Atlante Leggendario delle Strade d'Islanda, "The Legendary Atlas of Iceland's Roads" edited by Jon R.HJALMARSSON and translated by Silvia Cosimini

What a joy to receive and read Atlante Leggendario delle Strade d'Islanda, "The Legendary Atlas of Iceland's Roads" published by Iperborea with great success.
This book can be seen and used as a touristic folklorist guide in one of the most enchanting corner and magical lands of all the Northern European Countries if you are planning a trip in Iceland or as a great reading during the summer or winter-time and for being re-read a lot of times.

Edited by Jon R.HJALMARSSON and translated by Silvia Cosimini  divided in various areas, and following the highway number one this book collects for every territory peculiar stories and characters starting the tales with the legend of a cruel whale. At first the whale was a man, but this man didn't recognize the child he had had with an elf and so he became this terrible animal.

Another tale speaks of the devil. He loved to compose with a poet some verses. At the end the poet will be tired of the company of the devil...

There is a special hill where you can asks for three wishes if you won't look back and if you won't talk at all.

The legend of Sveinn will speak of elves, a lot of tales of peaceless phantoms, but also of the  tricks of a peasant in search of help for cutting  his grass. Everyone had cut the grass. That year the peasant asked this favor at the devil in person.

The devil in general is read in these legends, mainly as an ingenuous chap that men can cheat after all.

Interesting the legend of the girl who killed herself and the destiny of the reverend object of her love.

There are legends of gratitude, like the ones of Snorri and his lost sheep kept well during the winter-time in a distant land by another peasant. For this reason Snorri will be very gentle with him.

A particular meaning has Christmas Time.

I found enchanting the legend of Pordur because also in this case we see another gesture of gratitude.

It is better as we will see to believe in legends. Once a peasant tried to continue to live in the same farm for more than 20 years and his wife disappeared because of it.

Tender the story of the peasant and the white bear. The white bear fed him up and the peasant won't forget this gesture.
There are stories of trolls, but also of a gentle female troll, can you believe it?

A queen of the elves will be set free and a seal transformed in a devoted wife. A man who firstly had kept away her seal's skin later found the seal transformed in a beautiful and naked girl. He kept jealously the skin of this seal in a special place, but one day...

Enjoy also the wonderful hilarious tale of the Wise Reverend and the devil.

The fairy-tale of the newt is symbolic of situations that we can experience in our life.

Beautiful, wonderful I read this book in few hours. Enjoy it, because it is a dreaming book!

Highly recommended.

I thank Iperborea for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Fortune's Fool The Life of John Wilkes Booth by Terry Alford

Fortune's Fool The Life of John Wilkes Booth by Terry Alford attracted my attention because since at recent years, my knowledge of Lincoln's assassination was pretty brief. He was killed in a theater. That was the story.

Then, thanks to the Boston Globe and later reading and reviewing American historical books I discovered who the killer was and I felt the desire of understanding more of this young boy. Maybe because he wasn't a desperate person, someone in search of attention; he wasn't a poor devil, but someone affirmed. So, why addressing a life plenty successful life in this direction?

I didn't know that since now no one had written a real biography about Booth.
I just can tell you that this one is an extraordinary biography.
It is written with love, passion, it is plenty of great material, sources. You won't put down  this book 'till the end because it's written for capture the attention of the reader, it's written for remain and not for passing. Like the story of J.Wilkes Booth.
For the first time Alford gives an exact portrait of the controversial young man passed at the history for having killed Abraham Lincoln and it is a spectacular reconstruction, vivid, sincere.

Published by Oxford University Press, this remarkable biography will explain in detail the brief, short, tormented life of John Wilkes Booth, true, but it will be a portrait, of John's family as well.

J.Wilkes Booth's dad and mother were British but Junius Brutus Booth an actor, violent sometimes, absolutely eccentric, a drunker, someone also completely unclear regarding his relationship with the wife, tried to search fortune in the USA with great success.

A family this one of "revolutionaries men," I would say considering the names that they put at the various males, members of the family.

