High for Life The Best Case Scenario by Jacqueline Pirtle a 90 Days Journal

 When I met accidentally 365 Days of Happiness Because Happiness is a piece of Cake I still didn't know the author Jacqueline Pirtle and the sparkle of magic she brings in the existence of many women all around the world with her encouraging self-help books. Jacqueline is in grade of speaking to the readers with immediacy, tender touch and an important proposal:  not leaving thr women who discovered her books as they were before. A change is more than possible thanks to her manuals. Her optimistic touch will be contagious and you will re-discover soon your best self!

Trust me!

High for Life The Best Case Scenario by Jacqueline Pirtle a 90 Days Journal is her latest book, where Jacqueline will treat the topic of High-for-Life. What does that expression mean?

Jacqueline explains that this one is a state of being where we are aligned with our true self. 

And so let's all re-discover our High for Life Best Scenario so that we can live our existence at its fullest. Not only: living our existence at the fullest means also living Our existence, not a pale and ugly copy of it; we will become independent, and not people who don't have properly the existence in their hands.

High for Life Journal will help you to see the best scenarious of your existence, pushing you to go for the best of the best at all times. You'll discover that when you'll start to smile to the existence, the existence will start to smile back to you! setting you free from the old constrictions. 

I personally found beautiful, of all the entries this one: the idea that living our existence means like enter in a store for shopping. What would you want to buy what would you want to give away? Personally I would want to pick up happiness, serenity, magazines and books, writing, flowers, tenderness, smiles,  giving away nasty people, unlucky events, toxic environments.

Another amazing journal Jacqueline!

Highly recommended. Because, sometimes in our existence we lose the compass!

I thank Jacqueline Pirtle for the copy of the journal.

Anna Maria Polidori 

 

Over The Rainbow by Constance Joly

 It is a sublime, intense, description of a father, this one portrayed in the book Over the Rainbow

, by Constance Joly. You'll remain enchanted, enchanted by the delicate touch of the words expressed by the author, by her poetry, her feelings, her sincerity and opened heart.

I remained bewitched by the cover of the book, by the smile of this man and the tenderness of that daughter: I thought that that pic was like an invitation. I was right. 

The thematics are many: there is the discovery of the self, a different self, there is the acceptance of homosexuality, there is the description of the sexual freedoms of the 1970s and 1980s (the first part), there is the discovery of a horrible illness, AIDS, sida in French, that, when Jacques fell ill for it, still didn't have cures: it was a death-sentence.

This one is also the story of this kid, born in an apparent common family of people of culture.  An uncle esiliated from the family-home because discovered with a black boy while they were having a sexual intercourse when still a teen-ager.

Both these brothers, Bernard and Jacques were homosexuals. Jacques tried to save the appearances marrying Lucie, with which he has had Constance, the author of the book, an adorable daughther he loved passionately.

Lucie and Jacques were both teachers, they had a cultivated intelligence, they adored Italy at many different levels. Once they went at Forte dei Marmi, Italia for a holiday; Jacques understood that yes, he was terribly attracted by men.

Once returned home they discovered that they would have been three, soon! Constance was arriving.

Then one day, Jacques met somewhere someone beautiful like Robert Redford and, oh my....He couldn't not falling in love for him.

Stability is reached with a long-term companion, Ivan; and Jacques decides to embrace who he is, leaving his family.

Constance sees herself at 7 years when there was the end of a marriage that Lucie would have wanted to save with all herself: it was difficult to  understand at first what a "companion" of the same sex meant for his father; why also sharing with him the same bed? She will tell that she also discovered the two of them making love; but after all, the one of Jacques was a couple like another one, when she shared time with them: they were perfect parents, Ivan included. Her mother experienced a real shock, because absolutely in love for Jacques... Constance discovers sex very soon understanding that this first boyfriend had several predjudices regarding gays.

Jacques and Ivan decides to afford to San Francisco at some point.

In crisis, Ivan will move on...

