Author: James Hamilton-Paterson
Language: English
Summary: Gerald Samper, an effete English snob, has his own private hilltop in Tuscany, where he whiles away his time working as a ghostwriter for celebrities and inventing wholly original culinary concoctions — including ice cream made with garlic and the bitter, herb-based liqueur of the book’s title. Continue reading “Cooking with Fernet Branca”
Author: Ann Morgan
Language: English
Summary: In 2012, the world arrived in London for the Olympics… and Ann Morgan went out to meet it. She read her way around all the globe’s 196 independent countries (plus one extra), sampling one book from every nation. It wasn’t easy. Many languages have next to nothing translated into English; there are tiny, tucked-away places where very little is written down at all; some governments don’t like to let works of art leak out to corrupt Westerners.
Continue reading “Reading the world: confessions of a literary explorer”
Author: Shannon Leone Fowler
Language: English
Summary: From grief to reckoning to reflection to solace, a marine biologist shares the solo journey she took—through war-ravaged Eastern Europe, Israel, and beyond—to find peace after her fiancé suffered a fatal attack by a box jellyfish in Thailand.
Continue reading “Traveling with ghosts, a memoir”
Author: Alexandra Fuller
Language: English
Summary: Six months before he died in Budapest, Tim Fuller turned to his daughter: “Let me tell you the secret to life right now, in case I suddenly give up the ghost.” Then he lit his pipe and stroked his dog Harry’s head. Harry put his paw on Dad’s lap and they sat there, the two of them, one man and his dog, keepers to the secret of life. “Well?” she said. “Nothing comes to mind, quite honestly, Bobo,” he said, with some surprise. “Now that I think about it, maybe there isn’t a secret to life. It’s just what it is, right under your nose. What do you think, Harry?” Harry gave Dad a look of utter agreement. He was a very superior dog. “Well, there you have it,” Dad said. Continue reading “Travel Light, Move Fast”
Author: Sisonke Msimang
Language: English
Summary: “Brutally and uncompromisingly honest, Sisonke’s beautifully crafted storytelling enriches the already extraordinary pool of young African women writers of our time.” ―Graça Machel, widow of former South African president Nelson Mandela
Born in exile, in Zambia, to a guerrilla father and a working mother, Sisonke Msimang is constantly on the move. Her parents, talented and highly educated, travel from Zambia to Kenya and Canada and beyond with their young family. Always the outsider, and against a backdrop of racism and xenophobia, Sisonke develops her keenly perceptive view of the world. In this sparkling account of a young girl’s path to womanhood, Sisonke interweaves her personal story with her political awakening in America and Africa, her euphoria at returning to the new South Africa, and her disillusionment with the new elites. Confidential and reflective, Always Another Country is a search for belonging and identity: a warm and intimate story that will move many readers.
Sisonke Msimang is one of the most exciting contemporary female black voices in literature. Now based in Perth, Australia, she regularly contributes to publications like The Guardian, the Huffington Post, and the New York Times. She has over 20,000 followers on Twitter @Sisonkemsimang. Her TED Talk,“If a story moves you, act on it,” has been viewed over 1.3 million times. (Goodreads)
Continue reading “Always Another Country”
Author: Irene Perali
Language: English
Summary: Have you ever left everything behind to follow a dream…which is not yours?
The novel Followives is all about this: five intertwined stories of wives following their husbands who moved from Italy to California to pursue unique career opportunities.
Viola, Bianca, Luna, Giada, and Aurora have just started to discover their career paths in vibrant Milan. These five women don’t have a lot in common until the men in their lives decide to chase their dream jobs in the United States.
Weighing their sentiments more than their aspirations—because there are million perfect jobs, but only one perfect husband—the women leave their lives behind to undertake the Californian adventure.
Unemployed and lonely in a new country, the followives confront endless challenges. Impostor Syndrome, hectic jobs or no jobs at all, sky-high rents and home sickness are just a few of the troubles through which these women’s stories intersect.
The heroines will question everything, including the authenticity of their love, which they have traded for their lives in Italy.
Followives explores different aspects of the immigration flow of mostly male engineers from Italy to California in the 2010s.
The often-unspoken voices of their wives provide a unique point of view that demystifies the contemporary California Gold Rush.
At first, it may seem only a romance novel, but Followives invites the reader to reflect on some critical themes of our society:
Love and career: are we willing to take a step back in our careers in favor of our partners’ careers? Do women do that more often than men?
Living far from your country: can the advantages of living in a foreign country alleviate the nostalgia for your homeland?
Whether you are from Italy, California or any other country, if you enjoy reading about complex relationships, deep psychological characterization and vivid descriptions, Followives is your next book.
