When Novels Were Books by Jordan Alexander Stein

When Novels Were Books

by Jordan Alexander Stein, is a new book published by Harvard Press.

This literary scholar explains in the book how the XVIII Century Novels were manifactured, read, bought. Novels, born as printed sheets ordered into a codex bound along one edge between boards or paper wrappers, later they would have been codified in other shapes. 

The originality of this essay, pretty erudite, is this one: the revelation that novels were strickly cemented with Protestant religion.

With the time, christianity and Protestants made the difference. The importance of  what to print was a priority and these novels, slowly became companions close to almanacs and protestant religious books, printed by the same printers.

Novel reading, with the time, became a central appointment for the middle-class citizens, females and not only... People could identitify themselves with the characters in the novel; these stories were in grade to touch the heart of readers. Samuel Pepys called the genre "diversion." After some while, novels could be largely found in many libraries, close to essays becoming evergreen classics.

The story of most classics and their advent in the society, including moral, religious impact, an example could be Crusoe (but there are many more) will be largely explained in this book like also a long digression about Protestants and influence in the society at many levels.

Recommended.

I thank Harvard University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

A Little Light Weeding Evergreen Reading for the Perennial Gardener by Richard Briers

I had picked up various books, a wednesday morning of a lot of months ago at the book store of Books for Dogs, located in Umbertide, when I decided to search also for something in the garden's section. I didn't have the pale idea of what I was searching about. 

I live in a countryside, so we do garden, we plant flowers, veggies, fruits trees, I know some guidelines or I try. I mean: I know something of this stuff. 

I have various books for the perfect garden; I was fine under many ways.

But I know very well something: that seeing a garden with the eyes of Britons is an occasion that you can't miss.

So I started to look at the various titles.

Close to the most classic books on gardening I spotted this one:

• A Little Light Weeding Evergreen Reading for the Perennial Gardener by Richard Briers. When I opened it, it was like to enter in a romantic, dreaming, poetic place. Briers was an actor, but he developed soon passion for gardening and then he puts his experience at the service of other people, other passionate but also new gardeners without too much experience and searching for information, creating this rare gem of beauty. 

In his book garden whispers thanks to citations, quotes, lines, rhyms, poems of the most important english writers, in every chapter, and the garden is not analyzed as a: plant this, plant that. This book is not divided in bush, flowers, perennial, annual, etc. Forget it. 

The garden is lived like a song, the most beautiful one, a whole where everyone play its own special part. So a chapter will be dedicated to bees, another one to bats; cuckoos brought to my memories the rhym we always chant to him; hearing the cuckoo in Italy is something exciting. When my dad became too deaf for hearing the cuckoo and his chant,  he was sorry. He loved to hearing it.

A chapter will help you to define and design your own garden, but also drinking in the garden; enjoying the garden under all the possibilities, in particular if you have a big, wonderful diversified garden where you can see blooming everyday new flowers or plants.

Herbs, insects, manure, parties, more than a real garden book this one is a celebration of gardening passing through literature, poetry. That's why, to me when you will finish to read it, or the portions that interest you at the moment, you will become a wonderful gardener: because you have learnt thanks to the words of Briers and old wise men of the past the beauty of nature and all the gifts it bring us in a daily base. Also: as a gentle soul can re-create Heaven on Earth.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori 

The Victorian Male Body Edited by Joanne Ella Parsons and Ruth Heholt

The Victorian Male Body Edited by Joanne Ella Parsons and

Ruth Heholt

  is a new study about the Victorian male body published by Edinburgh University Press.

Forget the delicacy and ambiguity of a character and a body like the one of Oscar Wilde. In this book, we will discover much more.

First of all homosexuality, as said before, was not recognized and banned with prison (see again at the voice Oscar Wilde)  but surely male body was constantly judged and categorized. 

It was important to wear appropriate clothes, keeping away all possible extravaganzas.

The male body is seen in this study as the white male body; a body who, thanks to the industrialization was more fat than not in the past and in large scale. In 1865 The Handbook of Manly Exercises, Comprising Boxing, Walking, Running, Leaping, Vaulting, Etc. was published by George Routledge and Sons for helping all that Victorian men won by sedentariety.  

The book is divided in three parts, Constructed Bodies, Fractured and Fragmented Bodies and Unruly Bodies.

