THEthe sense of memory, tragedy, human life, death. Among the four books to read of the week there are many ideas about our human being between the History, of which we are the protagonists, and the great existential questions that (perhaps) can be answered.
1 / Books to read. The appointment
Why read it
On March 19, 1914, on the eve of the Sarajevo bombing and the winds of the First World War, Venice lives its day of pain: vaporetto 7 – leaving the Lido, at the time at the center of an intense social life – is rammed for a series of mistakes and distractions by a torpedo boat, thanks to a seaplane that attracts everyone’s attention. That confrontation turns into a huge tragedy: there will be sixteen dead and fourteen wounded. The lagoon city, ready and supportive, gathers around the involuntary and unfortunate protagonists of that massacre, blocking all activities. Among the victims there are also several foreigners, including the British Sarah McLean and Janet Drake, mother and daughter.
The thread of memory
And it is from these two women that starts the thread of the collected memory by Venetian journalists Anna Sandri and Silvia Zanardi. One day, walking among the tombstones of the island of San Michele (the cemetery of Venice), the two colleagues notice a plaque reminding them and referring to an unspecified shipwreck on the Lido, they never knew anything about: that story never left them until they completed the reconstruction and story of that dramatic day.
With painstaking attention they begin to browse the archives of local newspapers, give a face to the victims, connect the lives of those who boarded the vaporetto that day and decide to write the precise and meticulous story of what happened. And they do it not in a fictionalized way, but in a chronicle, telling the whole story with verified details and sources. From reporters.
The cemetery of Venice on the Island of San Michele (Getty)
Appointment with destiny
Shrewd the title that alludes to the appointment with the destinor, what touches each of us, on an unspecified day of our lives and the strange connections of which we are protagonists. The two women, Sarah McLean and Janet Drakewere buried in Venice by the specific will of the family who wanted them to become witnesses of the tragedy. Years later, Janet’s sister accidentally found herself on the train with a nurse who looked after the two women in the morgue.
It has been over a century since then. Yet if the official memory is gone, iThe book magically created new entanglements. And perhaps this is the meaning of memory. The two authors traced back to the descendants of the two Englishmen who wanted to attend the launch of the book. In the dining room, says Anna Sandri, managing editor at Padua morning, there was also the great-granddaughter of a woman who instead survived. “She told this story all her life, she never gave herself peace, she died very old with the remorse of not having helped them.” She knew how to swim well: to save herself she had had to send some passengers who had clung to her away into the water.
The appointment is a universal story, a Venetian Titanic, candidate to be made into a movie. Small stories of a bigger story. Let’s wait for Netflix to come forward.
Info. The Appointment. Anna Sandri and Silvia Zanardi. Editions Line. 14 euros.
2 / Books to read. A free world
Why read it
Valentina Cebeni, 37, is a bestselling author with over 100,000 copies sold. Back in the bookstore with the second volume of a family saga, that of Fontamara and the Princes in a Rome devastated by the Second World War.
It is 1942. Italy has been at war for some time now, and with it the full Fontamara. Many of the men are employed at the front. For the Precious Forneria Principi these are dark years, but the business sense of the head of the family Eva allows the biscuit factory to grab many orders from the regime and to use the proceeds precisely to help those whom the racial laws want to annihilate.
In the meantime, the conflict is advancing and reaping, mercilessly, lives and hopes. When the war enters Rome, the situation is exasperated: it is time for everything for everything, for the races in the bunkers during the bombing, for the rubble, for the victims, for a city that silently cries out in the face of roundups and rebels. But, despite everything, the Fontamara family will find once again with determination the strength to fight, albeit divided, for a single goal: freedom.
Info. A free world. Valentina Cebeni. Sperling & Kupfer. 18.90 euros.
3 / Books to read. The years of velvet
Why read it
Another story set during the war. Another family saga that sold in Germany over 500 thousand copies. It is August 1940. America should represent the land of hope and rebirth for Ruth Meyer and her loved ones. But what welcome will the United States, a symbolic place of freedom, reserve for a family of German Jews? Ruth carries on her shoulders the weight of the “rebirth” from hell from which she ran away with her family. Find a job at a fabric company to support parents and little sister. One day she meets love in the shoes of Eddie Elcott, a brilliant young man met at a party. But he has to go to war … to Europe. What if he doesn’t come back?
The years of velvet is the final novel of a saga that tells not only the events of one Jewish family in the dark years of World War II, but it tells the story of an extraordinary woman, Ruth Meyer, who knew face life with courage, confidence and determination. The book arrives After the silk years, the crystal years And The light yearsalready published by the same publisher.
Info. The years of velvet. Ulrike Renk. Three60. 19 euros
4 / Books to read. Death is a day worth living
Why read it
Is death really the end of it all? Or is it just a step to enter another world, the spiritual one? Nobody knows exactly, we can only imagine it even if the evidence is not lacking. What is certain is that one can “die” even while alive and that death is seen as a taboo. Ana Claudia Quintana Arantes, a geriatrician of Brazilian origin, in this book simply tells that life does not end when death comes. Death is part of life and perhaps it is the most profound human experience that can be lived.
Throughout his professional life he has learned that a patient deserves attention and has the right to live in a dignified and happy way even when there is no longer a cure. A terminally ill person did not die on the day of his diagnosis. Conversely, that can be ithe day when the path to a new life begins. Quintana Arantes offers a new point of view: it is not death that should scare us, but the risk of reaching the end of one’s life without having been able to enjoy it, without having been able to treasure time.
Death is not the end, but a new starting point to rethink our own existence and to learn to give the people around us the opportunity to live well until the day of their departure. We must put aside fear and anguish to embrace our essence so that death is only the final part of a beautiful journey. This book is a caress for the heart. And the title absolutely spot on.
Info. Death is a day worth living. Ana Claudia Quintana Arantes. Tea. 15 euros.
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