Review: Praivat investighescion: Quando el gialo sa de spritz

Praivat investighescion: Quando el gialo sa de spritz by Sabrina Gregori


I might revisit this, but for now reading a book entirely in dialetto Triestino is a bit too much effort.

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Review: Aunty Lee's Delights

Aunty Lee's Delights by Ovidia Yu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In many ways this is a cute murder mystery, complete with an Auntie Lee is is very nosy and meddlesome and it also always cooking and talking about food.

But in other ways it was just too simplistic and stereotypical, and the plot seemed like a stretch just slapped together at the end.

I'd give it three stories, since it is fun to read, but I can't really recommend it.




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Review: Infanzia a Castel San Barnaba

Infanzia a Castel San Barnaba by Giuseppe Baroni
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was very interested in this book, because I'm pretty sure the house he discusses in this book is the same one my mother lived in in Scarperia.

But I can't figure out the time frame. The author never mentions the precise years in which he lived there, but they seem to be exactly when my mother lived there, which was the 1950s, only leaving after the earthquake in 1960. He mentions life there prior to the earthquake, but it must have been after the 1940s.

Regardless, this book goes into A LOT of detail, even for someone interested in life in the exact house my mother lived in with her family. As in, there are 10 pages dedicated just to the sparrows (followed by several pages about the mice). So, fair warning. But still a very interesting glimpse into this small Mugello town during (some time) in the 20th century.




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Review: Il Triangolo Estivo

Il Triangolo Estivo by Piero Severi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fun book. I was in Bologna and wanted a book by a local author, which is always a gamble.

This was interesting, not predictable, and kept me interested throughout.

A couple of things though:
Maybe I watch too many police TV shows or something, and I'm not all that familiar with Italian law, but I was surprised the author would have the police chief interrogate two people in the same room at the same time. We all know they need to be separated!

Plus the journalist tampering with evidence, removing evidence and constantly interfering with the investigation should totally have been arrested for obstruction or something, if not being an accessory after the fact.


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Review: Venice: A New History

Venice: A New History by Thomas F. Madden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was excellent preparation for our upcoming trip to Venice. I had gone a couple times on school trips and with friends, but never really knew much about Venice per se.

Some takeaways:

Venice was never Roman. Attila sacked Aquilea, and the residents fled to various islands in the marshes, creating Venice. So from its inception is always looked more toward Byzantium than Rome, and rarely had anything to do with the mainland.

The lack of land meant no feudal lords and therefore more meritocratic and more business-like. 

So basically merchants were doing business all over the Byzantine Empire (think Marco Polo, who traveled even farther East). 

This was true until the Renaissance, when it basically embraced art (Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, etc)

And then other stuff. The Venetian republic lasted until Napoleon. 

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Review: The Lake

The Lake by Yasunari Kawabata
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow. Is it just my impression or is this very different from every other Kawabata book?

The story is about a stalker, who can't help himself in stalking. His life is pretty much ruined, but it doesn't seem to bother him, seeing as how he is obsessed finding a woman and following her, waiting in ditches and wasting all this time and spending money in order to do so.

I can't tell if the stalking stemmed from an event (no spoilers!) having to do with a prostitute, but regardless, this was different from what I expected.

By all means read this, just know that it is not your typical Yasunari Kawabata novel.




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Review: Axolotl

Axolotl by Julio Cortázar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was such an interesting example of a story that seemed and felt real and straightforward until, without realizing it, it wasn't anymore. A fun, short story. I look forward to reading more by him.



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Review: Lake Like a Mirror

Lake Like a Mirror by Ho Sok Fong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I confess many of the stories didn't make sense, or just didn't seem to go anywhere. Having said that, I did enjoy some of them. My favorite was probably the last one (March in a small town). I'm still not sure I understood it, but the repetition, which seemed in one location but ended up being in another (I think) was excellent and thought-provoking. The first story (The Wall) was also good. These were all slightly surrealist and apparently the author (Chinese Malaysian) had a story banned in Malaysian papers, although I'm not sure why based on this collection.


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Review: A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle

A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle by Julian T. Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A complicated man who was the right person at the right time for France. If not for him, there would have been no government in exile during the war, and therefore no continuity, which probably would have meant no permanent seat for France at the UN.

His prescience for certain matters was astounding, as were his misses in certain other ones.

All in all an extremely fascinating read about an extremely fascinating man.


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Review: Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country

Why the Germans Do it Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country by John Kampfner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The main thought that kept coming to mind while reading this is that someone really needs to write the equivalent of this book but for Taiwan. A country boasting the best Healthcare system in world, despite not being allowed in the WHO, the highest GDP per capita in East Asia, the first country in Asia to allow gay marriage, and one of the strongest stock markets in the world, not to mention home of the modern computer chip, and all this with China breathing down its neck. That’s a pretty impressive (or grown-up) country.

In fact, it seems to have much in common with Germany. A lack of patriotism, in the classic sense, and a continuous sense of ‘duty’, for lack of a better word, to do better.

Regardless, those are just my two cents.


This book itself is unfortunately outdated at this point, but still very interesting. The progression since the war to the Germany of Merkel certainly is an interesting one. I was always enthralled by how Germany, despite having just had 2 devastating wars, seemed like the stable country in the EU when I was growing up. However, my impression is that, since Merkel, this hasn’t necessarily been true. The trains in Italy are now more reliable than Germany’s, and after Switzerland set up its cross-Gotthard train, it is one of the only countries in western Europe without High-speed rail.


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