Actors, of course and the best ones (could you doubt it for a second?) if you look closely at the book cover pic of John Booth (and at the other three pictures inside the book) you can see the tragicity of his existence, his peaceless heart, this spasmodic research for something or someone. You can see through that eyes his extreme dangerous flame, his instability.

Soon other brothers of John, Edwin for all involved by his father in acting. Junius would have preferred another path for his troubled son John, a military career, but it was a complete failure. The school added that they were not a reformatory. John Wilkes was a rebel.

Many brothers and sisters, little John suffered a lot for the eccentricities of his dad and his departure later meant for the family who lived in Bel Air Maryland and in the countryside, economical restrictions. The family established the residence in the country house, although they experienced serious problems.

Edwin helped the family financially, and John, the family returned to live in the city, started to act as well.
He was a boy grown up in a countryside, so, at first, it was a hard job to educate him at the art of acting but John excelled soon, devoted in particular to that South of the US who welcomed him, falling in love for the ideals of the Southerners.

His life was pretty short and since Lincoln was elected John Wilkes Booth adopted severe words against him.
But...
What it was shocking, was this escalation, no, better, fixation and hate for President Lincoln, this desire of kidnapping President Lincoln for later kill him, studied with  great precision. John would have been helped by a lot of people.
Then, the final idea: the anti-heroic act: to kill the President while he assisted in the theater at a play. Pure tragicity, pure melodrama. Pure drama. Everyone would have assisted at a real death maybe not on stage but close to it.
Not anymore fiction but reality.
A real President, a real actor, real blood, real sufferance, real crying, real desperation, real chaos.

It was Booth who suggested once to invite the President at the Ford theater and they accomplished this desire.
President Lincoln loved to attend these events. He grew up pretty poor, he was a peasant at long, he lived in a countryside, he experienced a lot of sad events, he lost various children, his mother when little. It was a pretty sad life the one of Lincoln.

Great knowledge of the Ford theater, John killed the President with simplicity, and also the manhunt (he rushed away with a horse and a broken leg) was long from April 14-26 when he was found and shot. He didn't die immediately. It was a long agony, a doctor was called for trying to see if this killer could have been saved but no, that one was a mortal wound.
In his agony Booth continued to repeat that he killed the President because he thought that it was the proper thing to do.

A problem also the place where John Wilkes Booth was buried. Edwin, his brother didn't want to assign him any kind of gravestone. What John did too horrible for them, for the USA, but as you will read the place was soon discovered...Newsmagazines hypothesized that he was still alive but that one was a pure legend.

The destiny of John Wilkes Booth a talented actor, a big star who could have had a brilliant future, a wonderful family, honor, and that would have been remembered forever as the most important actor of theater of 1860s and so on was interrupted tragically at 27 years for a horrible act and for personal desire.
A gesture this one of killing the President that affected also all his family per generations, because these tragedies are never isolated and confined in the personal sphere.

I love this cover. I didn't noticed it at first...There are some glitters.

J.Wilkes Booth after all has been a fallen and tragic star but for some time his personal star and talent was bright, radiant and superlative as actor.

Bert Sheldon Lincoln estimator said: "When Lincoln made his ascent into immortality, he took J.Wilkes Booth with him."

Highly recommended to everyone, but also to all that people in love for  Lincoln's biographies, theater, American history, biographies in general

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

Anna Maria Polidori

The Quotable Guide to Punctuation by Stephen Spector

While I was reading The Quotable Guide to Punctuation by Stephen Spector published by Oxford University Press I thought that yes, there is difference from teacher to teacher. This teacher is sublime in the explanation of concepts and all his love for grammar is abundantly shared with his readers in an understandable,engaging book.

There is to add that the author for intriguing much more readers in the various punctuation-chapters-cases picked up examples of quotes of a lot of VIPS. Johnny Depp, Billy Crystal, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Woody Allen and so on will help us to understand much more clearly punctuation-concepts.

I am also a bit scared in reviewing this book, because I know that my english grammar is not yet still wonderfully correct, punctuation included, and I am italian. I self-learned most of the english I know on the road, and it means without an academic support.

I think I read somewhere that punctuation is a surplus sometimes, although punctuation is important for other reasons that at first we can't imagine.

