The perfect gift. Easy to pack, it doesn’t break, there’s no problem with it being short or tight, it doesn’t spoil out of the fridge and what’s more it comes in a wide price range that fits all budgets: book now! Let’s move on to our list.
- Marthe Batalha: Letter to Santa
- Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos: No one will say anything bad about Rio here, but…
The most unexpected: In May, I recommended “Orbital” (DBA, translated by Antonio Scandolara), by Samantha Harvey, for Mother’s Day. I wasn’t sure if I should recommend it again now, but parents, cousins, siblings, friends, and everyone who isn’t a mother also deserves the chance to read this extraordinary meditation on human frailty and the beauty of the world.
The most tender: A family of Italian immigrants settled in Mar del Plata at the turn of the last century and invented a type of pasta that made their trattoria a success. Novel by Argentina Virginia Higa (Authentic Contemporary, translated by Sílvia Ornelas), “The Sorrentines” It’s thin, delicate and surprisingly affectionate, one of those reads that stays in your memory (and in your heart) for a long, long time.
Most intense: In eight months, Diogo Mainardi lost his father, mother and brother — and turned his grief into a photo serial, “My dead” (Save). The images accompany him through Venice on walks with his dog and engage with reflections on art, life and death. Controversial when he writes about politics, Mainardi is one of the most original and surprising Brazilian authors when he observes his own life. It deserves to be read by people of all ideological backgrounds.
- José Eduardo Agualusa: Disorientation Manual
Most moving: Edmund de Waal wrote “Letters to Camondo” (Intrinsic, translated by Alessandra Esteche) as an imaginary set of letters addressed to Baron Moise de Camondo, one of the great collectors of the Belle Époque. The project does not have the ambition of “Hare with Amber Eyes”, but it is just as touching. Once again, the author uses objects to reconstruct the splendor and fragility of the great European Jewish families, and their frustrated dream of assimilation through art and philanthropy. The serene tone at the beginning is deceptive: beneath the elegance of a preserved memory emerges the long and persistent history of French anti-Semitism.
The funniest thing: I don’t know if “The boss”by Hannelore Gayre (Dublinian, translated by Diego Grando), is a noir or a moral fable in reverse; Either way, it’s a delightfully offbeat thriller. Patience Portefeux translates wiretaps into Arabic for the French justice system, pays the bills for her adult daughters and supports her mother in an expensive asylum… until the day she discovers, before anyone else, the path to a load of hashish. She doesn’t think twice and becomes a businesswoman.
The best part: Reading manga is not to everyone’s taste, starting with the fact that you open the book upside down; However, this is only a minor detail compared to the charm of “The Cats of the Louvre”by Taiyo Matsumoto (JCB, translated by Naguisa Kushihara), which follows a group of magical felines through the rooms of the museum. The story is contained, the art spectacular.
The most cosmopolitan: “Geography of time”by Ary Quintella (Andrea Jakobsson Estúdio), is a book about reading, traveling and curiosity as a way of being in the world. A diplomat and voracious reader, he writes from a very personal library, in which the books relate to each other — as well as to cities, museums, theaters and cemeteries. With erudition and without exhibitionism, Quintella transforms high culture into a continuous conversation, guided by the pleasure of reading, watching and moving forward.
More books next week.
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