Camping by Lavinia Braniște

Sofia, a Romanian who left in Spain for 20 years, is approaching her retirement. Living in the camping where she took care of the reception and basic maintenance, she is getting ready to return to her small town in the Eastern part of the country, where her 90-year old father and son are waiting for her. But would she find her place there? Are they actually waiting for her, or for her help? She has no strong friendships left in any of the countries, she spent most of her life working, saving money for purchasing an apartment for her son. 

Camping by Lavinia Braniște is my second book by this Romanian author and my first book in Romanian this year. I may confess that I´ve found the wording a bit awkward, and clumsy, with words that I had to think twice before figuring out what they mean. It may be that my Romanian is sometimes rusty and I seldom read literature, but this is part of my personal linguistic investigation. Also, who may call her son, in the second decade of 2000s, in a moment of anger ´You, communist!´?

As many people having left their home lands and with them, their mother tongue, while not fully acquiding the language of their new country, Sofia is caught in between worlds that none may look closer. Her speaking is mixing Spanish words used for everyday use. My observation as a translator from and into few languages is that there are usually the words relevant for work or bureaucratic conformity retained in the local language and the more you use the less relevant the translation.

Her son, Robert, whom she left with her father when he was four, took him to Spain for a short amount of time before he requested to return, has a different take on life, although with the same result. He is living the moment, trying to work less and earn more, selling the apartment his mother bought to invest in crypto and lose. Sofia, on her side, is actively observing, but is not consumed by the hunger of living more, of challenging her current situation.

The objects Sofia collected, as milestones for her human interactions and her 20 years in Spain, are shipped back home. It is a reminder for the time spent here, they are small memories in her life. Each insignificant souvenir tells a story of an encounter. 

Personally, I was hoping/wishing that Sofia is staying. That in a turn of destiny something happens and she take control of her life and is not coming back. 

Her story is an iteration of many other lifes of individuals, Romanians for instance, who left their countries because of social, economic and politic circumstances. The fragments from Facebook groups of ´Romanians in Spain´ are outlining the interactions in the new country. (Once I´ve watched some posts by ´Romanians in Germany´ and the interactions sounded so similar, almost copied/pasted). They are not heroes, but driven by survival and a normal life refused by their home countries. Some may stay, some cannot wait to return.

Camping was a deeply sad book it will stay with me longer. I hope to read other books in Romanian this year, but need to do a bit of extra research first for finding relevant topics for my daily interests.

Rating: 4 stars

Random Things Tours: Confessions of a Crime Writer by Louise Mangos

One year after discovering Louise Mangos, I am back with her latest: Confessions of a Crime Writer, an ironic take on the publishing industry through the story of a funny and motivated crime writer in the making. 

Socially awkward Nigel has a dream of becoming a crime writer. Decided to go far beyond his sheltered life under the control of his eccentric mother he is planning step by step his literary escape. But instead of focusing on his coming bestseller, he is confronting a completely different reality as he is haunted by unexpected events from an accidental murder to a misuse of intellectual property.

Confessions... may be read as a humorous account but in the end, the tragedy is luring behind the challenges that he and some of his fellow writers are facing when confronted with the complicated requirements of the publishing industry. Publish or die, maybe, but some will really die for being published. Or killed, to be more direct.

This book, as any good book, can be read in more than one way and it is generally a pleasure for the reader. The story alongside with the characters and the philosophical meta-text(s) are coming along seamlessly, 

A recommended read for the writer and the crime lover as well.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

It was long since I´ve read something by Hari Kunzru but Blue Ruin, the last from the so-called ´colour trilogy´ - which includes also White Tears ad Red Pill, none of them I´ve read so far - come just at the right time. 

We are entering the story at the beginning of Covid, with details about the characters´ masks and their positioning shared from the first lines. Jay, a Black-British once promising rising star of the London art scene at the end of the 1990s, now an illegal food delivery driver, meets his big love Alice, 20 years after he disappearance with one of his art comrades, now her husband. Sick and weak, she invites him to temporarily stay in a cottage near the house where they were temporarily hosted during the pandemic. 

Similarly like in the Decameron, also set during a pandemic, the characters - a gallerist with a penchant for guns and his girlfriend, always on her mobile - are random, although some of them were once part of the same art clique. and their interactions may took, towards the end of the story, absurd turns. 

Jay´s musings about art - as an existential manifesto - are by far the most challenging and interesting intellectually.  The questions that Jay following the train of thought about the artist being the art. The encounter between Jay and Alice, 20 years after is fortuitous but what about if it was part of a life happening project he authored?

I´ve felt at ease in the world of ideas and art-related and artists challenges. Jay´s backstory is very rich in events and ideas, and details about clashes between clase and race, but found the rest of the story - the present tense one - less tied together, as it has a life of its own, but written in a relatively different vein.

I am clearly curious about reading the other parts of the trilogy as well as other books by Kunzru, as both his writing and his repertoire of topics are very appealing for my current literary interests.

Rating: 4 stars

Rachel´s Random Resources: The Book Lover´s Bucket List by Hannah Claire

Books with bookish characters are a delight for my bookish soul. Books talking about bookish challenges with a spice of romance, even better.

The Book Lover´s Bucket List by Hannah Claire is based in Derbyshire and has a very quiet countryside vibe that suits very much people looking for love in the pages of a book. A fnny bet between two people, Gabriella and Zach. One secretly in love with the other. But as their challenge continues, they may find out things about each other that need to be tackled differently as in a book. Indeed, books are fun, but did you try real life?

I really enjoyed the reading, as well as the characters and some of their secrets. I loved the premise of Zach and Gabriella story, that love, real love, is between two real persons, no matter how beautiful the book their hearts can write looks like. This is a challenge many book lovers may encounter, realizing that, in the end, the love means a bit more and a bit less of everything.

As for the cover, it is worth mentioning the artsy calligraphy of the title which is sweetly matching the intense pastel colours of the images. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Quello Che Ti Nascondevo by Marina di Guardo

Due to work and summer-related reasons, my reading slowed down the last weeks, and will keep this pace until the end of August probably. I am operating right now at a bare minimum level, covering mostly my spots of the book tours while spending the rest of my summer days out in the sun - most probably reading and thinking about new projects.

But I still have projects to work on, and one of them is improving my Italian at a highly professional level. A mission partly accomplished this year, with an increasing number of books in Italian that I had the chance to read. 

My latest one was a women-centered thriller, writen by Marina di Guardo, the mother of the famous Italian infuencers Chiara and Valetina Ferragni, herself an active user and consumer of social media: Quello Che Ti Nascodevo/What I was hiding from you.  

One year after the death of his beloved Allegra, in an accident in the mountains, Giacomo uses to listen to her old audio messages. But as he catches the voice of a man calling her ´baby´, his life is shuttered. The more he dives into his wife´s past, the more shocking the revelation of her infidelity. But no matter how disturbing the revelations, he doesn´t stop trying to find him. And as some of the women he dated - as a married man, with a Tinder profile - are also found dead, he is on a mission trying to solve the mystery of their murder.

The reading is suspenseful although some coincidences - too many to count - are weakening the plot. I was caught by the beginning and shocked by the ending. Although the main storyteller is a man, Giacomo, the women do play the most important role in the story: their betrayal, expectations and the violence they often are submitted to. The childhood trauma is alongside the topic of the violence against women are very important topic framed in the story, reflected not only into the history of the characters but strongly motivating their acts. 

From the point of view of the vocabulary, I´ve learned a lot of new slang words, mostly relevant for Milano area where the action is taking part. There may be better thrillers around, but this one resonated with me for the women-focus and modern takes on couple and relationships.

My Italian journey continues.

Rating: 3 stars

Compusive Readers Blogtours: The Kill Switch by Robert Peston

 

As Stela Barnsbury, UK´s (fictional) prime minister suddenly dies during a podcast with famous (fictional) political journalist Gil Peck, he is on a mission to find out the culprit as well as the cause of her death. But as usual in such cases, an easy answer is rarely the right answer, therefore, the journey will take Peck and us, the readers, alongside a race against time that may touch upon very sensitive parts of the political and business underworld.

Maybe we can read something about our future in this case, as the case may involve also some unexpected AI-generated details. Few years ago, this would have been a serious reason to categorize this book as beloging to the science fiction genre. Nowadays though, it is more realistic than ever. 

The reading was thrilling, largely surprising thanks to the very detailed plot. The relatable political layer adds political depth to the narrative. Like the author himself, Peck is a secular Jew, trying to understand the current state of affairs and eventually figure out the next new important society challenge - from pandemics to corporate crime and Artificial Intelligence.

For me, it was the first encounter with Peston´s work. The book is part of a trilogy featuring Peck, and although it can be read without necessarily reading all the books in the row, I am very much tempted to read the other two books as well. 

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own 

Rachel´s Random Resources: Escape to the Turquoise Seas by Carrie Walker

I love the feeling of summer, and books set during those - short but intense, for Europe - month are automatically included on my reading list - which is getting huge by the day.

Two rival PR agencies, two pitches, but only one has to succeed. Two enemies that cannot figure out their lives outside their fancy work. A secure work that may be endangered if the pitch is missed. Escape to the Turquoise Seas by Carrie Walker, an author I´ve featured on my blog before, introduces us to two lovely corporate characters, Kat and Leo. Each other´s nemesis caught in a professional fight while cruising Azores, Lisbon and Madeira. And the rest may be just history.

What a lovely place to fight for your pitch...And what funny characters to engage with (although in real life, if they would have our immortal lives, they may have think differently, especially about each other). The reading is engaging, and belongs to a professional world I always love to keep a foot in: highly competitional, glamorous at times, but involving a lot of hard and sustained work.

As for the travel part, I was just taking notes...as my summer plans are always work in process.

A recommended read for a cute rom-com, written with passion in a charming surrounding.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own