HAPPINESS

HAPPINESS

Mar 29, 2025 | BOOKS

Happiness is the title of the latest reading I owe Monica.

What is happiness for you? 

The answer to this question is always very subjective.

What if happiness was a widespread state of mind that involved everyone?

The author of the book: Will Ferguson outlines his hypothesis of what would happen if everyone was happy in a short time.

How? Through a manual: the happiness manual.

Do you think we would need it?

The protagonist of the book: an editor who receives the manuscript of this manual and immediately trashes it, but then …

Everything is told with an irony that distinguished this entertaining read while maintaining an important underlying reflection.

I would particularly like to point out the publishing house: Accènto. 

Founded by Alessandro Cattelan, this independent publishing house has among its projects, the objective of translating books that are missing from the Italian market, as in this case.

Besides the humour, this book gave me a small discovery, which with my love for words, and for words in different languages, I really appreciated:

May had recently edited a bizarre dictionary of obscure terms for Panderic. The title was The Untranslatables, and it was a playful survey of certain terms absent from the English language. Whole feelings, whole concepts that remained unexpressed for the simple reason that no word had ever been coined to define them. Words like ‘mono-no-awarè,’ ‘the sadness of things,’ a Japanese term that defined the eternal pathos that peeps just below the surface of life. Words like ‘mokita,’ which in the Kiriwina language of New Guinea means ‘the truth that no one talks about.’ It refers to the tacit agreement, between two or more people, to avoid explicit references to a well-known secret…

Do you also know any untranslatables?

ECHOES FROM THE UNKNOWN

ECHOES FROM THE UNKNOWN

Mar 16, 2025 | BOOKS

Echoes from the Unknown is the book I received as part of the Mari’s Manual online book fair.

I would like to thank the author: Cristiano Venturelli for the courtesy.

The anthology Echoes from the Unknown is his third publishing work.

What is the unknown?

Cristiano asks this question, emphasising a quote by H.Philip Lovecraft:
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.

How do you deal with courage?

If you were confronted with something that could generally be called a paranormal phenomenon, how would you react?

Would you want to find out what it really was or would you run for your life?

With respect to the concept of the unknown, does your first immediately instinctive reaction lead you to consider something dark and negative?

Do you believe that everything must have a logical explanation?

Or, on the contrary, do you think the line that can lead you to intersect everyday situations with supernatural realms can also be thin?

Each of the protagonists faces the unknown in a different way, but even before that, each represents human weaknesses and fallibility.

Yet very important values emerge from each tale, offering food for thought on aspects that should be echoed.

Reading the author’s notes, the love for his daughter, to whom the book is dedicated, shines through.

As it will soon be 19 March, I take this opportunity to express my gratitude for all loving fathers.

ACCABADORA

ACCABADORA

Feb 22, 2025 | BOOKS

Accabadora is a book that needs no introduction: everyone knows it.

However, I only read it now, thanks to ‘Monica books.’

I open it and find the dedication:
To my mother
Both of them

I immediately send a message to Monica telling her that I did not know Michela Murgia had been adopted.

She replies: ‘Read.’

Now I know what fillus de anima are: children of the soul.

So we find ourselves once again talking about the meaning of motherhood as extensive as the love it encompasses.

Mothers. 

But not only that, as was the case with The Children’s Trains communities are active participants in these dynamics of fostering children from families who are unable to raise them, to families who take them in.

Honestly, I did not even know the meaning of the word Accabadora, which comes from the Spanish acabar = to finish, but in its deepest sense is always linked to the concept of mother, in this case the last.

Did a figure like Sa Accabadora also exist in your region?

I had never heard of anything like that.

But I remember hearing about people who ‘signed’.

The ‘signers’ were considered to be able to heal or in some way protect against evil through their signs.

What popular figures are linked to where you live?

FARAWAY

FARAWAY

Feb 8, 2025 | BOOKS, BOOKS

I would like to thank Jessica Pini and Mari’s Manual for Faraway.

Faraway. 

We often repeat that reading takes us far away, in this case, the journey already starts with the title.

You know I never anticipate what one will discover when reading, so I ask you: what does your ‘far away’ correspond to?

A place?

Or a concept, perhaps: something far away from you.

You can create distance in space, in time, in the heart, in the mind.

Johann Wolfang Goethe left us this reflection:
One never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.

Do you agree?

I often remind of Shrek and the Kingdom of Far Far Away.

Faraway

Jessica also mentions Shrek but for a different reason, I still took it as a sign, a kind of affinity.

In particular, I appreciated the passages where the book dwells on the description of the environment with the attention of someone who cares about it.

Jessica then keeps the focus on female strength, declined in the variations in which it can make a difference.

She herself describes a good book as a bridge to other worlds and a way to live more than one life at the same time.

I will leave you one of her introductions by subscribing to it:

Jessica, on the other hand, has left me waiting to find out how the story will continue: her Faraway is meant to be the first chapter of a saga.

So let’s not stray too far, let’s keep in touch 😉
#FarawaySaga

THE HOUSE OF SILENCES

THE HOUSE OF SILENCES

Jan 25, 2025 | BOOKS

Have you ever read Donato Carrisi? As usual, I work in reverse and started with the last book that came out: The House of Silences.

This book was a gift, and it was also the ‘container’ for a further gift, so you can imagine how happy I was to receive it.

The House of Silences is the fourth volume in what is so far a quadrilogy and comes to bookshops after the previous books The House of Voices, The House without Memories and The House of Lights.

Do you know any of these books?

Pietro Gerber, the protagonist, is a hypnotist specialising in paediatric therapy.

On the subject of hypnosis, I would love to know Quarc‘s opinion:  in his All true Alessandro Depegi recounts his own direct experiences.

Regarding silence instead, would you like to tell me something?

In the meantime, I would like to quote two sentences from the book that struck me:

Sad people cannot hurt anyone precisely because they know pain well.

Every person has an indelible dream. A dream of which he keeps the memory for the rest of his life. Often there is not even a particular reason for this, often they are not memorable dreams at all.

By now you know that I have a particular weakness for dreams but as I am not normal, I cannot remember an indelible dream unfortunately.

I can, however, speak of a recurring element: water. 

What about you?

THREE by Valérie Perrin

THREE by Valérie Perrin

Jan 11, 2025 | BOOKS, MUSIC

We had already chatted about Valérie Perrin about her previous book Fresh Water for Flowers. 

I have also read Three thanks to Valeria and her Mum.

As you know, I have a bit of a fixation on three, not by chance on the idea of three sides I imagined my Heron’s formula. 

And on the concept of three this book builds a real apotheosis.

You know I don’t like to reveal too much, but I want to tell you that there was a moment while reading when I felt terribly dumb for not having understood beforehand, so much so that I would have even gone back to look for the exact point where I was so blind.

However, it is no secret that Three by Valérie Perrin tells the story of three friends.

Friendship, the kind that survives suffering, the kind that heals disappointments, the kind that bridges loneliness, but above all Friendship of the kind that comes about quite naturally, because it cannot be otherwise.

Friendship almost as predestination and deeply felt choice at the same time.

Friendship as destiny and Friendship as salvation.

Friendship that lasts a lifetime.

Do you have friends who fit this description?

Or maybe you can describe your idea of Friendship even better.

The three protagonists get to know each other and grow up going through years that I experienced at about the same age myself.

Do your childhood friendships endure stoically under the blows of life or have the paths taken inexorably different directions?

Valérie Perrin very often quotes songs and song lyrics, which as you know I particularly love.

And so I discovered Indochine, which I did not know.

Here you can find a playlist with the songs mentioned in the book.

Another key element in the book is water. 

Even with reference to water, we can find Valérie Perrin’s ‘three’: pool, sea, lake.

A further metaphor for evolution: birth, life, death.

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