La Setta Henrik Fexeus by Camilla Lackberg

La Setta Henrik Fexeus

by Camilla Lackberg published by Marsilio (24 euros) is an unputtable down book. Written in short chapters, reading is quick, thematics touched serious and important. The case treated by Julia back to work after a period of maternity involves a little kid, Ossian, just 5 years old, captured by a lady, brought away in her car. In general children are captured by people close to the family: a sort of punishment for the couple but in this case there are not evidencies in this sense. Thanks to a mentalist Julia, Mina and their staff understands that there is a case pretty similar to the one of Ossian: Lilly found dead unfortunately the last year. The autoptic exams confirms that the kid was strangled but that there was also like a pressure in the chest. What caused it?

Investigators tries their best thanks to their abilities: this dilemma could be a story of time: Ossian could potentially die if the two cases are connected as affirmed by the new entry of the staff...

They would want to bring home the kid safely. Unfortunately the emerging story is more complicated. At the same time Nathalie, Mina's daughter starts to become friend with her granny. The granny has a structure where people pretty stressed afford for re-balancing their soul but maybe there is also something else...

I can't tell you more. I leave you at the reading of this book, absolutely a good Christmas gift!

Anna Maria Polidori 

La Fiera dell'Autenticità by Gilles Lipovetsky

 La Fiera dell'Autenticità

by Gilles Lipovetsky published by Marsilio (20 euros) traces a portrait of our society that is powerfully interesting.

We live, in this historical moment, under the dogma of authenticity. This dimension absorbs more or less every aspect of our existence. Brands we buy must be necessarily what they tell us that they are: naturals, authentics,: they are our biggest influencers. Brands telling: Be Yourself  a phrase that we find often, wherever we look at want to tell to us that we are unique people, suggesting us, it's implied but pretty understandable that we must in this way to propose our unique way to be to everyone.

Social medias, of course, are the perfect place where to exhibit ourselves although every kind of normality is banned and where perfection must play the biggest role: we can share what we want but it must be perfect: every second of our existence can, theorically end in a social media. Everything started with the advent of the net, the first webcams and the first girls who shared everything of their existence. 

Our society is pretty free. Religion and the rigid society of some time ago

are not anymore "big influencers" in the existence of men and women and fluidity is the biggest reality reached during these decades with the possibility to experience every possibe shade of love. There is to add that people reached a lot of goals: marriages with people of the same sex and certain taboos of the past, like love between two men or two girls, are over, accepted largely socially: also eterosexual couples can live love and affectivity differently from the past.

Same story involves transgenders, largely seen on TV, or song contests. 

If sex is accepted, the movement metoo created a repressive state regarding absuses of men on women and nothing is anymore considered accepted when forced. Women can manifest with total freedom their desires, but no one must try to use any kind of violence against a woman. Same is for paedophiles. The author adds that this one is a society that, if very free, can punish pretty strongly.

For sure: each of us is a consumer in this society devoted to consumerism and that's also why capitalism has embraced a certain way of living. Yes, it's not an innocent society this one, forget it and certain decisions have been taken for implementing business.

Children are another chapter that created confusion during the past decades: if in the past, there was a rigid education, at the moment every kid is untouchable, must be treated with great respect, consideration, he is plenty of rights, and respected because a little person that must develop who he is. This education with the time has created problems and sometimes didn't offer solutions. 

What kind of society is this one? Well, it is maybe authentic, but the idols offering their authenticity are not people ethically great as it happened in the past: in general they are actors, sport-men, people of the showbitz. In most cases these existences, but also the ones of common people are reported in talk-shows, where common people or known ones love to indulge in their life, troubles in particular, problems. It's what people want or just, to me, what the society wants to give us. 

The book doesn't forget the new trend born in recent times: eating better, buying ethically, in general taking the existence more easily.

Tourism appears always more incapsuled under the perspective of offering to the tourist the perfection: but this perfection, in its authenticity appear surreal and depressing. Who is the main winner of tourism at the moment? The lonely tourist: the one who decide to invoke a complete freedom of expression: the one who don't follow masses, but, with his own personality create the best travel of his existence because in search of real people, real places, real adventures and a lot of fun, without being driven, addressed by a society who would want to cuddle all of us, without to let us add any sparkle of creativity, personality and character where we go.

Environmentalist crisis and solutions are analyzed profoundly, seeing the limit of frugality asked to us by our governments, important but not sufficient for resolving the big mess in which we are in, and the necessity, pretty urgent to find answers through investments for starting a new society, a new world more efficient and real, meeting the necessities of our poor Earth!

Beautiful, splendid book, highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Il Manoscritto delle Nuove Promesse by Katherine Slee

 Il Manoscritto delle Nuove Promesse

by Katherine Slee translated by Roberta Scarabelli and published by Garzanti is a fantastic book for its immense poeticity. The author is in grade to let us see a beautiful world populated by peace, and a tender, soft existence, not disconnected by problems but filtered wonderfully well in a vision that it is relaxing.

Every chapter, apart the ones dedicated to Catriona, starts with the name of a different bird and at the end Slee will explain to the readers in a chapter apart the meaning of every bird.

Catriona Robinson is a big author of children's book. Sick, she dies leaving a devastated niece, Emily, with profound wounds in her soul and body but...with the possibility of healing.

Thanks to a lot of connections, friends, Catriona, prepares to Emily some letters where it is revealed who she was, her dreams, expectations and excitement for an original existence.

At the same time, Emily will travel in the most beloved corners of the world appreciated by her granny for trying to discover what she has decided to transmit her.

Be not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest they Be Angels in Disguise: in a wall of the famous parisien bookstore Shakespeare & Company there is written this quote.

Catriona worked there as tumbleweeds and it was in that bookstore that she decided she would have been a writer. Every tumbleweeds, before they go away must leave something: a biography, a writing, something that describe themselves and also the resons why they decided to work there. Catriona left a little notebook not found anymore. Always there, she had met important and crucial people to her like Antoine and Noah and Gigi... The first a delicate soul with which she spent several months in Saint Tropez, the other one, her biggest love. Other important people Giancarlo with a restaurant in Verona...

The existence of Catriona was devastated by an important loss: remained alone with her niece, she tried her best for healing herself and her niece by the horrible situation that they had experienced.

The book is populated by little and precious situations and microcosms.

The importance of life is in the little, daily actions of every day. 

Emily, thanks to the revelations will be in grade to make peace with her past.

Precious and highly recommended book!

Anna Maria Polidori 

Il Bambino e il Cane by Hase Seishu

 I love dogs, and so I requested Il Bambino e il Cane

by Hase Seishu, published by Marsilio Romanzi.

Enchanting. Not in the sense that it is romantic or beautiful in the classic sense of the word, no, but because it is a spiritual trip for this dog, a special animal for sure, classified as a mamori-gami, a spirit protecting other people. I surfed the web trying to discover also a more profound meaning of this word and I think I found something connected also with death. In fact, most of the people met by this special dog will die. It's not fault of Tamon, this one the name of the animal, but of the destiny of these people, although I love to think that Tamon accompanied, guided them till at this final moment of the existence and that he was like a sort of "bridge" with the other dimension. 

But who is Tamon?

Tamon, the dog protagonist of this story had lost, because of the big quake and tsunami of Fukushima, his owner as many other animals.

He starts to meet in his peregrinations, thanks to its intelligence and good character a lot of people in love for him: they will take good care of him: to everyone Tamon has been lived like a fluke.

People who will take good care of him: delinquents for case, because of necessity, delinquents, a prostitute, frustrating ones, in search of answers and a new start, an old man: then Tamon will reach a kid with a lot of problematics because of the quake and tsunami: someone he had seen and met 5 years before, when he still had his owner and he was happy.

Tamon will be a real healer to him...

Tender, passionate, a dog can seriously be an angel in disguise. I read this book in a few hours! Captivating!

Highly recommended book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Cahier Annie Ernaux

 If you want a good book for a best understanding of author Annie Ernaux

, Nobel Prize 2022, Cahier de l'Herne will represent the best answer to you. Ernaux, born poor, studied, becoming someone different from her parents. This differentiation meant to her and her family a contrast and an advancement. Her father was surprised by this daughter who, thanks her intellectual skills was in grade to change tongue for speaking with strangers. The differentiation of status along her way meant to Ernaux a lucid analysis of her own existence. When she studied at the high school, she understood the superiority of her classmates, from wealthy families and living in beautiful part of the city. 

Reading and writing have been strong passions discovered soon by the author. Although she doesn't like to be represented in a defined style or genre, Ernaux focuses on auto-biographical thematics: her past, her strongest experiences. The departure of the mother, a clandestine love-story, a book on that sister never seen... Her writing are a continuous research of truth thanks to the restitution of sensations. Ernaux thinks that words creates in their complexity, truth. 

Ernaux confesses that more than writing for the expectation of readers, she writes for herself. Readers are important but what she proposes to them is a process that starts from her intimacy for later irradiate them with her words. I found interesting the piece by Danielle Arbid, director who decided to put on the big screen the book by Annie on her clandestine relationship with a Russian man. In the several sections where portions of her journals are relased the serious health issue, a breast cancer, experienced by Ernaux. Her lovers had said her that she wouldn't never become old. Upset because of the hormonal cures she was doing, she confessed that she decided to throw away that pills, maybe cause of the appearance of cancer.

A brief writing of Annie Ernaux at the beginning of the chapter on Les Années focuses on the society of the third millennium and what it means for women and men, in comparison to the society found and left by her mother, where plastic surgery, contraceptive pill were unknown like a lot of other freedoms experienced later by her: the paradoxality of a society where just a little portion of world is rich and the rest is starved.

The painting by Dorothea Tanning of a woman in her 30s, 40s, attracts Ernaux so much for the powerful messages that give to women: open doors, future, expectations.

