Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
No.I’m not sure that literature, among its many merits, also has cooling powers but it can certainly help us forget our hot lives for a while.
The heat wave that has hit all of Europe is leaving us breathless and we read astonished the bulletins that speak of this 2022 as a record summer, certainly the hottest in Italian history.
Between fans and wet patches we try to distract ourselves from the government crisis and drought but even at night the temperatures do not drop, so a good book with a solid plot and well-written dialogues can help not say as much as a state-of-the-art air conditioner but at least as an antidote to be put in place against the terrible African anticyclone.
To extreme evils, extreme remedies and to fight on equal terms you need powerful writing, so I do not recommend any essay, albeit valuable, of the journalists you see every night on talk TV who never go on vacation.
When the going gets tough you need to resort to powerful doses of evasion. No palliatives and therefore for the moment I would also avoid the homeopathic narratives of young beginners, certainly pleasant in other climates, but insufficient to lower this exaggerated heat.
“Le sorelle Lacroix” by Georges Simenon (Adelphi-Translation by Federica Di Lella, Lorenza Di Lella).
War is war and to fly high immediately I would prescribe a ration of Georges Simeno without delayn – the most powerful literary medicine – which with its unmissable and reassuring seasonal reissues is now in bookstores with The Lacroix sisters (Adelphi-Translation by Federica Di Lella, Lorenza Di Lella), a wonderful story of family hatred and revenge that will keep you glued to the last page as only the Belgian writer is able to do.
If a single dose is not enough for you, know that the total production of writings and works published by Simenon, including novels, short stories and other, amounts to over 400 books without considering those signed with a pseudonym!
If you work hard, freeing entire shelves of your library, you will never run out of this precious elixir for your health.
Not to mention that they are also good stories for the winter when finally “Apocalypse” – as the current heat wave is called – will have passed, but unfortunately, as we are warned, at that point we will be cold due to the shortage of gas and books, I assure you, are the only investment you will never regret.
All the articles by Serena Dandini.
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