When we speak, in fact, we tend to pause or accelerate, we are calm, anxious, we move our hands, we smile, we are serious, the tone of our voice, there are many signals that invariably let know to the other ones, a person or some people, what we want to transmit. The power of oral communication.

Story changes when we write, because we are alone and we will be read only later and so for describe our moods, our state, our emotions there is punctuation.

It serves as a contact, as a key for reaching  other people with our articles, with a book, and that's why it is so important.

Commas the most common punctuation. Commas serve for a very brief pause.

I didn't know that existed also an Oxford Comma. It does.

An example?
A funny one:

I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later you have to start all over again. (Joan Rivers)

We will learn how to use commas with and and but but also with the so-called fanboys: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yes, So.

An example from Tolkien:

Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick of anger (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring.)

Colons and semi-colons are two important topics of this grammar-punctuation book.

I do use both of them, I confess: when someone told me that semi-colons were disappearing, I felt compassion. In our work they are not considered too much but as also colons, they're interruptions for create a bridge with what said before; semi-colons help to going on, to create new conceptual ideas without to lose the contact with what previously elaborated and written; real mates for writers and reporters.

We will understand when and how to use quotation marks. American and British journalists have different guidelines in this sense, but also when we should avoid to use exclamation points!!! not very loved.

Another controversial punctuation mark?
Dashes. They are more a fascination, a literary form of expression, empathizing the condition and mood of the writer. They can abruptly interrupt your writing, so that you'll restart from something new or they  add more intensity to your written words.

This solid, beautiful book, with an encouraging and colored cover! will start to be your perfect guide for a best punctuation. I am sure that you'll keep it close to you for being inspired, refreshed by it.

The Quotable Guide to Punctuation is for students, writers, reporters, for people in love for writing and for all that ones curious of their language and learners of all ages.

Highly recommended.

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

Anna Maria Polidori

Nora Ephron The Last Interview and Other Conversations

I was returning home from school when I saw the big poster of When Harry met Sally, in italian "Harry, ti Presento Sally." I felt a strong energy. I couldn't go to the cinema for seeing this movie but when later appeared on VHS I remember that I started my collection of movies with this one, bought with a magazine. And of course, I fell in love for all Nora Ephron's romantic movies since there.

They're not just well constructed, they're intelligent, there is no dispersion, the story has a start, a middle and an end but they're clear in their being...dreaming.

When I noticed that Melville House Publishing published Nora Ephron The Last Interview and Other Conversations I asked to read this book. To me Ephron hasn't just been a director, a great screenwriter, but someone in grade to present a dream, and apart Woody Allen she has been the best touristic promoter for New York City letting us discover the most suggestive parts of the city. No other one can replace that important empty place in Hollywood.
It was...her way to see the world that was in grade to make the difference in her productions, that magical touch.

I read this little book in a few hours but it's simply enchanting and I think that every person who wants to enter in the sector of media, journalism, movies should read it because it is pretty informative and interesting.

Nora Ephron was born in NYC, but grew up, she didn't like at all that place, in Los Angeles. She didn't want to become who their parents were: playwrights. As she said, she wanted to become a journalist and pretty soon, once concluded her studies, she started to work for prestigious realities in New York. Not only: once she was also an editor, but she added it was devastating because she would have wanted to write the pieces that pooped up in her mind while she had to assign them to her reporters. To her, but it is physiological, living in big cities is the best thing to do for whoever want to become a reporter because there are more chances and possibilities. Nora wrote about every sort of possible current events, and to her who wants to make movies previously should have been a reporter and vice-versa, because a reporter can captures the various shades of life, in particular if he/she can writes of everything. That luggage, later, was very important for being a good screenwriter.

During these interviews she will speak of the realization of Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally because in the first case Tom Hanks forced her, Delia Ephron, her sister, to re-write together the script for obtain a bigger role in the movie. The part of the lion was in fact at first dedicated at Joshua, devastated for the departure of his mother.
In When Harry met Sally we will see also why Nora Ephron picked up Billy Crystal, and the development of the famous scene of the orgasm.

Nora Ephron will also tell that in her profession in particular the one of journalist has never written with difficult words. According to her it is essential to reach everyone and to be clear.