In the first part  the discussion of masculinity of men pass through schoolbody but without forgetting the strong words used by Dickens, Thackery and Meredith regarding violence and abuses; it could be read as a sort of formative ritual for becoming men; then the examination of diet, alcohol and sex. Victorian age lived the male body as a symbol of english purity. 

The second part is maybe the most interesting one because takes in consideration all that people who, for a reason or another became imperfect during the existence.  Let's start with piracy and pirates. Most of them, in particular in the novel written during the Victorian Age are portrayed as people with some disabilities; wooden-legs, or an hook- hand in J.M-Barrie's case, see at the voice Peter Pan. Not only: in the cinema we have seen Captain Barbossa and Ragetti in the movies Pirates of the Caribbean.

Also Captain Ahab in Moby Dick by Melville and Robert Louis Stevenson adapted their characters with disabilities. Stevenson had a friend who once lost one of his legs. Why did they include disabilities so much? Reasons are many but I love to think that they thought at disabilities as a "resource" to fight where possible more than a common healthy man. 

Tubercolosis and consumption were two situations pretty known during the Victorian Age, an example brought by the essayest the one of John Keats, the most iconic Victorian Poet. He died very young, he died for sonsumption and he also died for love. 

George Eliot and Henry James portrayed a situation of illness in various characters and novels. 

Masculinity hides horror as well, and this condition was literally met thanks to two wonderful novels: The portrait of Dorian Gray and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

In the first case there is the dissolute, absolutely depraving existence of the protagonist, Dorian; no one of the horror he constantly provoked in the society could be seen in his face, in his body; oh no, Dorian was beautiful. But, in a corner of his house he had his portrait; and this portrait, the Dorian portrayed in the painting, started to become always more orripilant and absurdly horrible exactly as all the horrible things he committed. He was his soul. His alter-ego. One of the most beautiful books existing in this world.

Apparently a gentle and kind person, in the book by Stevenson the character during the night change personality, becoming a terrible man! 

Ghosts stories at the same time attracted three women. Yes; everyone wrote about ghosts stories, but there is to add that women were more incisive.  They were Catherine Crowe, Rhoda Broughton and Edith Nesbit, also beloved children books author. 

Who was the ghost they loved to writing of? A Ghost was the iron will of the dead man precise the author of the essay. 

Ghost appears for not let forget to the existing people that he, once, was a man on this Earth. 

Not only: these authors searched also for real ghosts stories; people who had met once or more than once a ghost in their existences. They believed in it and they tried all their best for transmitting their love for paranormal. 

It is analyzed also the italian Male Body in the poem "Olivia" and "Garibaldi".

Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a sensation novelist and his immense popularity, she wrote in particular novels, could not be put in discussion. 

Who was Garibaldi for Mary Elizabeth Braddon?

He was seen with all the possible qualities a man should have; plus his imagine was a mixture with the one of Italy. Italy, during the Victorian Age as also written in other reviews, was seen as a woman, beautiful but violated by every kind of invaders. She needed a savior, she needed someone in grade of keeping her safe, setting her free from all these stresses: this man was Garibaldi.

Italy was seen by Victorians in various ways. "To the Victorians, Italy was what the Orient is to Europeans of the twentieth century, a mixture of attraction and repulsion: attraction for the ancient civilization and for Italy’s contemporary struggle to put an end to a period of political and economic subjugation and, at the same

time, repulsion to its chaotic roads, dirty inns, stinky slums, crime and

depravation." 

Italy was seen as a gentle woman: Britain as a man, strong, firm but at the same time a gentleman.

Beautiful book this one, because diversified. For everyone, very accessible and clear.

Highly recommended. 

I thank Edinburgh University Press for the copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Un Appartamento a Parigi by Guillaume Musso

Un Appartamento a Parigi

by Guillaume Musso is deliciously intriguing. I bought this book proposed by Il Club per Voi, because of Paris. I didn't mind for the rest of the story, I wanted to find the atmosphere of Paris. I hadn't previously read any book by Musso, let me add this.

Oh: it was a completely different book this one. 

Paris is not described as the romantic Ville Lumiere that we know of; there are contrasts, fights; it's a peaceless place. 

At the same time, in a city living in such distress, there are two people who, for opposite reasons, want to spend, or are forced to spend, a month in Paris.

One of them is Gaspard; addicted to every kind of strong liquor, writes pieces for theater and he must produce the latest one. Another cynical work regarding society; Madeline is a lady who tried to kill herself moths before and that now, close to Christmas need some rest from this recent stress.

