"Late into the night I write and
the pages of my notebook swell
from all the words I‘ve pressed onto them.
It almost feels like
the more I bruise the page
the quicker something inside me heals."

It is incredible how this prose in verse can encompass such a fabulous avalanche of emotions, hit with giant waves of teenage frustration and passion and make the reader relive that unforgettable age that is adolescence.

"The center of the earth is not a giant crystal; it's the kitchen in every house."

Three endearing and heart-wrenching life episodes: a woman finds purpose and relief from her sad life, a man learns how to treasure his beloved wife's memory and a woman succeeds to surpass a family crisis through the incrediby healing power of cooking and marvellous recipes.

I had no idea the souffle is one of the most difficult to cook dishes!

Largely inspired by the author's personal experience, the book gives voice to so many unheard women, not only from Korea.

No wonder the novel has raised a debate in the Korean society and became a cult book, given how forthright it presents women's condition over the last 40 years. A wonderful book to read in just a couple of hours.

Such a pleasure to read beautifully entwined tender and passionate love stories in a murder mystery and romance thriller. Violette has been a cemetery keeper for 20 years, she tends to her garden, keeps a registry of burial speeches and offers confort and a hot coffee to all visitors who stop by her house on their way in and out of the graveyard. One visitor disrupts her routine and we discover her painful past of loss, love, hope and redemption.

Both volumes are wonderfully illustrated and inspiring compilations of 200 real heroine stories revealing a world of infinite possibilities

Rarely do I finish a book and feel like I don‘t need to say a word about it, in a good way, to just interiorize the narrator's confession. The emotions it triggers are simply overwhelming. It is indeed a story about the harsh reality of immigrant life, opioid addiction and depression, love and loss, about turning to science for answers, but most of all it seems to be an exploration of the extent to which faith is able to ensure transcendence.

"I had to try to understand, to extrapolate from that limited understanding in order to apply it to those of us who made up the species Homo Sapiens, the most complex animal, the only animal who believed he had transcended his Kingdom... That belief, that transcendence, was held within this organ [the brain] itself. Infinite, unknowable, soulful, perhaps even magical. I had traded the Pentecostalism of my childhood for this new religion [science]"

She writes beautifully, I savoured every chapter. I admire her capacity to inspect her deepest emotions and frame them in simple and wise words which bear profound meanings.

It may be or not a coincidence that I read this book exactly at the beginning of winter in my hemisphere.

She has voiced many of my concerns and I identified many of the struggles I've been through while experiencing the winters of my soul.

🤍 For my own part, they [rituals] open up a space in which to host thoughts that I would otherwise find silly or ridiculous: that voiceless awe at the passing of time. The way everything changes. The way everything stays the same. The way those things are bigger than I am, and more than I can hold.
🤍 To get better at wintering, we need to address our very notion of time. We tend to imagine that our lives are linear, but they are in fact cyclical

This is not just a fabulous suspense thriller but also a meditation on the social and political issues of the 1960s. It is not accidental that the main character is a butterfly collector, as the butterfly itself is a symbol of transformation, change, endurance and hope.

I finished it in a couple of hours, I just couldn't put it down once I started reading.

I've been putting off reading this magnificent classic for such a long time.
I now understand why this novel is a reference point in literature and remains meaningful no matter the period. Apart from the obvious and well-known social issues it addresses, I think it also brilliantly conveys the importance of doing and supporting what is right, accepting who people are and staying true to those principles.

I received this one as a gift. Very insightful, it perfectly sums up everything you need to know about narcissists, how to recognize narcissism in men and women (yes, they tend to act differently), how to understand what triggers narcissistic behaviour, and thus learn how to successfully live and work with one. I'm happy I haven't identified such patterns in those close to me, it makes life easier :)

Mr. Tom Hanks' writing is as remarkable as his acting.
These quiet and pleasant stories definitely produce a very good state of mind. Just short simple life episodes and scenes, but written in such an elegant and natural way, where spectacular is not the action but a fine sense for detail. They left me with a nice feeling and so many typewriters in mind, wondering about the many alternative endings I could type for these stories!

"Life's coming to me in flashes
Wearing my bruises like badges
Don't know when I learned to play with matches
Must want it all to end in ashes"

Loved the story of this fictional rock'n'roll band from the 70s. It kept me hooked from the first to the last page.

I'm impatiently waiting for the TV series to be able to also hear the music!

Although themes like generational trauma, weak men who trigger family disintegration, parental strain in raising children have been approached by many authors before, this thriller is still enthralling and disturbing. I found the ending to be both expected and unexpected!
A realistic drama which has probably been experienced by many...

“Marriages can float apart. Sometimes we don‘t notice how far we‘ve gone until all of a sudden, the water meets the horizon and it feels like we‘ll never make it back.”