In the first interview I found interesting her role as full-time freelancer.
A starving situation if you don't live in big cities and if you don't have good contacts, in her case a successful and lucrative profession.

Having a husband for Nora meant more freedom because she could live with more lightness her daily schedule.
For a creative in fact there is nothing more annoying than the alteration of the daily routine. To her the answer was her husband.

It was indispensable to Ephron to see always the good side of the story. It happened to her when she broke up with her husband when still pregnant because her husband had an affair with another lady. Once, the husband of that lady, called Ephron asking her to go out together.
While she was crying hugging him, that man made her laugh.
It's important to see the good side of a story wherever it is possible. Also when your husband has an affair and you are pregnant and you decide to move on.

Ephron, was one of the creators of the Huffington Post: blogs are important because they are  places where you are there for saying what you feel in that moment.
There is more intellectual fluidity according to her than not in a written piece for a newsmagazine or a magazine or in the severe structure of a movie.

Aging means to be the same person that you have been when little and young, although the body in the while changes, adding wrinkles.

The portrait emerging from these interviews by Michael L.Lasky, Patrick McGilligan, Kerry Lauerman and Kathryn Borel the ones of a sunny lady and I suggest you this book so badly.


I thank Melville House Publishing for the physical copy of this book.


Anna Maria Polidori

From New York to San Francisco Travel Sketches from the Year 1869 by Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy translated by Barbara H.Thiem Edited by Gertrud Graubart Champe

Fresh, wonderful, captivating. If you love epistolary genre and the USA and if you want to understand how Americans lived immediately after the Secession War, From New York to San Francisco Travel Sketches from the Year 1869 by Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy translated by Barbara H.Thiem Edited by Gertrud Graubart Champe is the book you were waiting for.

Not just common letters of a Berliner's rich traveler in the USA written at his parents, but a stunning detailed portrait of the New World seen with the eyes of a traveler from the Old World.
Barbara Thiem a relative of mr. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy writes she would have wanted to re-print this epistolary book as it happened two centuries ago for all the clan, but then...Why not to think at a different project, involving many more readers? The intuition was more than right.

There is no limit at the beauty of these letters, in fact.

Ernst was a great observer and voracious letter writer so he loved to report in every letter written to his parents, every little detail his eyes and senses could capture about the life-style he met during this trip long three months from the east to the west coast followed by his cousin Ernst Westphal.

The life-story of the Mendelssohn family is wonderful: creative people but also bankers, I will keep this part suspended for you adding that this three month-trip wanted by Ernst's father Paul meant a precious occasion for trying to see if it would have been possible to invest some money in the New World.

Ernst will start to tell candidly to his mother the problems of seasickness experienced during the trip for reach New York, but also their interesting meetings.
The arrival at New York City was surprising and electrifying. New Yorkers considered important people with money. Money-making the most important activity of New Yorkers. Ernst tells that what it is important for New Yorkers is the possession of money.

He will also describe to her mother not just the hotel, what they ate, people met along their way, but also the vehicles for reaching other close localities, the omnibus, weird trains, discovering at the same time black people mainly as servants, girls absolutely too elegant if compared to the European ones, set free by the new world and candidly in grade to live their life with more freedom.

If New York City impressed Ernst for the immensity of the city, Boston touched his heart for its culture, university in Cambridge, and beautiful landscapes. Ernst will write that it was simple to find books everywhere adding: "They say that money reigns in New York, blood in Boston. That means that name and descent are important here while in New York one is "worth" so and so many thousand dollars....Its society is famous for appreciating knowledge, erudition, and the arts."

Ernst Mendelssohn-Bartholdy will also later meet in Washington President Grant seen before at another event. A man portrayed impressively well, Ernst will tell anecdotes, tics and fascinations not just of a man but also of a city, Washington still not that impressive.

The trip of these men then will also touch Niagara Falls with a breathless description of their adventure for discover this giant of nature but also the stunning Yosemite Park when in California or the incredible sunsets of the immense American prairies. Fascinating the description of San Francisco, meteorologically as well.

Another important voice and curiosity of this book will be for the reader the transportations. Detailed, you will discover the difficulties experienced by the protagonists for reach distant places, in particular the west part of the USA, because the various railroads were still in construction.

Ernst will meet people from Germany living in Pennsylvania with weird accent, a mixture of english and German that he hadn't never heard before.
He will send a letter to his parents telling them everything about the social conditions of black people, and what the Secession war meant to the North and the South.

He will tell that Americans don't love people in uniforms because it means authority (the story is about a train station...And you will also understand that train stations were sometimes houses...)
He will be pretty shocked by a man who asked him some money for accelerate the process of control of his luggage once arrived in the New World remarking also the melting pot existing in the USA, where in some cities people could speak different languages considering the diversified ethnic groups. He will travel in cities with high percentage of black people.

Salt Lake City inspired him because of the big community of Mormons and their fascinating story stimulated his fantasy.

You'll appreciate vivid descriptions of cities, people, landscapes thanks to the acute observation of this witness, a man who wanted to leave a trace of this unique experience at the posterity reaching a great success.

Highly recommended.

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

Anna Maria Polidori

The Best American Magazine Writing 2016 edited by Sid Holt Introduction by Roger Hodge

The Best American Magazine Writing 2016  is an affectionate appointment. Published every year, edited by Sid Holt for the American Society of Magazine Editors the principal organization for magazine journalists in the United States, this book is sponsored in association with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Introduction by Roger Hodge, national editor of The Intercept in this book an interview with ex former President Barack Obama "Fixing the System," another piece is about the importance of software and technology with "The Code." I appreciated all the JavaScript  part.
BuzzFeed News in the while excelled for investigative journalism about that employers benefiting of the H-2 visa program for hiring temporary foreign workers.
Cosmo investigated pregnancies, old-fashioned ideas, religious strength, abortion, in "Pregnant? Scared? Need options? Too bad"
If you are interested in epidemic situations, Joshua Hammer is ready for you with "My nurses are Dead, and I don't know if I'm already infected" about  Dr.Sheik Humarr Khan as an Ebola patient and what it meant living in a country like Sierra Leone where a high percentage of people close to him fell sick and sometimes died because of Ebola.
Interesting "The Really Big One" by Kathryn Schulz about a potential major earthquake in the Pacific Northwest
You'll find much much more in this book and I am sure you'll love it.

Highly recommended to everyone in love for journalism, current events or just curious about the world and what it is going on.

And if you are in the media, read the best for...being the best :-)

I thank NetGalley and Columbia University Press for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori

California Summer by Anita Hughes

Another beautiful book, if you search for escapism, incredible locations, and characters, California Summer written by Anita Hughes and published today by St.Martin's Press.

This time the dreaming location chosen by this succulent author is California, the land of dreams.

Ben and Rosie are the perfect couple.
They work in Hollywood as director and producer, their  existences are brilliant, wonderful, successful.
They participated at the Sundance Film Festival created by Robert Redford, and since there their existence have been a continuous success.

Rosie is happy with her fertile, beautiful, dreaming existence. She wouldn't want anything more, but Ben, well, yes.

He wants the entire package: a house in Beverly Hills, a lot of money, big cars and his name remembered forever.
Talent unfortunately is not sufficient for reaching that goals, so he will sleep with the most important producer.

Rosie is devastated. Why Ben acted like that?

She decides that maybe is better to leave stars, starlets and that wonderful world for a more relaxing place where to de-stress herself.
Montecito, her best-friend's estate seems perfect for recovering from all that mess.

Rosie will re-start a new existence. She will meet Rachel, the owner of a chocolate store, Josh in love for surf and classic cars.

Rosie decides to open a fish taco store considering also her winning secret college recipe...

Beautiful, sunny, Anita Hughes mixes her optimistic positive character with perfect descriptions, delicious recipes, stunning locations.

Beautiful, relaxing and romantic cover.

Anita Hughes previously has written Monarch Beach, Market Street, Lake Como, French Coast, Rome in Love, Island in the Sea, Santorini Sunsets, Christmas in Paris, White Sand, Blue Sea, Emerald Coast, and Christmas in London. At the moment she is working at her next novel.

I thank NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori