Umberto Eco -La bustina di minerva
"La bustina di Minerva" is a column that began on the last page of "Espresso" in March 1985 and continued weekly until March 1998, when it became bi-weekly. The "Bustine" have been selected and collected in this book.

The topics range from reflections on the contemporary world, Italian society, the press, the fate of books in the Internet era, to some cautious predictions about the third millennium and a series of "divertimenti" or short stories.

The collection gives meaning to the column, which, as the title suggests, aimed to gather those occasional and often extravagant notes that are sometimes scribbled on the inside of those matchbook covers known as Minerva. more
Umberto Eco -Sei passeggiate nei boschi narrativi
Born as six lectures of the "Charles Eliot Norton Lectures" at Harvard University, it deals with the rhetoric of narrative processes with examples drawn from Italo Calvino, Achille Campanile, Carolina Invernizio, Gustave Flaubert, Ian Fleming, Roger Schank's theories on artificial intelligence, Gérard de Nerval, the act of reading according to Wolfgang Iser, Mickey Spillane, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexandre Dumas and the Parisian topography, Alessandro Manzoni, as well as some Hollywood films, the concepts of possible worlds and open works, the false and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the general problem of the credibility of narrative texts and the ways and expectations with which novels are read as if they were traversing a forest ("The forest is a metaphor for the narrative text; not only for fairy tale texts but for every narrative text").
cit. wikipedia more
Anita Desai -Chiara luce del giorno
... India immediately after independence (1947), the tragedy of Partition and the refugees, the absurd massacres of Muslims and Hindus at the border between India and Pakistan, the day of Gandhi's assassination... more
Don DeLillo -Body art
"Time seems to pass.

The world happens, moments unfold, and you stop to watch a spider attached to its web.

There is a sharp light, a sense of things outlined with precision, strips of liquid brilliance on the bay.

On a clear and bright day after a storm, when the smallest of fallen leaves is pierced with awareness, you know with greater certainty who you are."

- Body Art - more
Don DeLillo -Underworld
- A novel that explodes the history, myths, and daily life of post-war America and reconstructs its remains. In a dizzying alternation of eras and figures... where protagonists and extras share the same space, where fictional characters coexist with Lenny Bruce and J. Edgar Hoover, the powerful head of the FBI... you find yourself transported from coast to coast, from one social class to another, from one ethnicity to another, in a collective destiny dominated by images and waste. Nuclear waste, generic trash, sentimental, erotic, and artistic fetishes. A fresco of America yesterday, today, and tomorrow, reminiscent of Altman's films... ranging from the baseball championship to Truman Capote's party, from the Texas Highway Killer to the Rolling Stones tour, employing an original and captivating narrative montage and the most diverse languages of the multiracial nation. (einaudi.it) more
Don DeLillo -Libra
"The apocalyptic imagination of DeLillo confronts the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in a breathtaking tale." - Newsday -

Many of the characters and events described are also present in the film "JFK - Unsolved Case" directed by Oliver Stone in 1991, main actors and characters:
Kevin Costner: Jim Garrison
Sissy Spacek: Liz Garrison
Tommy Lee Jones: Clay Shaw / Clay Bertrand
Gary Oldman: Lee Harvey Oswald
Joe Pesci: David Ferrie
Jack Lemmon: Jack Martin
Donald Sutherland: Mister X
Brian Doyle-Murray: Jack Ruby
Kevin Bacon: Willie O'Keefe
Walter Matthau: Senator Long
John Candy: Dean Andrews
Beata Pozniak: Marina Oswald
Vincent D'Onofrio: Bill Newman
Lolita Davidovich: Beverly Oliver
Tomas Milian: Leopoldo
Jim Garrison: Earl Warren more
Don DeLillo -Rumore bianco
"White Noise is a sweet and wonderful dream of anguish." (Martin Amis)

- The first part is a chronicle of the absurdities of family life and a satire on the academic world.
- In the second part, a spill of chemical materials from a train car creates a toxic cloud, making evacuation necessary in the area where Jack lives.
- Worried about having been exposed to the toxin, Jack is forced to confront the possibility of dying.
- The novel becomes a reflection on the fear of death in modern society and the obsession with medical care, with Jack trying to purchase on the black market a drug believed to alleviate the fear of death. more
Don DeLillo -I nomi
The late Seventies: it's the period of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the energy crisis, and terrorist kidnappings.
James Axton, an American who conducts risk analysis for an insurance company, is tasked with reporting on the geopolitical situation in the Middle East.
From his office in Athens, he visits his wife and son who live on a small island in the Aegean.
Here, Axton learns of a ritual murder, perhaps the last link in a mysterious chain of crimes.
And he begins to investigate, following the traces of a mysterious cult that fascinates him.
From Greece, the story unfolds through an exhilarating journey to the East.
A thriller that evokes the magical potential of language. (einaudi.it) more
Don DeLillo -Americana
- The narrator of the novel is David Bell, a former television executive and later an avant-garde director. The story begins with an investigation into the existential malaise of the modern corporate man. Then the novel transforms, starting to question the power of cinema to distort reality. Bell creates an autobiographical road movie. The story addresses the roots of American social pathologies...

