Massimo Carlotto: "The Master of Knots"

This is going to be a short review because I really don't have a lot to say about "The Master of Knots" by Massimo Carlotto. Just not my type of book, I guess. I'm not the biggest fan of crime fiction but I do it enjoy it once in a while - especially writers like Jo Nesbo and Jussi Adler-Olsen or Andrea Camilleri, if we're talking Italian. So I had some hope for this one - I was basically expecting something like an Italian Nesbo which is asking a lot, I will admit... 

The plot is something to do with the S&M underworld of Northern Italy and although it's not something that I know a whole lot about (see my 50 Shades of Booooring review), the author came across as really judgmental to me. Or at least his characters did. It seemed like everything that the S&M-related characters got up to was blamed on their "sexual deviancy" and there was much too much talk of shame and disgrace for my taste. 
Especially when you consider the fact that the characters were pretty boring at the best of times. The main character is a private investigator/club owner who is terribly traumatized from the years he spent in prison, innocently convicted of something pretty vague. His business partners are pretty much carbon-copies of him and it all got a bit blurry for me because they were all pretty cardboardy and one-dimensional. 
The plot lacks imagination and not even the so-called sexual deviancy can save it from being bland, boring and un-engaging. 

Summing up this novel in one word, I would say: meh. Nevermind. Moving on to the next book swiftly and definitely not re-reading this one. 

"The Terracotta Dog" by Andrea Camilleri

I'm not really a big fan of crime fiction. It is a genre that is encumbered with more than an average amount of bad writing and often the characters are lifeless and cardboard-y as they are little more than supporting roles being overshadowed by gruesome murders. There are a few exceptions though. I have a real fondness for Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole, although the murders in that particular series are usually very gruesome, and Carl Morck from Jussi Adler-Olsen's series about Department Q. 

Another crime fiction hero that I have a fondness for is their Italian counter-party, Inspector Montalbano who is created by the author Andrea Camilleri. Where Hole and Morck are socially inept, frontline combat types who have little understanding of the finer things in life. Montalbano is a different sort of gentleman altogether, although not exactly a social animal, he does have friends and does attend the occasional dinner party. He is a part of a local community and that plays a vital role in his work, being able to draw on old acquaintances and friends for information and inspiration. 

In "The Terracotta Dog", Montalbano is investigating a mafia related crime involving caves on the beach being used for smuggling. The caves, it turns out, are more than just a convenient meeting place for smugglers, it is also a tomb to two heavily decayed bodies, who are holding each other in death and are being watched over by a large terracotta dog. This is a mystery so intriguing that it is impossible for Montalbano not to investigate it, even though it is obviously an old crime and even though him and his colleagues have work enough already. In his quest to find out who the couple are and why they were entombed in the caves, Montalbano is led to stories from the Second World War where Sicily was plagued by the utmost poverty and destitution. 

For me the plot was nothing special. It wasn't really a riveting story but what makes it much more than an average book are the little touches that Camilleri uses to spice up the story. Montalbano's love of good Sicilian food is a recurring theme and one that I love - it's rare for a crime fiction novel to make you want to cook more! All in all, it is these touches of Italianess, of history and culture, that makes this really come to life - that and the wonderful dry sense of humour of Inspector Montalbano. Read it if it you (like me) have a love for Italy and enjoy a little mystery here and there. 

Review: "The Leopard"

There are some books that thoroughly deserve the honor of being called classics. "The Leopard" by Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is one of those books. There can be no doubt that it is a classic, a master piece of Italian literature.

If you haven't seen the film, then please please read the book first. It makes more sense that way and I promise you won't regret it. Both the book and the film are splendid. Written by Sicilian prince (yes, no kidding) Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, they tell the story of a crumbling aristocratic family but the story of the author is almost as good. Growing up among the upper classes on Sicily, Lampedusa was in many ways the last of his kind and the edition of the book that I read had a great introduction to the author and his work which was quite an advantage.

"The Leopard" opens in a magnificent villa in Sicily during the time of the Risorgimento when Italy went from being several states to one single state known as Italy. The Prince is ruling his house and his family, dominating the Princessand their brood of children, the dogs, the horses, even the pastor - only the Prince's nephew, Tancredi, can soften the Prince. The Prince is truly a fomidable man, the last of his species. At the hands of Garibaldi, the Italy of his youth is changing and a new class is taking over, a class that the old aristocracy considers crass, vulgar and nouveau riche. 

One of these new families are Don Calogero and his peasant wife and their beautiful daughter. Angelica is everything that the Prince's own daughter's with the good breeding and traditional values can't be. She is sensual and sexual, beautiful, radiant, intelligent and accomplished. So accomplished that she can even fake the breeding and connections that she lacks. 
Although he has previously been courting Concetta, the Prince's daughter, Tancredi falls hard and fast for Angelica and the Prince has to come to terms with the new ways of the world and accept that people that would previously not have been invited for dinner are now to be considered part of the family. 

It is an stunning story of a changing world. Not only is "The Leopard" quite possibly the best way to learn about a very important time in Italian history, it is also a lesson in the way the world changes and the way that we have to change with it - or at least accept change - in order to survive and thrive. 

Read if it: You're interested in Italian history or just history in general. You like classic literature with strong characters. And don't forget - read it before you see the film!