A new companion, Soren, who still thinks that the few years spent with Jacques have been the best ones of his existence, will convince Jacques to do an anti-HIV test; it was 1988. Jacques discovers to be sick. 

At that time sida was lived like a plague and a punishment from God, when it was soon understood that the problem involved also heterosexuals and that bloood transfusions, doctors with scarcity of hygiene could be powerful vehicles of transmission of this infective illness: the world was alarmed. I remember that a good method when a person was biten by a viper was the one of sucking the blood of the person injured: a suppressed method after the advent of sida. It became indispensible a high attention in presence of fresh blood of other people. Just little examples for trying to let understand to the readers what the advent of sida meant: a complete change of behaviors in many situations and in our daily life.  

If at the moment a person who discovers to be affected by sida will live a long life, see for example the case of Ben Johnson sick from 30 years, 61 years and in great great health! becoming old with this illness, in the 1980s (at first the person can be positive per years without any kind of symptoms) meant death in a short period. A horrible disappearance.

Jacques didn't want to tell the truth to anyone. Predjudices were too high; having sida meant having the plague of the xx century, but once he did with Constance in a dramatic phone call. 

Constance was completely shocked and she lived an immense psychological terror: she interrupted to work; she couldn't sleep, she started to have fear of every possible person; digesting this news sounded too much for this daughter absolutely in love for that fantastic father, with which she enjoyed to watch on TV old american movies, with which she shared ideas, time, readings; this fantastic daddy with that beautiful warm smile: he had sida and she would have lost him because of it.

Tender, dramatically touching, this one is the voice of a daughter, still searching for her father, this father gone too soon, this father who meant the world to her.

Read it! I know that you'll adore it!

Highly recommended.

I thank Editions Flammarion from the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Les Plus Belles Lettres de Femmes by Laure Adler & Stefan Bollmann

 It's one of the most beautiful, classy book I have seen this year; a perfect gift: inspiring; a precious and tender object that will let you reflect and at the same time appreciate the feminine universe; I am speaking of Les Plus Belles Lettres de Femmes

by Laure Adler & Stefan Bollmann, recently published by Flammarion.

Perfect for a present as written before, in particular if you have some romantic friends in love for correspondence, and the dear old times, this book is richly, warmly illustrated, for permitting us the discovery of the several couples involved in writing! Drawings, pictures, paintings will amplify the power of written words. The result is a visual book on letters where the feminine universe is seen in its globality.

Divided in sections, the authors analyzes the various meaning of femal correspondents during the past centuries. The modernity is seen, correctly as an impersonal, historical moment, where SMS, e-mails are sent without going too deep.

Writing a letter was different. It was a anctivity that involved body and mind.

Correspondence meant reflection, a moment in which a woman became the master of her existence; a private instants in which she was free; free from social cages, free from constrictions and restrictions, but also free to express what she wanted, she wished, she desidered because the other person, the one who would have received the letter would have been for sure someone interested in reading her words; the woman was free to express intensily and beautifully well her thoughts, and her feelings.  Written words put in order her mind, and for whatever reason a woman wrote, she wrote expressing herself.

Divided in five sections, you will see: Lettres d'Amour, Lettres d'Amitié, Lettres D'Amour Maternelle et Filial, Lettres de Femme d'Influence for ending with Lettres de Voyageuses. 

In the past receiving and answering letters was, in particular for men and women of culture, an intense, daily activity.

Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning for example exchanged in a very short time 537 letters before to decide of spending the rest of their existence together, living at long in Florence. 

One of the most violent, passionate love-story in letters, was the one of George Sand and Alfred de Musset. Very known is the relationship by Juliette Drouet with Victor Hugo, a feeling this one long like the existences of the protagonists where letters of great intensity and pathos were echanged by the protagonists. 