“We could have counted our problems on the petals of the daisy in my bouquet, but it wouldn‘t be long before we were lost in a field of them.”

I loved the narrator Klara, an artificial intelligence designed to be a child personal companion. She seems to explore the human world with the innocence and purity of a child and yet her observations of human drama, relationships, society and emotions are unexpectedly profound. Is her understanding of the world different and mysterious or is it just as human as ours?

Oona has a very special condition, she lives in random order, one year at a time, different stages of her adult life, spanning from 19 to 60 years of age. We find out how she gets to experience seven such years, while she is mentally and emotionally just in her twenties.
Oona's exploits are imbued with a message: live in the moment, appreciate and make the most of it, do not take things for granted and live with no regrets.

"Whichever way the years flowed, it was impossible to outmaneuver their passage. (...) All good things ended, always. The trick was to enjoy them while they lasted. (...) There would be bad days, there always would. But she'd collect these good days, each one illuminated, and string them together until they glowed brightly in her memory like Christmas lights in a mirrored room."

This book is like a delicious soft and creamy chocolate to indulge yourself with over a cup of coffee.
Stories in verses emanating magic spells to heal the wounds of the soul, of both heroes and villains, and fairytales which empower women and men to flourish, aim for nothing less than their full potential and stay true to themselves.

"Her mother told her
she could grow up to be
anything she wanted to be,
so she grew up to become
the strongest of the strong,
the strangest of the strange,
the wildest of the wild,
the wolf leading the wolves."

I hesitated between a So-so and a Pick, but then I realized I've spent the whole of today just reading it. It's true that elements such as disturbing old manors, horrendous family secrets and fierce young brides dismantling dreadful traditions have been used once and again in so many books, this novel though does have its quota of originality that kept me glued till the last page.

"The Cobweb" a coming of age novel by Cella Serghi, published in 1938. Poor, smart, beautiful and ambitious Diana struggles to become a lawyer in a time where women married at 16 and just a few of the wealthier ones could pursue higher education. With most places damaged by war, poverty and unemployment in the early 1900s, childhood, teenage love and marriage were experienced so differently, but still so beautifully in their own way

Lenni and Margot meet at the hospital, they are both terminal illness patients, one is 17 and the other 83.

This is all I knew about this book before starting to read it and I was convinced I would love it. Such a beautiful story, but beware, it will drown you in a river of tears...

A fabulous and heart-wrenching novel from the 1960s. Charlie's evolution and decay are extremely well-built, and seem to subtly reveal a metaphor for the cycle of the human existence: helpless at birth, we reach maturity and become helpless again just like babies as we approach death. Hard topics are examined, the ethics of animal and human experiments, lack of awareness on mental illness issues, intelligence and brilliance versus human emotions.

Nice and unexpected twists, but too romantic, saucy and sweet for my taste. Although the circumstances themselves were believable, most of the characters exhibited behaviours which were unrealistic and exaggerated.

Suspensful plot twists and a nice premise: three-year-old Malone recounts awkward facts and claims his mother is not his real mother and Vasile, his school therapist, is the only one who believes him. Vasile approaches the police who begin a race against the clock to uncover the truth before the child loses his memories for good given his young age. Who planted those memories in Malone's mind and how did he succeed to keep them for so long?

Another beautiful classic I enjoyed over a coffee.
A writer remembers his encounter with his neighbour Holly in an old apartment building in New York. Holly is a very young and unconventional socialite, who seems to live her life without assuming neither responsibilities nor consequences. Her eccentric demeanor both shocks and attracts him and makes us wonder if Holly is leaving a drama or has actually found the recipe for a happy life.

I loved this masterpiece of magical realism, satire and dark humour.

Stalinist and officially atheist Moscow is visited by Satan disguised as a mysterious magician whose exquisite suit ignites a disaster targeting the city's sinful literary elite. The Master, potentially an alter ego of the author, the writer of a monumental novel, finds resolution for a fulfilling life alongside his lover Margarita in the devil's five dimensional world.

The book is wonderfully illustrating the powerful student-teacher/coach relationship and Morrie's original and wise attitude in front of his demise.
I understand the love and appreciation for the author and Morrie from the people who followed their story closely and the Nightline interview shows, but throughout the entire book I felt like I kept waiting for some remarkable and never heard of pieces of advice to come and they never did.

It looks like I'm starting this autumn with classics...feels like going back to school. I truly enjoyed this one.

Adolescence is a hard time in life especially when this age's natural tendency towards anxiety and depression is coupled with the loss of a siebling. Society is wonderfully x-rayed with witty humour and sharply dissected by a 16-year old teenager who defies it with guts and boldness.

Such a beautiful ode to Australia's flora, natural landscapes and legends of the aboriginal population, entwined with meaningful worldwide indigenous tales.

After a terrible tragedy in her family, deeply wounded nine year-old Alice moves to her grandmother's farm where she learns the mysterious, magical and healing language of Australian flowers, which will guide her to understand her past and surpass her traumas.

My first novel by Margaret Atwood and definitely not the last. The general theme and family drama is quite common, nevertheless it is brilliantly illustrated with truly outstanding writing.
Although I have figured out two of the three mysteries or plot twists before the end of the book, it was still a pleasure to let myself absorbed by the fabulously depicted timelines and watch the characters' destinies unfold.

I have no idea why I postponed for so long reading this colossal classic

Three short stories, three women, each has suffered a terrible and dreadful loss: a daughter, a husband, her youth, but most of all they lost their self-confidence and connection with their own identity. They each struggle to cope with the crisis in their own way, tame the rage that consumes them and silence a mind which disconnects them from reality. Mid-life is definitely a complicated and challenging time in a woman's life...

It's impressive how an author in her 20s was able to create such an overwhelmingly rich universe populated with realistic and complex characters, and juggle in a satirical tone, with sensitive subjects such as immigration, religion, social identity, historical heritage and values. The apparently boring bits all played a role in the overall puzzle. The surprising end reconfirms the talent with which these multi-layered characters were painted.

🪞 For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility.

⚖ The soul as a sphere in equilibrium: Not grasping at things beyond it or retreating inward. Not fragmenting outward, not sinking back on itself, but ablaze with light and looking at the truth, without and within.

A rather classic mystery novel with its characters‘ adventures placed during the 1860s gold rush in New Zealand. I appreciated the extensive and intricate character building, the originality of the key idea behind the plot and the astrology correlations, but this one was simply not for me; it challenged my patience without being equally rewarding neither in writing style nor in emotions delivered. I surely won't watch the series.

Deep family bonds and strong friendships are depicted with humor, sarcasm and melancholy, with a focus on the special relationship between a brother and a sister and the sister and her best friend, who all share the secret of dark childhood trauma. As adults, a new trauma helps them mend their broken souls and sets them free. The second part of the novel seemed to add gravity to sadness and switched the narrative tone from child to adult.

I'm giving this one a try. I've seen it was first published in 2000, so I guess I'm about 20 years late... so many mixed reviews are making it even more attractive

One of the dark realities of the 20th century. Everywhere in the world authorities' failure against perpetrated abuses only increased criminality instead of fighting it and transformed potentially good and most of the times innocent citizens into unrecoverable lawbreakers. Some of the victims struggled to escape their bleak predetermined path and inspired others to do the same. The novel ends with a nice twist.

Most of the time I felt lost and floating in all the physics, chemistry and biology information like an astronaut floating off in space, but what a tremendous ride this book is! Impossible to put down for anyone who is a bit of an explorer soul and has a minimum of fascination for the universe and what could be out there.
A beautiful lesson about hope and trust in education, progress and civilization… and civilizations…

Books like this one are necessary to restore faith in humanity. Extensive research and complex studies converge towards the idea that humans are eminently good and kind.
"We‘re living in the richest, safest, healthiest era ever. So why don‘t we realise this? It‘s simple. Because the news is about the exceptional, and the more exceptional an event is – be it a terrorist attack, violent uprising, or natural disaster – the bigger its newsworthiness."

This Romanian author is a former handball player, who left her sports career after the birth of her child and worked for some time at the Institute for Research in Mathematics and years later founded a well-known local publishing house and humanitarian foundation. As amazing as this may sound, her writing in this short autobiographical essay is soft and poetic, nevertheless it lets transpire the inner force with which she outran personal dramas.

A tremendous philosophical novel tackling some of the most far-reaching and heavy themes under a very unexpected setting; very dense but entirely worth the effort and time invested to read it.

“I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.”

“You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.”

"It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap."

"If there is a change, it is usually for the lesser, rather than the greater; many people seem to lose God along life's way."

This one is eye-opening and a confirmation of what many of us are already considering, planning or even experiencing. I liked the terms "juvenescence" and "neoteny".

"A 100-year life needs more saving than spending, more recreation time converted into re-creation."

"The investment in family and vitality that is required to support a healthy 100-year life will need more consolidated periods of discretionary time than just a longer weekend."

A sweet story about friendship and healing

Thanks for the tag @The_Penniless_Author ?

1. I don't mind knowing how a book ends but I avoid to read the ending beforehand

2. I found out that I'm not the only one who believes this:
"Most people will fight when there is some hope of winning, no matter how slim. They are called brave. Only a few will keep fighting when all hope is gone. They are called warriors."

Everyone who feels like playing, consider yourself tagged ?

I was totally engulfed by this one!
This is for all those who ever wondered what happened to Cinderella's step sisters after she married the prince, but more importantly, for all the brave souls out there, ready to embrace their own purpose and beauty, make peace with themselves and let their heart lead them on their true path to accomplish whatever makes their life a meaningul one.