In the painting this beauty woman touches a handle, her eyes are still uncertain, she doesn't know what the future will deserve for her and, close a monstrous bird, with eyes plenty of curiousity on this world. It is in fact a stranger creature.The face like the one of a bat, but the body completely different, there is a tail as well. Maybe it is a deformed cat, with wings.

This painting intrigues Ernaux so badly: she confesses  she could spend hours looking at this.

Rome and Venice remains the cities of love for Ernaux, while in England, young and an au pair, starts to write.  

In an interview Ernaux reveals that her passion for writing is endless and that once she ends a book, she is ready for another literature adventure, and she must report everything. A strong and sometimes conflictual relationship the one with pictures, seen as presence and absence at the same time, they represent the fluidity of time and time passing by: a picture is individuality but also collectivity and it's maybe the strongest witness of our passage in this world. 

A teacher as well, this work permitted her to remain connected with the reality: transmitting and educating is what a teacher does in a daily base and it is the most important action that exist in the world. That world helped, stimulated a lot her writings. 

Annie Ernaux says that living to her means to be "dans or sur l'ecriture."

A cahier that you will simply adore. Perfect gift for Christmas!

Anna Maria Polidori 

Le Colibrì by Elisa Shua Dusapin & Hélène Becquelin

 Le Colibrì

by Elisa Shua Dusapin & Hélène Becquelin published by La Joie de Lire is a poetic children's book speaking the most to teen agers. I start to tell you to implement the reading with the possibility via QR-CODE to access at a song that it is plenty of lightness and that, I simply adore by Christophe Sturzenegger.

The story of Célestin starts with a shell, last memory of the place and house where he lived in. The family in fact decides to move on: new flat, new existence, without his big brother... Célestin finds soon a friend in Charlotte "But everybody call my Lotte" starting a dialogue that it is synonime of growth for both of them more or less contemporaries. One day, the brother of Célestin donates him a colibrì, in state of hibernation: it's a special, special bird that one. The smallest and quickest one of the world, his food is the nectar found in flowers: he is a frail and at the same time strong and suggestive creature. They discuss of the colibrì, and that one becomes the main topic of these two teen-agers. One day Lotte confesses him that maybe will go away, in New Zealand where there is also her mother. To Célestin this news is terrible because understands that to him Lotte is precious. The Colibrì one day will fly away, symbol of rebirth, while Célestin will confess to Lotte: "Je coupe moitié de la distance entre toi et moi, Jusqu'à l'infini...Y a l'infini entre nous deux."

Absolutely touching.

Highly recommended.

Anna Maria Polidori

Una Rosa Sola by Muriel Barbery

 Una Rosa Sola

by Muriel Barbery same author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog proposes to her readers a romantic and relaxing tale. Although the dramas experienced in  the existence by Rosa, the protagonist, her story is filtered with the Japanese touch, that in most cases is in grade to heal the worsest wounds of this world, so it is a tender, magical poetic. 

Rosa had never known her Japanese father Haru and the mother decided to kill herself. European, In Japan for the first time for the testament of the father Haru she will meet eccentric people, like Keiseku. His family was entirely killed because of the nuclear bomb of Hiroshima and although he built a numerous family his existence meant a long series of disgrances and losses.

Then there is Paul, a Belgian man in Japan from a life, and big friend of her father. He will follow from the beginning to the end Rosa. They will visit together a lot of temples in Kyoto because it was a desire expressed by Haru, they will share lunches and dinners. 

In the while Rosa thanks to flowers, trees, understands the meaning of gift, life, death, rebirth, love and the meaning of an existence well-spent.

Romantic story as well I highly reccomend you this book because it will bring some moments of relaxation from the reality thanks to the strong Japanese spirituality.

Anna Maria Polidori

Resetting Our Future Provocateurs not Philanthropists Turning Good Intentions into Global Impact by Maiden R. Manzanal-Frank

 Resetting Our Future 

Provocateurs not Philanthropists Turning Good Intentions into

Global Impact by Maiden R. Manzanal-Frank published by John Hunt Publishing is a book for sure interesting and accessible to everyone.

The questions that will be answered in the book are mainly addressed to leaders distant and close to us, a book for anyone "who wants to turn their good intentions into global impact" writes the author.

How can you use your creativity, passion, talent, for global impact?

Leaders impacting are sometimes people that don't tend to promote themselves and their ideas via social medias. They don't work silently, no, but they create via other channels a robust base for spreading messages of health, preventions, wellness in countries still poor and marginalized.

  

The biggest impact is not a return on investment or a return on equity but in humanity. 

The 5Ps of the global impact  for every provocateur writes Maiden are Purpose,

Passion, Practice, Provision, and Paradigm while the ten principles for global impact:  

Do Better Than No Harm, Forge Strong Bonds with Your Change Partner,  Play the Long Game, Learn from Mistakes, Access Your Ignorance and Borrow Shamelessly, Don’t Underestimate Your Impact, Empower Your Defenders through Your Story,Envision the End You Intend, Find and Nurture Your Community,  Dare the Impossible. 

The book will then explain these ten points, essentials for every leader.

Highly ecommended book!

Anna Maria Polidori