The apartment where these two people, for an error, a distraction  will co-live together for a short time is the one of Sean Lorenz. Who was Lorenz? At first a writer, one of that people who painted in the underground and many other places during the 1980s in New York City. Paintings that had a short existence.

Then, after that he met his beloved Penelope, he became someone else: a real painter, and his paintings became pretty quoted. Sean Lorenz became a wealthy man, with a good life, you could think.

In part it was true of course, but one day his existence will be devastated by a shocking event. Lorenz will try to understand if the reality he was living in, was the real one, or, if, behind it, there was something else, maybe more shocking, hiding into it some hope.

Now: I don't tend to read these kind of books, and while I was reading Un Appartamento a Parigi, I thought why I shouldn't do that more often, considering that I love the psychological work that there is behind for trying to discover the reality when there is a murder or an event that must be revealed.

I can't tell you more of the story, apart the fact that the two protagonists will become completely different people: real investigators and I love it so badly!

They won't never try to live their month in peace, for the purposes that they were there for; they will differently try to discover what the departure of Lorenz meant; what he was searching for before his sudden death, what he was working at, revealing the rest of a story that other ones for passivity or just because they didn't have sufficient elements or enthusiams, searched for.

Absolutely wonderful; you can't stop to read this book till the end. A fascinating story!

Anna Maria Polidori 

Coping with Coronavirus How to Stay Calm and Protect Your Mental Health A Psychological Toolkit by Dr. Brendan Kelly

Coping with Coronavirus

How to Stay Calm and Protect Your Mental Health A Psychological Toolkit by Dr. Brendan Kelly is a new, fresh book published by Melville Press.

The phychiatrist, in five chapters Knowing, Thinking, Feeling, Doing, Being will help all of us to try to understand firstly what this Coronavirus is, and how we can cope with the big stress born during these weeks of confinement, these weeks of severe but necessary lockdown.

The approach of the psychiatrist is pretty reassuring; to his point of view the stress and anxiety lived by people affected by profound panic for the advent of Coronavirus is similar to the ones of other kind of people with similar, but at the same time, different problematic.

Let's admit it: coronavirus changed our existences; for better, for worse, a pandemic flu is a stressing condition. There is like a shadow close to us, and no one would want to catch it. 

Plus, the novel Coronavirus appeared to the horizon just few months ago. It's still mostly unknown to scientists, who, of course are frantically trying to understand how this Coronavirus, SarsCov2 interacts with man; its power of death is a sad certainty.

Sure what it says the author of the book is more than real: there is severe anxiety in environments that people perceive to be unsafe with no easy way to escape. True: no one can go in a healthiest place, because substantially Coronavirus is everywhere; better, in the entire world. There is no escapism in this sense, but we have sufficiently knowledges for fighting against it.  

Sure: sometimes the illness is mild, adds the author, although there is plenty of fear with Coronavirus, in particular if peope are old, elderly, if they suffer of high pressure or other sistemic illnesses. Being an unknown illness, scientists are discovering during these weeks how the Coronavirus "treats" a body where he is unwanted guest in.

What this book will teach is how to keep, thanks to a rational and emotional mind, panic and fear under control. 

Approaches to this illness the most diversified ones. There is who still don't mind at all; who he/she is maybe too alarmed; but a pandemic flu must be taken in great consideration and I prefer the second group of people. Absolutely! 

A brief story of the city of Wuhan, China, where this pneumonia was born; a strange pneumonia unresponsive to the most commont treatment of an illness, once mortal, now, in most cases curable started to alarm the doctors of Whuan. 

After China, Italy, France, UK, the USA. 

But...How a person can catch the Coronavirus? The Stay at Home Motto was born because isolation doesn't permit to the virus the contamination of the body. It can't pass through walls, said an italian virologist weeks ago. 

In fact, this virus can be taken thanks to droplets from  nose, or mouth, of a person infected or positive; also if a person coughs. 

Transmission through object is another specificity of the Covid-19. What we can do when we go outside? Washing and cleaning our hands often; covering with sleeves or tissues mouth or nose and then throwing away, in case of tissues, these ones into a bin. Avoiding people, crowded spaces. 

What suggests the author is to search for prestigious sources. Lancet, WHO, organizations and medical journals in grade to make the difference; also big newsmagazines, where information is accurate. The author will also suggest to spend some time where possible, outside, making gym, stretching, exercises and remembering that we can't stay physically well if our mind is sick and vice-versa.

It's also important to tell to some friends, our sentiments regarding Covid-19 and our fears. An exchange of opinion sometimes re-balance the mood. Well, maybe choosing the right person :-) I would want to add. 

Meditation is absolutely another great tool but working together is key tells the author. "People quarantined at home in China and Italy sing together out their windows. We need more of that" Kelly writes.

If you are too mentally sick because of the coronavirus, avoid social medias, where most informations are shared. Sometimes just few minutes per day are necessary for having a vision of the whole situation.

What it will be indispensible to do is "Think global, act local."

And most important is the knowledge of your person, your self for let you stay more calm and more focused. You know what yoìu can read and see, and experience without  the risk of unbalancing your soul. 

It's important to avoid the so-calleed negative automatic thoughts. An example: we won't never be good at work, but also the personalisazion of a fact. An example is when an event is a real mess, and the person thinks that it was because arrived late. 

I want to conclude with a phrase by Brendan Kelly in a passage of the book: "It is certainly true that an event such as a pandemic or global health crisis can and should make us more grateful for the good things in our lives, and that this enhanced sense of gratitude might persist after the outbreak." 

Anna Maria Polidori  

Coping with Coronavirus How to Stay Calm and Protect Your Mental Health A Psychological Toolkit by Dr. Brendan Kelly is a new, fresh book published by Melville Press. 

The phychiatrist, in five chapters Knowing, Thinking, Feeling, Doing, Being will help all of us to try to understand firstly what this Coronavirus is, and how we can cope with the big stress born during these weeks of confinement, these weeks of severe but necessary lockdown.

The approach of the psychiatrist is pretty reassuring; to his point of view the stress and anxiety lived by people affected by profound panic for the advent of Coronavirus is similar to the ones of other kind of people with similar, but at the same time, different problematic.

Let's admit it: coronavirus changed our existences; for better, for worse, a pandemic flu is a stressing condition. There is like a shadow close to us, and no one would want to catch it. 

Plus, the novel Coronavirus appeared to the horizon just few months ago. It's still mostly unknown to scientists, who, of course are frantically trying to understand how this Coronavirus, SarsCov2 interacts with man; its power of death is a sad certainty.

Sure what it says the author of the book is more than real: there is severe anxiety in environments that people perceive to be unsafe with no easy way to escape. True: no one can go in a healthiest place, because substantially Coronavirus is everywhere; better, in the entire world. There is no escapism in this sense, but we have sufficiently knowledges for fighting against it.  

Sure: sometimes the illness is mild, adds the author, although there is plenty of fear with Coronavirus, in particular if peope are old, elderly, if they suffer of high pressure or other sistemic illnesses. Being an unknown illness, scientists are discovering during these weeks how the Coronavirus "treats" a body where he is unwanted guest in.

What this book will teach is how to keep, thanks to a rational and emotional mind, panic and fear under control. 

Approaches to this illness the most diversified ones. There is who still don't mind at all; who he/she is maybe too alarmed; but a pandemic flu must be taken in great consideration and I prefer the second group of people. Absolutely! 

A brief story of the city of Wuhan, China, where this pneumonia was born; a strange pneumonia unresponsive to the most commont treatment of an illness, once mortal, now, in most cases curable started to alarm the doctors of Whuan. 

After China, Italy, France, UK, the USA. 

But...How a person can catch the Coronavirus? The Stay at Home Motto was born because isolation doesn't permit to the virus the contamination of the body. It can't pass through walls, said an italian virologist weeks ago. 

In fact, this virus can be taken thanks to droplets from  nose, or mouth, of a person infected or positive; also if a person coughs. 

Transmission through object is another specificity of the Covid-19. What we can do when we go outside? Washing and cleaning our hands often; covering with sleeves or tissues mouth or nose and then throwing away, in case of tissues, these ones into a bin. Avoiding people, crowded spaces. 

What suggests the author is to search for prestigious sources. Lancet, WHO, organizations and medical journals in grade to make the difference; also big newsmagazines, where information is accurate. The author will also suggest to spend some time where possible, outside, making gym, stretching, exercises and remembering that we can't stay physically well if our mind is sick and vice-versa.

It's also important to tell to some friends, our sentiments regarding Covid-19 and our fears. An exchange of opinion sometimes re-balance the mood. Well, maybe choosing the right person :-) I would want to add. 

Meditation is absolutely another great tool but working together is key tells the author. "People quarantined at home in China and Italy sing together out their windows. We need more of that" Kelly writes.

If you are too mentally sick because of the coronavirus, avoid social medias, where most informations are shared. Sometimes just few minutes per day are necessary for having a vision of the whole situation.

What it will be indispensible to do is "Think global, act local."

And most important is the knowledge of your person, your self for let you stay more calm and more focused. You know what yoìu can read and see, and experience without  the risk of unbalancing your soul. 

It's important to avoid the so-calleed negative automatic thoughts. An example: we won't never be good at work, but also the personalisazion of a fact. An example is when an event is a real mess, and the person thinks that it was because arrived late. 

I want to conclude with a phrase by Brendan Kelly in a passage of the book: "It is certainly true that an event such as a pandemic or global health crisis can and should make us more grateful for the good things in our lives, and that this enhanced sense of gratitude might persist after the outbreak." 

Anna Maria Polidori  

Du Mond dans ta cuisine by Carole Saturno and Thomas Baas Recettes Pour Voyager Gourmand

Du Mond dans ta cuisine by Carole Saturno and Thomas Baas Recettes

Pour Voyager Gourmand is a new books released by Gallimard Jeunesse for helping children to understand the power, joy and also fun of food, introducing some of the most delicious, simple dishes existing in the world in this book.

Food is one of the most powerful tools that we have for understand other cultures and customs. In this book authors will make of food an international reason of knowledge. 

In some cases, when a recipe is sooo delicious, we can try it, also if our friends and connections eat it at million and million kilometers of distance from us. 

These dishes are extremely common in their own countries but France decided to hugging them all with extreme benevolence. 

Not all these dishes have great reputation in term of good health and healthy ingredients; one of these ones is the hamburger. 

Sure, the correct preparation of a hamburger, with healthier ingredients when ingredients are found at home because you have a garden where you have planted veggies etc will permit to taste a delicious meal much more healthy than not the one bought in a bar. Plus, you can add or remove ingredients you find too fat for you or your children, introducing more veggies.

Authors add that, sure if compared to french cuisine pretty articulated and fascinating, this one is a dish that doesn't give too many problems for its preparation. There is also the story behind the birth of the project wanted by the brothers  MacDonald and it is absolutely fascinating. 

This book continues with the recipe and history of Couscous, our, surprise! Torta Pasqualina, a typical italian recipe re-seen and re-read but for the rest the same one we make in Italy during the Easter's season, for ending with, yum! the banana bread. This one is also one of my favorite dish. Irresistable, and absolutely delicious, it's for all your family! 

This ecookbook dedicated to children will be a great joy, and they will want to try these recipes. It will be fun to cook or bake all together, but then remember: exercise!

Bonne confinement! Stay healthy.

I thank Gallimard Jeunesse for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori 

What it means to be a Woman And Yes, Women do Poop by Jacqueline Pirtle

Last days I noticed a new post created by Jacqueline Pirtle on Instagram. She was happy and joyous one of her main characteristics.

"Look: this one is the first copy of my last book! I just received it!" she was saying us all thrilled. I became a big fan of Jacqueline because she transmits

all her joy, excitement for the existence and enthusiasm in her books, becoming, this time for good, absolutely contagious. 

I so asked for her new book; she immediately sent me the ebook. She also confessed me she is planning to present to her neighbors, considering the problematic situation that the Planet is living, her books.

Considering the massive impact that they can have in the existence of the others, I really enjoyed this idea. I am a big fan of her first book: 365 Days of Happiness:

Because Happiness is a piece of cake. Simply wonderful and inspiring.

This last one: What it means

to be a Woman

And Yes, Women do Poop is another strong book for all us, women, in search, sometimes of an identity. 

The one of Jacqueline passed, like for other women, through abuses and a growth that, at first was contaminated by the hate for the abusers and the abuse itself. But Jacqueline's character resuscitated from the abyss of  desperation discovered once abused.

 Later, in the book, Jacqueline told that sometimes she was in grade to "read" the abusers like human being under many ways; not just for moving on; after all she wouldn't never have become who she is, if she wouldn't have suffered that horrible chapters in her existence, when little and when in her 20s. Oh; but Jacqueline built a beautiful existence, she has a husband and two children. Why? Because she has been in grade to grow letting go away these sufferances. Better: not permitting anymore that the abuses of the past would have damaged her present and her future. This one is the main problem of these victims.

Jacqueline tells that when she was little she had un uncommon soul: she saw, perceived things, people, differently than all the rest of the other ones; she had "Strong feelings, deep visions, and profound thoughts" she writes at some point. 

But who is a woman? A soul "incapsulated" in a certain body; and this one is the biggest experience that a soul can experience: first of all the one of a genre, male or female, and secondly, appreciating our inner essence, radiating every second of our existence, living, dreaming, loving thanks to the fact that we have a feminine spirit.

Women have a strong energetic essence; the essence is simply our soul, explain Jacqueline, a part that won't never die. 

Why are we on the Earth as women? For expanding our physical part, an important one, although we should always priviledge the energetic essence for living a happy, and complete physical existence. Our physicality has many limits. We can't be helpful sometimes because we have a physical body, while the essence of a person is limitless. 

These ones some considerations I elaborate.

What should we first of all point at? Our happiness, experincing a good physical existence. No one, adds Jacqueline know what it is good or bad for you. You just know it.

When there are changes in an existence? When something bad or good happen in the existence, altering the entire creative process of the being and the natural personal growth. 

Our complexities in this sense emerges with prepotence: we are a body, a mind, a soul a consciousness.

The main differences of our bodies?  A gracious body for women, a strong muscular one for the man not mentioning the possibility for a woman of giving birth to a baby

All women should be in grade of thinking with positivity at the current moment that they experience because every experience is a gift. 

Sometimes women are victims of the circumstances but Jacqueline is more than sure that no one is realistically a victim if we don't choose to develop the so-called "victim energy."

You could have experienced also the hell but if you will be in grade to transform that negative energy in a wonderful possibility, then you will win, 

opening doors that, differently would remain closed: a different sensitivity, a different perception of reality, but also the capability of capture the best that there is around us. Sufferance bring to us these gifts as well. 

Jacqueline was abused, drugged, she experienced a toxic relationship and much more but she also wrote three books, she has two wonderful children, a husband and she is living her life at the fullest.

Jacqueline writes something else that let us think: "I realized that these types of oversteps only happened on my physical life level––in my energetic existence they don’t matter."

The most important process in this case is also to sending to hell once and for all the past for living well the present and much better the future. 

A problem Jacqueline focuses is also the equal pay, pretty distant from the one of men. An act of discrimination from a genre, the one of men still pretending to dominate a certain part of the world. 

In a chapter Jacqueline will stimulate you to digging deep in your soul with meditation. 

A woman sometimes should try to understand which part she is living the most. Tips, suggestions are for all aspect of a woman, starting from body, passing through our mind, soul, consciousness. 

For our mind: let's develop, always, always, always the power of the positive thinking!

Suggestions for us, our soul and our being for becoming less weak in the various situations of the existence. 

And women abused should repeat as a mantra: "I am not a victim because I turned it all around."

What does an abuse mean for the existence of a girl? As report Jacqueline "It robbed me of freedom. All my freedom was gone."

But now Jacqueline she has all the freedom she can ask at the existence: "Freedom to speak, laugh, play, eat what I want, do whatever I want, and I have even been able to exercise freedom in my work––to write book after book, just as I please."

The sensation of not being free returned with the time; it happened when traumas reappeared with prepotence in the soul of Jacqueline. Then Jacqueline healed and she will heal also the rest of us from all our uncertainties and sufferances if we will permit it.

Goodness and how to become more strong, LGBTQ, the NO's in grade of helping us when too tired, surrounding ourselves by positive people in grade to communicate joy and good vibes other important chapter of the book.

With a last unique appeal. You musn't change yourself for someone else, because, simply, it musn't exist.

It is treated in a chapter that being neat, can become for some women a real obsession.  Not that the house or other fields of a woman's existence should be chaotic, but simply, sometimes is also important to enjoy life for what it is, being less obsessed and more focused in the joys that life present us. 

Sometimes  ask to yourself if you are ready to walk your life writes Jacqueline but always remember...Be kind. Be smart. Be helpful. Be real. Be a good person!

Beautifully inspiring, this self-help book by Jacqueline is  an hymn at all that heavy episodes in the existence of women in grade to become a new force, strenght; in the field of sadness someone planted a lot of seeds and once they bloomed they were the most wonderful, extraordinary ones and the horror of the past became a land colored by a rainbow of joy, laughters, happiness. 

You'll adore this book! Highly recommended. 

I thank Jacqueline for the ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Lo Straniero Venuto dal Mare The Stranger from the Sea by Winston Graham

In this new book Lo Straniero Venuto dal Mare, The Stranger from the Sea, by Winston Graham

new adventures with and for the Poldark!

We had left a situation in progress and populated by a lot of tensions, in the previous chapter, La Furia della Marea.

Ross fought against a playboy who searched to steal the heart of his wife. Wife with which Ross had some problems at the moment, but that, surely, did not want to lose. His most important flame was also thinking that maybe the kid she had had was Ross's kid.

Time passed by and in this new book, we are in 1810, so ten years later the events told in the previous book, La Furia della Marea, Ross is fighting in the napoleonic wars; his wife is waiting anxiously for his arrival. Their situation is much more happy, relaxed and they sorted out their problems. In this new book a great space is dedicated to the two children of Ross and Demelza, Drake and Morwenna. 

Their general situation is happy till at the arrival of a stranger, brought by the sea thanks to a wreck, called Stephen Carrington. Stephen starts to live in the house of Poldark and obviously the children of Ross and Demelza appreciate a lot this new man; Drake appreciates his adventures, his passionate character. The same daughter of Poldark although surrounded by a lot of boys, will be attracted by Stephen. But...You know the story...The same Stephen is hiding something...

Beautiful, fascinating book, rich of adventures and with great characters. If you search for escapism thanks to a good adventure, the saga of the Poldark will be the great answer for these days of lockdown.

The saga of the Poldark family became with the time a tv series; the latest one, realized just few years ago is on Sky, channel 135. 

The cover of the book is amazingly beauty!!!

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Sull'acqua by H.M. van den Brink

It's an intimistic, touching tale this one written by H.M. van den Brink,

Sull'Acqua, published by Marsilio.

 It's a story of a friendship spent in a canoe. This sport impressed the protagonist of the story when once walked with his dad close to their river. Thanks to this fasciantion when it was possible, with his father, they joined the local sport club for practicing this discipline. Memories shared with us by the protagonist of this novel, Anton, are strong but soft at the same time: strong because the past was so different and rich of perspective, while the present absolutely unknown and destroyed by the advent of something absurd in the entire Europe. Human conditions that would have altered at long relationship with other ones, with profound fractures, broken souls, and a new world after the miseries and rubble of the world war. It's a lucid, implacable tale of what it meant to Anton spending time in a canoe, the sensations presented him by this sport, with, also, memories of victories, failures, what it meant to be part of a team, choosed because one of the most excellent ones. 

To Anton this sport meant also his personal emancipation from his family and consolidates traditions, that, to him didn't mean anymore anything, absorbed as he was, by canoes and water, a feeling this one undervalued by his parents, who thought that this one would have been just a fleeting passion. But...This love, after all for Anton did not start exactly with canoes; it was more profound. It started with loving the element where canoes spent their time: water. Water, synonime of deepest sport, danger, fun, life.

His friendship with David appeared sometimes a bit formal, told with all the delicacy of a young man, who, in just few years, close to the advent of the Second World War discovered a world turned upside down, with his friend and his entire family disappeared, and with a world collapsed because of the wild wind whispering horrors of another world conflict.

I personally enjoyed reading this book. I can't wait to read the next book by mr.Brink.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Le Spedizioni Polari by Valérie Masson-Delmotte Gérard Jugie and illustrated by Yann Fastier

Le Spedizioni Polari

by Valérie Masson-Delmotte Gérard Jugie  and illustrated by Yann Fastier is a free ebook downloadable at the website of Dedalo, italian publishing house during these days of lockdown. Firstly published by Le Pommier, this one is a genial, nice, but absolutely fascinating excursus in the North and South Pole of our Planet, thanks to the questions of two children, Guido and Laura. Thanks to one of the responsible of the center that they had previously visited with their school, mr Gelato will explain them the main differences between the North and South Pole, what the Antarctic base is doing; animals and differences between the Poles and what it would happen if all that water, under the shape of ice one day would be gone, returning to be water.

It is a real scientific disgression this one, pretty interesting and with an experiment that you can do at home as well!

Beautiful highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Cupcake Club LeRecettes by Donna Kauffman

Cupcake Club LeRecettes

by Donna Kauffman is a free ebook I received in a package of five, because of the confinement, lockdown and it is about several yoummy, absolutely yummy capcakes recipes. We all know that what it is necessary for a good cupcake is also fantasy, and the idea of a creation attractive for the eyes and for the palate. This eight recipes will satisfy you and your dear ones.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Un Incantevole Aprile by Elizabeth von Arnim

Oh, there is not another book maybe more appropriate for this beautiful sunny april. I know, we are in lockdown and times are hard, but let's look at all the beauty of our Italy: it is absolutely the best thing to do. 

There is not anyone else like Britons or Americans in grade to do that. It's more simple for foreigners to be passionate, estimators of the beauty that there is in our country. 

I was deciding what ebook to read when I noticed this free ebook that days ago Fazi Editori presented to all the readers closed in lockdown: Un Incantevole Aprile

by Elizabeth von Arnim: a pure gem that I know, will conquer all of you.

Again the thematic of the travel, like the possibility of a renewal, mental and physical.

The holiday is lived again by the protagonists of this novel not like a superficial escapism, but like the rediscovery of the self and the most important  priorities in the existence.

Mrs.Wilkins is a nice lady, she lives in Hampstead, but she is absolutely sad; she doesn't love her existence, she is not appreciated by her husband; no one would want to start a conversation with her; her opinions can't interest anyone; her husband is bored in her company.

One day, in a public place, reading The Times she notices a suggestive ad: someone was renting a castel in the riviera Ligure. Oh; Italy! What a dream being there, what a dream passing a month distant from this boring existence, from her husband, the attorney mr. Wilkins, and the rest of the people she knows.

While she was fantasizing, giving some physical shape at her dream, the arrival of Mrs. Arbuthnot. Once sat, she was reading the same ad, and she was rereading that ad. Mrs. Wilkins knew this lady, very appreciated; a lady who spent most of her time with poor people, alleviating their problems, their sufferances. She suggested her the trip together. They were too good and that was why they were so miserable, so unhappy, she added. 

Although the big difference of social class, status, but also character of the two ladies, they decided to go on. 

Not only they will receive an enthusiastic answer from mr.Briggs the owner of the italian castle but also, thanks to an ad the answer of two other ladies with which to share the expenses of the castle. 

One of them, pretty old, Mrs. Fisher, was a lady who mainly lived in the past. Her past, all buried friends and connections, were great writers of the Victorian age, like Browning and Carlyle, just for naming two of them; the another one was a rich young girl, Lady Caroline.

All these ladies after all left their comfort zone for staying alone. Mrs Fisher at first wanted to stay isolated, she thought, in a sunny spot of Paradise; Lady Caroline was running away from married men who found her terribly  beauty. She was tired of that predators.

Once arrived, they all enjoyed the dreaming land, the beautiful, relaxing, warm place; they started to appreciat food, sun, flowers, gardens, trees, the beautiful sea close to Genova, and the enchantment of a country, Italy, in grade to present to everyone a personal dream. This dream as mrs Wilkins noticed, once her soul was rinvigorated in spirit and body by light, sun, and a tremendously suggestive landscape and seascape, was the one of love. And this Paradise needed to be shared with loved ones. 

I don't want to spoil too much of this classic of literature. Just some observations: Arnim picked up and centered the characters of all these women, giving to each of them a precious unicity; the book presents several hilarious moments, and psychologically is absolutely interesting; it presents to all of us a mirror of british society, their reserved characters, but also their possibility of an integration with other ones when they feel that they are in good company.

Then, of course, there is the castle of San Salvatore, with all its magnificence; I found absolutely beautiful the description of gardens, flowers, trees, created by the author.

Sometimes life become a grey land where nothing is anymore interesting. These four ladies fell a great frustration, and all of them needed a new re-start in some direction; it was for this reason that they decided to go all alone in a different corner of the world escaping away from their comfort zone. They were tired; tired of the appearances that they had to play, tired of absent husbands, tired of too many men without any consistency close to them, or just tired, without to know that, of their past.

This trip will be a profound discovery for all these women, with their cultural differences, with their different vision of the existence, and the end will be surprising, because they will leave San Salvatore having found what  they were searching for, discovering that, maybe, they did not want exactly to escape from their grey existence in Hampstead or London, just they needed to re-connect their souls with themselves and their loved ones. Sometimes solitude, sometimes a new place, sunny, warm and friendly can give back a best version of the self and it is what happen to these protagonists.

Anna Maria Polidori