Frida Kahlo lived an intense love-story per years with the photographer Nickolas Muray. But more, we will also read the story of the correspondence between Marie Antoinette and De Polignac, the one of Marie Therese with Marie Antoinette, while Olympe de Gouges suggested to Marie Antoinette of supporting her cause; possibility of divorce for women, suppression of religious marriage, entrance of ladies in political life, and of course sex equality; a revolutionary woman for that years, we are in 1791! You will also read on Colette in contact with her friends, and what had to say Simone Weil, or what wrote Simone de Beauvoir at Jean-Paul Sartre or Karen Blixen at her family.

It's a book, this one, that leaves to you complete freedom. You can jump in a section or in another indulging in a love-story correspondence; discovering the worries of a mother for a daughter, impressions of travellers, correspondence between friends and more. This book is like opening many, different, fascinating doors. All populated by amazing women!

Impressive, elegant.

Highly recommended.

I thank Flammarion for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Il Pozzo by Regina Ezera

 Il Pozzo

by Regina Ezera is a book of the Baltic literature, one of the most important ones.

I am so sorry for the delay with Iperborea. I had put aside this book and read these days. It is an absorbing reading, plenty of profound reflections on the little human acts in a daily base, analyzed viscerally. Characters are like trapped in their own role ad "curses" if we want to use this expression. Virtual cages built for due, for social reasons.

And, again, this one is also a story of women after all, and children. 

The story starts when a doctor from Riga, Rudolf decides to go to a vacation in a countryside renting a little boat for fishing. It's there, at first that he will meet Laura the owner of the boat. Laura is the mother of two children, and lives in the house with the mother of her husband and the sister-in-law.

The house where these ladies live is not healthy; very cold in the winter-time, populated by mices, her children fall sick pretty often.

Rudolf is there for experience again the beauty of freedom. The possibility of cooking, fishing, in complete relaxation.

Slowly, we see that the friendship between Laura and Rudolf, made by silences and things not said will substantially grow; Laura at the same time is trapped in the domesticity by the act committed by her husband: he killed a man and now he is in jail. Laura suffered for the situation, for the chats of the rest of the population, and because he doesn't have anymore the companion of her existence close to her. 

A disgrace, this one, that changed the destiny and events for the entire family...

A beautiful book, perfect for your summer! 

I thank Iperborea for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

La Chiave dei Ricordi by Kathryn Hughes

 La Chiave dei Ricordi,

The Key by Kathryn Hughes is another wonderful book by the author of The Letter. I decided to read this book for giving some space also to the piles of books I bought during the year but that are procrastinated because they are not in the list of books that must be reviewed.

It was a wonderful and hard reading at the same time, of course because psychiatric hospitals as the one where interacted the females protagonists of this story, mostly a pink story of three strong women, where men are just a frame, sometimes not too beauty, in their existence, were hard places without any kind of humanity; for the most diversified reasons. And, an example for all, the nurse who became insensitive to everything and everyone because when still there from just several days, she lost the friend strangled by one of the patient and put under a bed.

The stories told are old and new: the book starts in 2006, when a lady, Sarah, 38 years decides to write a book on Ambergate. In the house of her childhood because left by the husband and because her mother died and she was making good company to her father: a man, who, once had worked at Ambergate. In the sections dedicated to the past, so the 1950s there is at first the story of Ellen a new nurse of the psychiatric hospital  that I thought would have been preminent in the book for then seeing that the author bended in the direction of Amy, the main central character of this story. I can't reveal too much for not ruining the surprise.

Written with great competence, the style is captivating and the reader won't be in grade to put down this book anymore once she will start to read it. A good reading for men as well.

A story that will capture you from the first to the last page.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Pandemic 2 Chronicles of a Lost Time by Slavoj Zizek

 Pandemic 2 Chronicles

of a Lost Time by Slavoj Zizek treats the advent not anymore new of the pandemic and its implications in the social life of people. Lockdowns brought the humanity in a different state, where personal freedom was/is drastically reduced, with a lot of collateral effects; it is also a book that wants to re-think the idea of future or what it will be; maybe we will stay more closed in our houses; maybe more dependant by ourselves for everything and with less human interactions because as Zizek tells at some point, we all learnt that maybe this one is not a pandemic-story of months but maybe years. Years in which our patience, our health system, our psychology must stay strong. At the same time the economical system must be re-thought, because a pandemic means with its arrival more poverty.

Wonderful little book plenty of fascination, analysis, and truths.

Highly recommended.

I thank Polity for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Anime Nere Due Donne e Due Destini nella Roma nazista by Anna Foa e Lucetta Scaraffia

 You musn't be too surprised, it is a sad story this one of the last World War Second: jewish people betrayed for the most diversified reason, but substantially for one, money, by other Jewish ones.

In this new book by Marsilio Anime Nere Due Donne

e Due Destini nella Roma nazista by Anna Foa e Lucetta Scaraffia a little big story I didn't know sets in Rome.

It is a story that I am sure will capture your attention.

It will, because we are in the heart of Rome, in the Jewish ghetto, where that community had more than friendship relationships with the rest of the citizenship: better, there was a fusion with the catholic population, where differencies didn't exist, and where, also after the racial laws of 1938 catholics and jewish continued to interact as they did in the past.

Said that, in a time of war there are many spies, but when these spies are snakes of your same community, it is more frustrating and horrible. 

One of them was a certain Celeste Di Porto. In good relationship with the enemy, every Jewish she met along the street was signaled with a gesture for being captured, put in jail and internated.

No one could see this girl, the rest of the community was all scared of her; Celeste a person who grew up in the same nest of the rest of jewish people: once that they completely  understood her game they tried to escape from her.

Once a boxer Lazzaro Anticoli, in jail, wrote - the message is still visible - : "I am Anticoli Lazzaro, said Bucefalo, boxer. If I won't see anymore my family (he wrote in roman's dialect) it's all fault of that traitor calls Celeste..."

Celeste was terrible, most of the people she signaled were killed also at the Fosse Ardeatine.

Another character close to her, because in jail at the same time was the one of Elena Hoehn. This German lady married a man, became the lover of another one breaking his relationship with the husband and then she returned in the hands of her husband.

Member of the so-called Focolarini, she was a controversial woman: she was a spy and, when her lover mr.Frignani, the guy who participated at the arrest of Mussoni, asked her a way for going somewhere else, she won't hesitate, giving to him protection and a roof where to stay.

Pity that later, she will tell everything to the Gestapo and they arrested everyone (but she said that it was all fault of other people and in particular she pointed the finger on her servant) : she also tried, look at the infernal behavior of this lady, of keeping at home her husband the day of the arrest. The husband, the arrest was on Sunday, was a devoted of mass and at 12 o'clock he loved to attend the saint event. Said this, although she insisted, the husband preferred to go. And he was right! So right that once he returned home noticing all that turmoil, preferred to ask the protection to a guy well-known in the city, who found for him a place in a convent of the city. The husband of Elena stayed there for more than 6 months and intimated to his friend, he had to have a great trust on his wife, I thought!, of not telling her for any reason where he stayed in. 

It wasn't at all a great story, the one of these two ladies. They tried all their best for cleaning their acts, but history is telling what they tried to bury. 

Great book for everyone and for remembering what it meant the last second world war.

I love the cover!

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori

I Believe in You by Tatsuya Miyanishi

 I Believe in You

by Tatsuya Miyanishi published by Museyon Books, present, to all of us, children and adults, the latest adventure of the most ferocious dinosaurus of all the times, The Tyrannosaurus Rex, a guy, this one in action, as we have seen in the previous adventures, with, after all, a great heart.

Yes, because this Tyrannosaurus, as you will see, will start helping with the idea of taking advantage from this situation, but later, will understand a different kind of world populated by good feelings, helped, also, by magical red berries.

The story starts when this family of triceratops is buried in a cave.

Only one of their little triceratops remained safe outside. The little dinosaurus tries his best, asking help to all the rest of dinosaurus. "Please, help me. I want to see again all my family, my papa" but no one is in grade of removing the heavy rocks.

