I’ve finished up the year having read 71 books. 10 in this month alone.
Io non ho paura- Niccolò Ammaniti (2011)
One of my favorite Italian stories so far. The story covers Michele, a young boy in a fictitious small farming village in southern Italy. One day, through a dare, he finds what he thinks is a dead body in an abandoned house, but doesn’t tell anyone. He goes back to confirm this and finds the boy is alive, but barely intelligible. At first, he imagines the boy might be a secret sibling, but before he can tell his father, he sees a news story about a kidnapped child, and he recognizes the boy as the same one he found.
He tries to befriend the boy, but the captive is malnourished and not making sense. He tries to bring him food each day, but this is difficult with the intrusion in his home of an outsider that is speaking secretively with his father. Michele begins to wonder if his parents are involved with the kidnapping.
One day, he admits his secret to his best-friend, who immediately betrays him. His parents protect him, but admonish him that he can never go see the boy again or the boy will be killed. At some point, Michele knows things aren’t working out with negotiations, and the police are closing in….and in an effort to save the boy, he helps him out of captivity. But as he helps him out, the captors arrive and it is Michele’s father who shoots Michele, not knowing it was his own son down in the hole.
The Italians- John Hooper (2015)
John Hooper is an English writer that has lived in Italy for many years. He brings his personal experience as well as his knowledge of Italy’s history to explain, from his angle, why things in Italy are as they are.
Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami (1987)
A story of love and loss set in 1969-1970. Toru and Naoko are two young students love each other, while sharing the loss of a loved one- Kizuki, Toru’s best-friend and Naoko’s boyfriend. Toru and Naoko fall in love, but can’t get past the loss.
The War of the Worlds- H.G. Wells (1898)
A well-known story that I finally decided to read in the original. Martian invaders come to earth and overpower the earthling’s technology… then die from pathogens that they weren’t used to.
The Handmaid’s Tale- Margaret Atwood (1985)
I was not a huge fan of this book. I didn’t care for the writing style, which I found kind of choppy and difficult to follow.
The Secret History- Donna Tartt (1992)
The story of six classical studies students in a small Vermont college, who, when trying to experience a drug-fueled bacchanal, end up killing a local farmer. The aftermath brings out different qualities of each of the students and there are lasting effects of their attempt at reviving an ancient cultic rite.
The Time Machine- H.G. Wells (1895)
Another well-known story that I wanted to read in the original. The time traveler goes to the distant future only to find that rather than a more developed mankind, there has been a devolution and a split of mankind into Eloi- the descendants of an upper-class, and Morlocks- the descendants of the working-class, who had been forced underground. An interesting quote towards the end, as he considers the situation: “I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes- to come to this at last. It is a law of nature that we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal in perfect harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no need of intelligence when there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.”
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz- L. Frank Baum (1900)
Another well-known story that I thought I’d read in the original. This telling is somewhat different than the movie version I grew up with. The story starts the same with a tornado, and Dorothy being carried away to Oz. There the house lands on the wicked witch of the east. She sets off towards Oz to meet the wizard who she is told can get her back to Kansas. She picks up the scarecrow, tinman, and Lion on the way. On the way they go through the Poppy field. They reach Oz and the wizard tells each of them that they must kill the wicked witch of the west before he/she/it will help them. They go to the west and the witch sends wolves, crows, and bees against them, but our heroes defeat them all. Finally she dispatches the flying monkies, who bring the group to her, but they are unable to touch Dorothy due to her silver slippers and the mark of the kiss from the good witch. But Dorothy is unaware of her untouchability, and the witch tricks her into submission. At one point, the witch does manage to steal one of Dorothy’s shoes, but Dorothy, in a fit of anger, tosses a bucket of water on her and kills her.
She returns to Oz only to find the wizard is a fraud. But he was originally from Omaha, and got there by a balloon, so he decides to try returning by balloon. Dorothy, however, misses getting in, and the wizard and balloon leave without her. She is desperate and is told that perhaps Glinda, the good witch of the South could help her. She leaves to find Glinda and is presented with several obstacles along the way: trees that attack, a land full of china figurines, a forest under threat from a giant spider, and a hill defended by Hammer-heads, creatures with no arms, that knock others over with their heads.
They finally arrive at Glinda’s castle, where Glinda uses her power to grant each of the companions their wishes, and finally tells Dorothy that all she had to do was click the heels of her shoes together and take three steps to go wherever she wants. She thus returns to Kansas.
The Tenent of Wildfell Hall- Anne Brontë (1848)
Great book about a young woman who arrives with a secret past. The story reveals that she married believing she could change a profligate but charming man, but found out through hard experience that she could not. Having united herself to him though, she was essentially without rights. The story chronicles societal mindsets about the dual standards of acceptable behavior for men and women, and how very toxic traits are fostered and perpetuated.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?- Philip K. Dick (1968)
As the book cover advertises, it’s the inspiration for the movie series The Blade Runner. The story covers a bounty hunter’s progress eliminating 6 escaped androids. These androids are a highly advanced type that are very difficult to detect, but the one thing androids can’t do is show empathy, which is considered a purely human trait. I suppose the story could essentially said to be about what makes us human. One of the central elements of the novel’s post-nuclear war setting is that most animal life has been wiped out, and any animals, even down to insects, are revered as highly prized pets. This human identification with organic life is something the androids, simulated to appear as human as possible to the outside observers, can’t appreciate.