This book is like having the best of good times with old friends, except that in this case, many of those friends are four-legged. A joyous romp through Paris and the south of France, meeting a host of characters with the footloose author leads to India, where she finally finds her dream-dog, an irresistible cocker spaniel named Joshua. With many …
Read More »CONTEMPORARY INDIAN LITERATURE – The pleasure can not wait, to Tishani Doshi novel
A strange family, a pleasant story of a family “out of line”, in the throes of love, death and indissoluble family ties. Stories told with simplicity and tenderness. It all began when Babo was the first member of the Patel family to leave Madras, flying to London to further his education. Leafing through the pages of the novel, you find …
Read More »ALPHABET SOUP FOR LOVERS – Romance, by Anita Nair
Strange is that this novel – with short chapters and an external point of view – tells the daily life of a married couple, but the main theme is not what you might have imagined. Everything revolves around the Indian cuisine, along with its ingredients. Lena and a “him”, have been married for fifteen years, even though she is not …
Read More »INDIAN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE – The Unwaba Revelations, novel by Samit Basu
Samit Basu is the author of The Simoqin Prophecies, The Manticore’s Secret and The Unwaba Revelations, the three parts of The GameWorld Trilogy. Born 14 December 1979 in a Bengali Hindu family, Basu grew up in Calcutta. In 2007, Basu was declared one of India’s most promising ‘Emerging Indians’. Basu is a columnist, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist writing …
Read More »THREE SUMMERS – Novel, Margarita Liberaki
Three sisters are living – over three summers – the transition from adolescence to maturity, a journey filled with love and expectations, disappointments and illusions. Protagonists of their stories, the characters are made of sky, land and sea: the brightness of the landscape and the red earth of Greece, together with the Athens shops and what birds draw in that …
Read More »FROM A DISTANT TIME – The Canzoniere, by Francesco Petrarca
From medieval to Renaissance time, the poets are maintained within two expressive strands: love in the service of a woman (chosen as the centerpiece of his poetic world), and love as a prison of the male heart. In Italy, it is with “Il Canzoniere” by Francesco Petrarca that is the transition between the two eras. Classical antiquity is again a …
Read More »THE SECOND SEX – Simone de Beauvoir
It causes the conservative audience, seeking personal recognition, vindicates the collective solidarity. Is a metaphysical challenge a social reality. What? A book, of course. With “The Second Sex”, Simone de Beauvoir frees the woman from their minor status, one that forces her to be “the Other” by man, without having to turn the right nor the opportunity, how to build …
Read More »THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING – Romance, by Milan Kundera
There are four characters (two women and two men), where the events are intertwined, embracing all the colors of love, and also the dependence of a woman by her man, along with the fear of abandonment and infidelity. Yes, these are the existential parentheses around the adaptation of all our actions, emotional and social. Imagine reading a novel, which its …
Read More »PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK – Romance, by Joan Lindsay
Hanging Rock stands isolated, in the Australian bush north of Melbourne. Yes, it really was the theater event narrated in the novel: the disappearance never explained of two girls and a mature college teacher, followed by the destruction of so many lives in those lives connected. Reading, page after page, you will discover the secret relationship between humankind and Mother …
Read More »POSITANO, STORIES OF A CITY ON THE SEA – Stefan Andres and his “Dead City”, sniffing a seedling of capers
The Positano terraces are “a well-built nest with strands of silence”. This is the definition given by Stefan Andres, a German writer who lived a long time on the Amalfi coast. In Positano, Liparlati is the so-called “Dead City district”. He, from his home perched looking right out to the sea, has described those places, even for you. “Dead City”, …
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