There is just a dinosaurus so powerful: the Tyrannosaurus. But...Why asking for his help? He is horrible, brutal, he kills every second, he doesn't feel any kind of compassion for others, they tell to the little triceratop.

But the little triceratop wants to give him a chance, and the Tyrannosaurus will learn how beauty is to be good, loved and appreciated.

A warm story for your children!

Illustrations are nice, and they picture the weather, and geological era where our protagonists were with great efficacy.

Highly recommended

I thank Museyon Books for the copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Nient'altro che la Verità by Michele Santoro

 I couldn't sleep well last night thinking at what I would have written in the review of the latest book by Michele Santoro, one of the most beloved reporters and TV journalists, authors of historical talk shows that made history like Samarcanda. 

This book, Nient'altro che la Verità,

is in fact a book on an affiliated of Cosa Nostra, Maurizio Avola, a killer. When we say mafia I become worried and scared. 

The italian mafia  exists because no one talks of it for fear: there is a wall of omertà still pretty high.

But, this book is a revelation after revelation: a big surprise! interesting, captivating. 

Maurizio Avola, the killer interviewed assassinated more than 80 people; he was the one who had put some bombs in the house of the TV presenter Pippo Baudo, and the mansion jumped in the real sense of the word, because Baudo said something of nasty against Cosa Nostra; Avola was the one, this one is an exclusive! who killed Paolo Borsellino. Avola said that his eyes were the last thing that Borsellino had seen when in life. After the departure of Falcone, Borsellino knew that his new condition was the one of the "dead man walking": he knew that the next one would have been him and lived constantly worried. The end was close. 

I thought that these judges were killed because...well... they knew too much; maybe, of course it was true, but... there was also another reason: the pact established between the State and Cosa Nostra was changing with these judges and Cosa Nostra wasn't happy; Cosa Nostra couldn't anymore be as powerful as it was: it couldn't manipulate anymore trials, corrupting judges for setting free  immediately their affiliates. Avola told that before the advent of Falcone and Borsellino no one was worried when some people of Cosa Nostra went in jail because the person incriminated would have been set free more or less immediately, paying, corrupting here and there: with these two judges, guidelines, let's use this word, changed and also for this reason it was important their elimination. 

But...Who is Avola?  He was born in a good family, the father had a pastry shop and was a great baker; same work would have wanted for this kid. Maurizio went in a school owned by some sisters, but he didn't like the place and didn't love to go to school. Then the family ended up in Alassio, but the situation of Maurizio, talking about school didn't better. Returned to Sicily, started soon the criminal activity, at first stealing; there is to say that there is a honor code also in that field. 

At the end, being intelligent, and with a great ability of shooting, Cosa Nostra, and the family of Nitto Santapaola started to observe him more closely. He soon became a killer. For several chapters it's just a story of homicides. People killed because they said too much as it happened to Fava, a beloved italian journalist, or, no sure why this homicide captured my attention a lot, because a young man, driving with his car, didn't let pass the man of honor that was behind him; so later they killed him.

What appear more than clear was that Sicily wasn't in the hand of the State, but controlled by Cosa Nostra considering these homicides. Most of the times bodies were burned, destroyed, so that no one would have found anymore anything: people had to die, so in general killers destroyed their heads. 

Other times bodies were abandoned along the streets, but no one called the police men for telling them anything, because the guideline: "Iddu lo sa" a sicilian expression that can be translated as "he knows why he has been killed" for the rest of the citizenship  is more than sufficient: they do their own business and don't tend to enter in the business of Cosa Nostra and their internal settlement of accounts.

Maurizio Avola has had wagons of women, most of them famous ones, but he didn't want to confess these relationships for not putting in difficulty these ladies.

The women these mafiosi had were famous ones, models, starlets, interested in cocaine as well.

The thoughts of Maurizio: he still thinks that his destiny was the one of shooting, and killing people, and that maybe if he would re-born he would do that again.

He feels that drugs shouldn't be commercialized because cocaine and drugs in general ruin people: once he killed a man because raped a beautiful girl; he knew this girl, still little, not yet 18 years old; she also tried to come up to Maurizio but he refused. When he discovered that a certain man had raped her, he killed that paedophile.

Once they organized a big robbery and the person corrupted was the vice-manager of the bank they assaulted. A big power of Cosa Nostra is the possibility of "buying" people in the italian State tissue, in the masonry, police men, and every field you can think at. Maurizio hates these people, the so-called respectable ones, the first dishonest ones he adds. 

There was the law of the three days after a robbery. Everything stolen had to keep away and not sold for three days. They killed people who would have violated this code.

There are chapters dedicated to the advent of Berlusconi, like also to the latest governments.

What appear clear is that Cosa Nostra was a sort or organical part of Italy and after all of the deviated State.

Mafia can also be classified like a situation, a city where a bunch of people do the good and the bad weather and other people are like trapped: it musn't be the sicilian mafia. Mafia is synthesis of less growth, less development and less freedom for all the citizens. 

Great book, let's hope to see Michele Santoro back on TV soon.

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

 

Il Diavolo Zoppo e il Suo Compare by Alessandra Necci

 Il Diavolo Zoppo

e il Suo Compare by Alessandra Necci is a new historical book published by Marsilio. Alessandra Necci with accuracy proposes to its readers two french characters absolutely complicated like the ones of Talleyrand and Fouché were.

Both Catholics, and both later profound haters of the Catholic church, these two politicians lived an intense existence, sometimes enemies, other times "friends" just for convenience.

They became the perfect characters of the political opportunism..

It is true, of course, but they have been also great strategists; they survived the French Revolution and what it followed, and more than being loyals to the various regimes or governments they have been loyal to  France. 

A captivating reading for everyone.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

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Ira e Tempo by Peter Sloterdijk

 Ira e Tempo

by Peter Sloterdijk is a lucid account of Anger and what it means this feeling. The philosopher starts his mental trip analyzing the meaning of anger in the greek culture, not seen so negatively, for later becoming in our culture a sort of boiling caldrum of the nastiest sentiments of the human beings. In fact, once the solidity of the society over, and many certainties, characterized by political parties for example or different kind of ideologies, (they were called the banks of the resentment) gone forever, every man started to live in a condition of aggressivity his state of orphanage without to know anymore where to let explode his anger; so, it musn't be a big surprise the disharmony of our society; the conflicts in the urbans areas more poor of big cities; anger could also means joining terroristic groups, or trying to discover dangerous certainties that the common society and countries and their systems can't give to them anymore.

Unfortunately, as adds at some point the beloved philosopher, there is not an escapism or a projectuality for a new world with solidities of different nature.

A book for everyone interested at the discovery of a sentiment that should be kept under control.

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori  

La Frontiera Viaggio Intorno alla Russia by Erika Fatland

 La Frontiera

Viaggio Intorno alla Russia by Erika Fatland is a new book by Marsilio. Russia is  a fascinating, magical, mysterious land. The biggest country of this world, my father used to say that the Russia was the "Granary of the World". An immense vastity that means also differences, linguisticals, climaticals, geographicals. 

The author, one of the best ones of Oslo, she also received the prize as one of the most influencial and good authors under 35 decided one day that she would have visited the entire russian border territory: and she made it! with the difficulties that you can imagine, with the most diversified drivers she met along her way, some toxic, curious, other ones polemics, I want to remember the taxi driver of Georgia polemic with Putin, grown up there; great relevance, in terms of chapters is given to Georgia, a land that has given to Russia a lot of politicians: I want to remember you of reading, for understand much better what the Communist Party meant for peasants, thinkers, people in general The Eight Life for Brilka by Nino Haratischwili, always published by Marsilio.

Erika tells when she decided at 22 years to afford to Russia, in the city of Puskin for studying Russian. It was a miserable experience, was pretty hot, the lady who gave her hospitality was pretty poor and she couldn't eat properly. Odessa was another experience and she reports the anedoct of her teacher. When she explained her that she would have wanted to read Dostoevskij in original, she suggested her of enter in a good mental predisposition, being lonely and in a tranquil place; the brain must be opened and receptive. With a lot of available time.

Erika visited also a little town where there are still swedish emigrated in Russia at the end of 1800: they still speak swedish and they try to maintain traditions, including their great tea, instead of drinking the horrible ukrainan one precised the son of Maria, the lady where Erika spent time with. What a beautiful experience. These two people lived in a very tiny house; the bathroom was outside, close to the stable of the hens; they live modestly, in the house there is also the washing machine, theoretically there is warm water in the house, but not all the time they receive it.

But, their hospitality has been the one that a king and a queen would donate to an appreciated guest. They donated to Erika time, a big dinner and a lot of cups of great tea! Yum! 

Interesting the visit at Cernobyl. I didn't know that: now they organize groups for tourists brought with a little bus in the city where there was the catastrophic nuclear disaster in 1986. Grass is still incredibly radioactive and people must avoid it with all themselves.

There was a park built for children and never inaugurated where tourists focuse the attention.

Every year, touristic tours started in 2001, Cernobyl counts 10-20.000 visitors.  A city at just 2 km from the nuclear central counted 50.000 people; it was the place where the workers of the nuclear atomic central, four in total, lived. 

Immediately after the disaster, all the people of the city remained at the obscure of the gravity of the situation living unprotected for a day and half; 36 hours: after that the government decided for reasons unclear at the time to the citizenship to evacuate the city, adding that they would have returned soon in the city; but the fact is that this one is a phantom city like the ones you meet in California and no one returned there.

There are still in the houses children toys left on the tables and the life is fixated in that historical moment. A sort of modern Pompeii, after all, because that days left unprepared the citizens and their life is crystallized in the latest instants spent in their houses. That houses tell their existence left behind forever. It is calculated that the emissions spread by Cernobyl were 200 times times superiors 8f compared to the ones of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki-

Tyroid cancers, but also deficit at the immunitary system the main illnesses treated in the hospital of Cernobyl, where they don't wait a change for other 30 years. Erika interviews some survivors of the explosion, and most of them are still spending long long time to the hospital. No one want to declare what kind of illness they have, but everyone hate the sovietic regime for what done.

The atomic central explosed was a model developed by Russians but never approved in the western countries of the world because considered too dangerous.

Changing topic....In Caucasus explains Erika there is the biggest concentration of spoken languages and ethnic groups than not in the rest of the world. 

In less than 260 days she explored the most remote territories of the russian country, starting from Pyongyang.

The portraits accumulated of places, countries, is fantastically beauty; I leave to you the discovery of them I don't want to ruin your reading  spoiling too much. Erika is captivating, opened, someone enthusiastic of people, places and the desire of telling a complicated but absolutely fascinating land she is in love with. 

Enjoy this reading, it's perfect for the summer-time!

Highly recommended book.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

A Life, by Simone Veil translated by Tamsin Black

An immense book A Life,

by Simone Veil translated by Tamsin Black excellently well and published by Haus Publishing.

The beloved french politician tells her entire story in this book.

From the serene, peaceful, happy existence with her parents and siblings, till at the arrival of Nazis and following deportation.

When they escaped to Nice, the only consolation was that when they arrived in the french riviera the power was in the hands of italians and italians didn't want to cause any stress to the jewish community, and they were treated very well. Her mother, her father, and brother died in the camp; survived, this lady studied law and political science. With the time she became Minister of the government of Jacques Chirac; with her there was the legalization of abortion in France.

Veil became also the first President of the European Parliament, later returning in the french government with the role of minister for social affairs.

A stunning character, a strong personality, someone who made of her life a beautiful existence and an example for everyone.

As President Macron remarked "Simone Veil is the best of what France can achieve."

Highly recommended!

I thank Haus Publishing for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori