T.ra the balance sheets at the end of the year there is also him, that of the books read. Or left in the middle, ended up coming to an end, consumed in 72 hours to survive yet another quarantine. Budget means that each page ended up in a story, ours, in a succession of similarities. We will do it with 2022 knowing that once again what we read will have to do with encounters of lives and stories and places. Meetings to which we may also be used to because the new year begins among the editorial news in the sign of trends that have begun. The Japanese one, the African one.
Two strands: Japan and Africa
Left: Ayesha Harruna Attah, author of Zainab conquers New York (Marcos y Marcos). Right: Yukio Mishima. Feltrinelli offers the unpublished A life for sale, by the cult author.
Among the editorial news of 2022, we await the first trend Journey to the land of the dead by Kashimada Maki (and / or), a story where wives, husbands, but also sisters make room and that Murakami remembers so much; The Tokyo painter by Sarah Belmonte (Rizzoli), true story of the Japanese painter who lived in Palermo and married to a Sicilian; A life for sale, the novel that reveals a lighter side of the cult author Yukio Mishima (Feltrinelli) e The flowers of death, a thriller between tradition and modernity by JJ Ellis (Bridge to graces). The second one – in the wake of Nobel, Goncourt and Booker Prize went to African authors – arrives The dragons, the giant and the women, a poetic memoir by Liberian Wayetu Moore (and / or) included by the New York Times among the top ten of 2020, and Zainab conquers New York (Marcos y Marcos) of the Ghanaian Ayesha Harruna Attah, a book where the city of dreams chosen by Zainab to live turns out to be harder than expected and there the voices of her ancestors will never let go.
Editorial news from America
Left Megan Campisi (photo credit: Gates Hurand). Right: Cara Wall.
Speaking of America, however, write down the names of two rookies and a bestseller: Cara Wall che in Beloved (Fazi) speaks of lasting loves in marriage and friendship with a style reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout, and Megan Campisi who in The keeper of sins (North) tells a story of female redemption against the backdrop of an era in which the practice of Sin Eaters was in force, women who collect the last confessions of the dying, prepare the foods corresponding to the sins and finally eat everything, taking on themselves the sins of others to free their soul ready for Heaven. The returning bestseller is Hanya Yanagihara, which will be released simultaneously worldwide with Towards heaven (Feltrinelli), a novel that spans three centuries and three different versions of American history through a plot in which there is room for lovers, family, a sense of loss and the promises of utopia.
Bio passion (spelling)
Among the editorial news about History, Nadia Terranova instead immortalizes it in Shiver at night (Einaudi), a story that begins with the earthquake of 1908, in which Messina and Reggio Calabria were destroyed, and in which, however, the breath of life is tenacious. Even the current pandemic is basically history and it is not so easy to talk about it, indeed. Gary Shteyngart tries and succeeds in The house on the hill, a pure fiction novel in which he also talks about a pandemic with irony and empathy.
To dispose of the fatigue of recent months it would be worth reading All the weariness in the world by Enrica Tesio (Bompiani), a story of efforts to confront (and laugh). And if it is true that the autobiographical genre has been so appreciated in recent years for the power to make us all feel in the same boat (more or less), know that that of actor Ethan Hawke is on the way, A ray of darkness (Sur); Present perfect, or that of Anne Sinclair, a French journalist who married Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the subject of a judicial battle that highlighted Anne’s strength and dignity (Solferino); the unpublished one of Paul Newman, found at his home in Connecticut (Garzanti), which also speaks of her marriage that lasted fifty years and of aging gracefully; the one of Miguel Bosè (Rizzoli) who has already been talked about in Spain and that of Amartya Sen, that is My home is my world (Mondadori). The expanded re-edition of Elizabeth and the secrets of Buckingham Palace by Enrica Roddolo (Cairo), necessary since on February 6 she will be the first queen to cross the milestone of 70 years of reign and will celebrate them with the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. The possibility that something biographical is found – in the sense that it affects us all – is high in Weird by Joseph Henrich (The Assayer), an essay written by one of the most famous American anthropologists who tries to show us why Western man today is what he is: competitive, individualistic, democratic, monotheistic and monogamous.
The protagonists of Never been innocent by newcomer Valeria Gargiullo (left) try to escape from the misery of the suburbs. Giulia Baldelli debuts with L’estate che resta (right).
Family stories
And what else concerns us finally more than the stories that speak of family? Of his neuroses, as they appear in Serge by Yasmina Reza (Adelphi), but also of those masked by the self-control of a perfect husband in Deep waters by Patricia Highsmith (The ship of Theseus), of their cto live with the diagnosis of mental illness that has reached one of its components as happens in All happy families by Ambra Garavaglia (DeAgostini) and in The opposite of myself by Meg Mason (HarperColllins), of attempts to escape from the misery of a suburb as a sister and her brother do in Never been innocent of the debutant Valeria Gargiullo (Salani). Finally, we are concerned with the thousand ways in which love is dressed, told in a story that does not care about genders and tolerates abandonment in The summer that remains, by Giulia Baldelli (Guanda).
Inspired by reality Kathy Stinson’s The Lady of the Books (left). Family Stories in Meg Mason’s The Opposite of Myself (center). The protagonist of the book by Diane Cook (right) escaping from pollution.
Editorial news for “Saving the planet”
Finally, the trend is also to ask ourselves what will become of the planet we live on: Diane Cook tries to tell us about the choice of a mother who moves to Wilderness State to save her daughter suffocated by the pollution of a big city, the last strip of pristine land and does so in An almost perfect world (Sem). Stephane Barroux also tells and draws the story of Jonas, a lighthouse keeper, who is rescued by Blu, a gentle whale, in a storm. The illustrated book I love you, Blu (Babalibri) is perhaps the best place to glimpse the beauty (of art) in the midst of the havoc to which we have condemned the environment. AND finally beauty is what we have talked about so far: reminds us The lady of the books by Kathy Stinson (Lapis), a book inspired by the true story of Jella Lepman, the woman who brought a world of children’s books to Germany after the Second World War and created the Internationale Jugendbibliothek, the most important international library for children . It was she who wrote: “Let’s start with the children to put this world upside down, they will be the ones to show adults the way to go.”
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