- The first half of the novel can be interpreted as a critique of the corporate world, while the rest focuses on the fears and dilemmas of contemporary American life. (wikipedia) more
Daniele Del Giudice -Mania
Six worlds and six stories of today's imagination...

- A piece of music lost in the ether is the motive for an anonymous murder.
- Violating death becomes possible through persuasion with the seduction of discourse.
- The ruthless and precise account of a hand-to-hand struggle that transcends fiction to become a direct experimentation of Evil.
- A rogue Neapolitan night ends in a deadly nightmare that takes us back to the eighteenth century.
- An ancient fortress, resembling a magical object, summons bodies into battle and a real victim of the era into pure virtuality.
- The passage of a comet turns the act of observing into bitterness. more
Daniele Del Giudice -Staccando l'ombra da terra
It can happen one day that you have to fly alone, and get lost just as one can get lost in life. It will then be necessary to understand the magnitude of the mistake, to balance between instinct and maneuvers, dizziness and equilibrium... (einaudi.it) more
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry -Il piccolo principe
A pilot crashes in the Sahara desert and meets a child who asks him, "Can you draw me a sheep?" The pilot draws him a box, telling him that inside is the sheep he wanted. Little by little, they become friends, and the child claims to be the prince of a faraway asteroid...

" grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them..."
::: The Little Prince ::: more
Giancarlo De Cataldo -Romanzo criminale
A ruthless and bloodthirsty emerging organization seeks to conquer the sky from the outskirts.
Three cursed young heroes with a naïve and terrible dream.
A determined police officer, a chorus of criminals, gamblers, criminologists, journalists, judges, singers, mafiosi, along with corrupt pieces of power and black terrorists.
And the most exclusive brothel in the city.
An epic novel of extraordinary power, the hidden heart of Italy's history laid bare. (einaudi.it) more
Fabrizio De André, Alessandro Gennari -Un destino ridicolo
A Marseille intellectual who has moved from the Resistance to a life of crime, a dreamy and lazy pimp, and a Sardinian shepherd who has escaped a heavy sentence organize the theft of a load of precious goods.
Three men worlds apart brought together by fate in Genoa for the "heist" of a lifetime.
Two women, a shy prostitute from the port and an enchanting Istrian... (einaudi.it) more
Edmondo De Amicis -Cuore
More than a century has passed since Cuore was first published in 1886, making De Amicis the most widely read author in Italy. And yet, even today, this book strikes us with its literary merits: for the writing, for the wisdom of a complete screenplay, for the ability to conclude an episode with a single masterful sentence. The same pedagogical intent and civic commitment that permeate it demonstrate a moral tension capable of rendering it both exciting and moving, even for contemporary readers. (einaudi.it)

The monthly tales:
October: Il piccolo patriota padovano
November: La piccola vedetta lombarda
December: Il piccolo scrivano fiorentino
January: Il tamburino sardo
February: L'infermiere di Tata
March: Sangue romagnolo
April: Valor civile
May: Dagli Appennini alle Ande
June: Naufragio more
Sandrone Dazieri -Attenti al gorilla
Sandrone Dazieri, former leoncavallino and ex-private investigator, has been hired to handle security at a party. Apparently, a simple and miserable job as usual, easy money with no effort. Too bad that in the middle of the reception, the host's daughter runs away and is found, shortly after, brutally killed. more
Sandrone Dazieri -La cura del gorilla
Always standing tall like a Bruce Willis from Lower Lombardy, Sandrone Dazieri known as Gorilla finds himself, out of sheer chivalry and stubbornness, giving and taking blows in a dizzying whirlwind of slaughtered Albanians, murderous thugs, fantastic pseudo-publishers a bit shady and threatened with death, wicked dark ladies from the East, post-autonomous Torinese in full action, and charitable monsignors. (einaudi.it) more
Claudio Baglioni -Io Sono Qui
One must admit that as an adolescent poet, reinventing oneself and regaining artistic virginity is not something everyone can achieve. The album is the last chapter of a discreet Baglioni, then game over! more
Kasabian -Kasabian
pleasant record and nothing more. Even with them nothing new on the horizon more