this word is very important: nobility.
You will discover how to cultivate and stimulate this important characteristic thanks to the tips offered by Mr. Okawa.

What happen when people decide to criticize the work of people considered weak for destroying them?
A Chinese proverb says: "When you act with all your resolve, even demons will keep you out of your way."

It's necessary to develop self-confidence and with that one no one can hurt the person.

The confidence that we will develop will attract other people and so on.
Successful people have a constant beautiful energy in their mind, a positive one able to radiate and communicate.

Of course the author doesn't forget the hard times and tips and advice for moments in which what it is necessary to do is not to put us down tremendously. Persevering is one of the keys of success.

Failures can let us become undecided and insecure but courage is necessary for going on, for looking forward.

Then Mr. Okawa insist: we must have a sunny beautiful smiling attitude regarding the world so that we can live in the world with harmony being in harmony with everyone using good words, and seeing in every situation the positive side and believing that everything is possible.

Success can be reached respecting our supervisors, our chiefs, helping the other co-workers and subordinates. It's also indispensable to be very productive, to produce a lot also for asking for more money and to keep constantly active the sacred flame of passion for work so that supervisors can decide for promotions.

Another important factor is to improving everyday like also to be opened with life and other people thanking often the Divine creature and Entity, God has a lot of names it depends where you are born in, that you must be thankful for, for the gifts He donated to you in particular the Gift of Life. Let's ask  to ask to ourselves some crucial questions: what will you leave once you will die? What are the things that just you, because you are unique can bring to this world?

In this way we will also leave a spiritual legacy made by our past, our actions, our unicity.

Then the author will explore in the chapter: "The gate to economic prosperity" the modality for becoming a rich community for example.
Because to the author of The Laws of Success prosperity attracts other prosperity and it means work, and stability, and motivation and good mood.
Same is add the author for wealth: wealth attract other wealth.

Nothing can do better than our thoughts in this sense and our true thinking.

If we think positively we will obtain everything.

It is true: I can tell you that. I experienced negative thoughts and in this period I am experiencing positive thoughts and they are working.


It's necessary to look at situations under a positive perspective also when it is a failure the one we are living.
Let's try to imagine how we can change that failure in a potential success.

Another very important chapter is the Path to Ultimate self-realization

The important thing to do is to "seek the kind of happiness that leads to happiness of many." I consider this phrase beautiful.
Happiness is not selfish but contagious and can be and should be transmitted.
Sure says the author: it is indispensable to choose the best people picking them up them very carefully because most of them could damage us.

Why reading this book?

Because it's positive, dreaming, touching, and it will warm your heart at th same time creating a different and much more ethical, wonderful,  good, cleaned successful human being.

You can search for Ryuho Okawa  founder also of Happy Science through the net.

I thank NetGalley for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

Government Zero No border, no language, no culture by Michael Savage

Government Zero No border, no language, no culture by Michael Savage, published by Center Street Hachette Book Group give us all the perception of the tremendous terrible division existing in this moment in the USA.
What a sadness to read this book.

I admit I encountered a real sufferance because I love the USA and because the author is angry, furious and strong with an establishment according to his point of view completely wrong, an establishment able to change the face of the USA according to his point of view.

And there is hate. A lot of hate, for everyone and many attacks as well.

I think that critics are the salt of democracy, and no one is in love for any government "in action" that I know of.

Just, if this book is the other face of the America and if things are lived like it by many Americans, I consider the situation... worrying.

These feelings in fact are able to destroy much more the USA than anything else.

A country that shouldn't live these contrasts but first of all shouldn't live hate, because hate doesn't never bring anything good.

It's not possible to try to establish a healthy discussions if there is strong polemic and if people constantly complain. 

I don't doubt that it is necessary a constructive confrontation to try to sort out the new problematic arrived to the horizon just, not with this violent polemic.


I thank Hachette Group Book for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

TheBig Book of Jack the Ripper The most Complete Compendium of Ripper Stories every Assembled. Edited by Otto Penzler

Why Jack the Ripper is still a mystery?
Why Jack the Ripper the infamous and still unknown man who with great incredible atrocities killed and sectioned the bodies of various prostitutes is still one of the most fascinating criminal cold case and his horrible "fame" always alive in the history of criminology?

First of all because at some point these homicides ended up brutally as they started, and because the atrocities committed at the bodies unusual and if I wouldn't have read the autoptic exams of the victims, unbelievable for atrocities, hate of women's body, and ferocity I wouldn't never believed that ferocity could have reached this level.

Jack the Ripper shouldn't be considered a human, shouldn't be considered a man but simply who he really was: a monster.


My Londoners colleagues, reporters of that times,  started to following the case of Jack the Ripper with much gusto.




Jack the Ripper, or maybe someone else, who can know? started to write letters to Scotland Yard.
Press was excited.

Who was this man? The main question.


Why did he kill these prostitutes in this way?
What happened in his life for creating this strong unbalance able to let him commit atrocities like these ones?

No one had answers but some letters of this supposed-to-be Jack the Ripper still remain and
I will post them. I found them on Wikipedia.

One called From Hell inspired the movie with Johnny Depp. This letter was lost at some point but the words transcribed, says:


    Mr Lusk,
    Sor
    I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer
    signed
    Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk


Jack the Ripper entered in the history of criminology because he didn't "just" stabbed his victims or killed them strangled but because he created horror in that bodies, and horror remains in the history of crime.
Horror can't go away.

As everyone else I have my own idea of the end of this story.
To me someone knew who was this criminal, killed him and put his body in the Thames, but maybe of course I am wrong.

Just it's differently inexplicable why this horrible serial-killer after a while decided to interrupt this series of homicides maybe re-starting to live his old life.
It's just difficult, difficult to believe.

If you are a passionate of the story of Jack the Ripper and that poor ladies killed so brutally there is a new tome published by Vintage last October 4: The Big Book of Jack the Ripper The most Complete Compendium of Ripper Stories every Assembled. Edited by Otto Penzler. The same one wrote also the introduction

Passing through famous writers, intrigued by the story of Jack the Ripper, the book will take in consideration all the story, people, evidences, women murdered and their history, autoptic exams of the victims and you will find many other resources, articles and whatever you can like and appreciate of this criminal case.

With the time Londoners have created organized tours that you can find on the net for whoever wants to visit when you will go to London in vacation the places where Jack the Ripper killed his victims and there are websites specialized in the topic.

What we know for sure is that Jack the Ripper like many other mysteries and cold cases is still unresolved and plenty of psychological interest and immense sadness.


I thank NetGalley and Vintage for this remarkable book.



Anna Maria Polidori

Finding Father Christmas and Engaging Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn

Finding Father Christmas and Engaging Father Christmas written by Robin Jones Gunn are two novels, an omnibus published by FaithWords.

Impressive for their beauty, they're the warmest blanket for your soul if cold that you can desire. These novels will cuddle in fact  your soul with good sentiments and great characters.

Two novels plenty of great good sentiments, positive values and hope.

I loved for sure to read these two novels because world is calm, there are not great stress, the protagonist will meet only positive people close to her and little stress will be sorted out successfully and without any kind of big drama. What a wonderful world!

The people Miranda Carson will meet in the first novel although they didn't know her at all will take care of her, and will accept her although to them she was a complete stranger inviting her to joining them for Christmas Eve and later considering the snow, to remain for spending the time in family during the Christmas Day. What a blessing.

In a moment like Christmas, where solitude can be predominant, and for a girl like her who enjoyed to spend Christmas most of the time alone or when little with her mom, it was like to be home.
It was like to be in a real family.

While I was reading this first novel a romantic movie pooped up in my mind with Sandy Bullock: While You Were Sleeping, where thematic of a missing family and the warm felt in a family of still completely strangers but positive people you fall in love with can make the difference.

Thanks to the complicity of warm teas, warm scones, beautiful sentiments, and very warm Britons, more opened  sometimes than the American protagonist of the story big, profound and complicated problematic will become sweet and accepted.

Miranda is American and she is searching for her dad.

Her mom in fact, Eve Carson, an American actress, grew her up  without the presence of a dad. The discovery of a picture with two men one wearing the Father Christmas costume plus other elements let her think her dad was British and lived in a certain town. Other informations and she is soon in a tiny little characteristic British village Carlton Heat where she is searching for some answers.

Thanks to the help of the owners of the local Tea House where she will rest and she will enjoy a cup of tea and two warm scones she understands maybe she is close to the truth.

Invited at the play of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Miranda while at the Tea House thinks she is seriously spending some time in the place of Narnia fantasizing to be the magical protagonist of the story. She passed like Lucy the wardrobe and now she is in an enchanting land.

Miranda lived most of her life with some big questions in her mind: was it an error to be born? Why borning without a parent? Was it her arrival to the world just a case? We don't choose our parents and we can't control where we will born who will be our parents, our relatives, our social first circle of friends and neighbors.

It is not a case if a person is in this world but a superior scheme of things.

Grace and Peace reside Here, the motto of family Whitcombe, they love to continue the tradition of performing every year A Christmas Carol  but it can also be the motto of this first novel rich of surprises and acceptance of novelties for a family the one gave hospitality to Miranda, the Whitcombe one able to understand the dynamics of life considering that the patriarch of this family
a very famous British actor.

In the second novel, the dream realized by Katharina the owner of the Tea House and the husband: seeing together their son Ian with Miranda.

Miranda fell in love during the past Christmas for Ian and we see in this second novel the evolution of their relationship a distant relationship because Miranda lives at San Francisco, while Ian in the little British town.

Miranda is back to London for attending with the Whitcombe the Christmas when she meets her old boyfriend Josh. Josh played a special part in this "Dad Hunting" while they still were in a relationship giving her some good advice for finding her dad.

This novel will focus mainly on loyalty of friends and relatives regarding certain sensitive news and in illness, sadness, pain and acceptance.

Someone Miranda loves a lot is at the hospital. This one will be a different Christmas for Miranda but plenty of compassion for sick people. Father Christmas won't forget anyone!

Another word very important in this book: acceptance.

Acceptance for someone certain people didn't know the existence of in the past, and had to digest the news; acceptance for what happened, understanding that life follows certain paths sometimes unknown also to us, with the certainty that inclusion the best choice for reunite everyone, because it would have been done that by the same patriarch of the family Whitcombe, Sir James.

Miranda was largely accepted by everyone in Whitcombe's family but for some reasons someone had still to accept her.

I know that we are more close to spring than not to Christmas, but I warmly suggest you this book. You will see: after you will have read these novels you will feel much better, as restored and your spirit much more light and plenty of optimism.


I thank FaithWords Hachette Book Group for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

From my war to your peace, Love Nonna - A letter to my Grandson - by Monika Sears

From my war to your peace, Love Nonna - A letter to my Grandson - by Monika Sears is a long letter written by the author to his first grandson for let him know, in this moment of peace, what it meant to live, discriminated because Jewish, during the latest Second World War conflict. The preface of this book written by Julian Padowics.

It is a moving tale this one. Monika, a little girl during the war-time left by her mom with Pola one of their domestic girls, and later with relatives unable to give her proper love and finding her as an element of disturb in their daily routine life.

Monika in the while saw death, destruction, she lived secluded, she couldn't speak, she couldn't go out, she couldn't live the normal life of a kid because the horror was around. She learned some catholic traditions for not being captured by Germans thanks to Pola, her guardian angel. Her face, everything of her could let them guess that she was Jewish and not catholic.

It's a sad, realistic tale of what it meant for most people the terrible period of Holocaust. Discrimination, death, irrationality.

Sure Monika lived it looking at this situation with her childhood eyes but she knew and she was mature for her age. She knew that if she wouldn't have had discipline maybe she would have been captured and it would not have been fair and pleasant. She knew and she was obedient.

She survived at that horrible experience and she is living e happy and satisfying life.

Her long letter will be the legacy for her grandson but also for all of us and for a future of peace and freedom, without never, never, never forget the atrocities, senseless atrocities man can be able to use for destroying the humanity.
Remembering this is a first step for keeping our Earth a loving and peaceful place for everyone.


I thank Ravenswood Publishing for this eBook.


Anna Maria Polidori

A Web of Friendship By Christina Stead

I requested with great joy weeks ago A Web of Friendship By Christina Stead. The book has been published this February 27th by Melbourne University Publishing.

Introduction by Hilary McPhee, what a precious book is this one if you love Christina Stead, one of the most important Australian's writers and wife of William Blake, or just the epistolary genre.

Reading the letters written by Christina Stead, through 1928 to 1973 so a large period of time in which a lot of things happened in her life, she married William Blake, she left Australia for Europe and America, she published various books, we will discover a beautiful soul. Christina loved to receive and write letters, and truly appreciated to keep contacts alive with long and very felt letters.

What I loved the most reading them was the naturalness of her writing-style, most conversationalist than literary and the lightness of her words.

To her writing a letter a real pleasure, because the other one was a gift and you feel it with intensity.

At the same time she is not pompous, but domestic, I would say and also when she speaks of her books, publications, theater etc, there is great lightness, sincerity, optimism, simplicity.

She was a real lady, relaxed, optimistic, joyous. A picked up one of the first letters after the departure of her beloved husband at the beginning of 1968 for giving to you an idea of who Christina Stead was and who William Blake was for her.
She writes to Kate Stead on 10th  February 1968:

"Dear Kate,
thank you for your letter, so sensitive and discreet...
My time is fully taken up -first with business and correspondence- and after that with fatigue. I think of Billy as little as possible; I do not want to be full of tears; it is not possible with all I have to do- and what is more my life with Bill, so close, was in a way not sentimental, it was a true thing. When all this is over, I shall be able to think about it, as he was, as I was, and as we made each other to be. He was very loving to me, and I was extraordinarily lucky, I know, to have found a man like that. No more of this now."...

You will discover the letters Christina Stead sent to other important writers like  Stanley Burnshaw, Ettore Rella, Nettie Palmer, Clem Christesen, Elizabeth Harrower and A.D. Hope but the most important you will discover a beautiful soul and that was what I appreciated the most, someone encouraging with others, opened, available, gentle and kind.

After the death of her husband, Christina Stead returned to Australia, choosing to spend her final years in England where she died in early 1980.

In a historical moment where our communication is based in few words and where words are used differently and are less precious and more opened to be seen and read by everyone this book will let you re-discover the old-fashioned power of letters.

I highly recommend to everyone this book. It is joyous, human and true.

I love the cover of the book read with the yellow signature of the writer.


I thank NetGalley and Melbourne University Publishing for this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

Byron: A poet Dangerous to Know by Geoffrey Trease

Byron: A poet Dangerous to Know by Geoffrey Trease published by Endeavour Press now as eBook is a captivating reading for all the estimators of the poet and thanks to this eBook you will discover or implement your knowledge about him.

But who was realistically Lord Byron? Born in 1788, dead on April 19 1824 after a life very...lived, he was a capricious, turbulent man, someone who wanted to live largely and in some cases wanted to prove that he could have more than what realistically he had. Someone who loved to cure his body, someone discussed but that had some treats of the character of his dad for what I can imagine reading the portrait of his dad in this book.

His life didn't start well with a physical problem and an existence at first in poverty. A poverty created by his dad who opportunistically married an ingenuous girl for then spending all her money.

I was interested to read a biography by Byron because I admit that if our myth during the high school was Oscar Wilde, treated at school and read and re-read, Lord Byron completely neglected and forgotten.

This biography will give you the main treats of the poet inserting him very well in the historical period of changes he lived in.

Many trips in the most beautiful corners of Italy, Byron knew the meaning of the words: "Living Well."


I thanks NetGalley and Endeavour Press for this eBook.



Anna Maria Polidori