The Two Sides of Italy

As I've mentioned before (but will mention again because I'm literally counting down the days), I will very soon be off for a week or so in Italy. London seems to have forgotten what summer is about and instead of sun, we've had rain, rain, rain, rain. So lazy days of sunshine and pasta sounds heavenly to me and I can't wait to go. I've been preparing by reading non-fiction books about Italy and today I'll share my opinions of two of these with you - they each give an honest account of life in Italy but oh what different lives they tell of. 

"Extra Virgin" by Annie Hawes
This is the most wonderfully life-affirming story of two young British women, who are fed up by the London weather and price levels (oh do I know that feeling!) and flee to Italy for a summer of rose-pruning. In the small, traditional village of Diano San Pietro, Annie falls in love head over heels in a small hovel of a house that she and her sister buys on a whim. In the following years, they live part-time in the Ligurian mountains (to enjoy life) and part-time in London (to make money enough to enjoy life) and "Extra Virgin" is the story of how two very British women who know nothing about olives (the horror!!) learn to adapt to the Italian way of life where every piece of string or wood can be fashioned into furniture and where food is something that you forage for in the mountains and turn into feasts. 
The worst thing about this book is that it left me perpetually hungry for proper Italian food. Go away Pizza Express, I want a proper meal of antipasti, primo, secondo and homemade wine. 
It is a fantastic non-fiction book because Annie conjures up the characters with such vividness that they leap off the pages. It is a book about people and about the Italian spirit and it is absolutely gorgeous. This is la dolce vita sprinkled with village feuds and a dash of fresh olive oil. 

"Gomorrah" by Roberto Saviano
Have you been to Napoli? We went there a few years ago on a daytrip and I wasn't impressed. Everything was dirty and people were less than welcoming. It was a different Italy to the one I knew - which is mainly Liguria, Umbria, Piemonte, Tuscany and Rome. This was crime capital in a way that I hadn't imagined. At all. 
So when I started reading "Gomorrah", I had a clear picture of Napoli in my mind but it was nowhere near as horrible as the picture painted in this book. It's divided into sections focusing on the different types of crime happening in Napoli and spreading not only across Italy but across Europe and the world, like rings in water. There is the smuggling from China, the workers in small, factories in Napoli sewing designer clothes that end up as far away as the Academy Awards red carpet in Hollywood. There is the drug cartels, supplying Italy with cheap heroin and testing the drugs on volunteers who'll do anything for a free fix, even die. The toxic waste dumping and the mountains of landfill waste. And then there's the violence. Everyone in Napoli might not be involved with mafia-like gangs but everyone is a potential victim in their wars. 
It is not a happy read, it won't make you feel good. It will probably make you feel worried, even scared. But it is an important book because it deals with a topic that no one wants to touch out of fear for repercussions. When I closed it, having read the last page, I admired Saviano that he had the courage to write this book and hope that it will inspire others to do the same. 

Italian books?

In less than two months, my boyfriend and I will be going to Italy on vacation and I cannot wait! So in (eager) anticipation I'm planning to read lots of books about Italy or by Italian authors but I have to admit that I find it difficult to find good ones. So this is an official call for help! Please please please recommend books that I can read to get in the dolce vita mode. 


So far, these are on my list to read: 

Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted by Annie Hawes

From amazon.co.uk: "Fed up with cold, foggy London and the high cost of real estate, Annie Hawes is persuaded by her sister Lucy to travel to Italy and graft roses for the winter. The sisters arrive in rural Liguria with some formal Italian, no knowledge of rose grafting, and visions of Mediterranean men and sun. What they find is a town full of hard-working, wary olive growers smack in the middle of an olive oil depression who think these two young Englishwomen are nuts. Extra Virgin tells the story of the sisters' acclimation--theirs to Liguria and Liguria to them--and how they fell in love with a crumbling farmhouse in the hills."

Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano

From amazon.co.uk: "Saviano has created a perfectly realized, morally compelling journey through the brutal world of contemporary Italian mob life in this ceaselessly violent tale of the Camorra, a network of thugs, exploiters and killers who run Naples and the surrounding countryside. Armed with a police band radio, Saviano visits one crime scene after another, recording the final words and circumstances of the dying and dead. The murders described are savage, cruel and senseless: The head... hadn't been cut off with a hatchet, a clean blow, but with a metal grinder: the kind of circular saw welders use to polish soldering. The worst possible tool, and thus the most obvious choice. Jewiss's translation of Saviano's intense prose flows beautifully from the pestilence and degradation of everyday life in the teeming Neapolitan slums to the futile efforts of the police to control the rich, organic chaos that is the only way the Camorra know how to live."

Review: "The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman

If you have never been to Rome, then please put it at the top if your to do list. It is the most amazing city, a city that you have to visit at least once in your life. In "The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman, Rome is almost more of a character than a setting. It seeps into every line and the smell of fresh pasta and sweet flowering jasmine almost pours of the pages, making me hungry for both Italian food and a Roman holiday.


This is a book where you get more than you bargain for. It is a novel - indeed the full title is "The Imperfectionists: A Novel" - but it is composed of eleven short stories that all interlink and makes the total more than the sum of the parts. The plot, or plots, center around the happenings at the office on an international newspaper. Founded by an eccentric businessman in 1950s, it has been through good times and bad times and in 2004, when the reader is introduced to the story, it is going through what is decidedly a bad time. A new young publisher has taken over and he is by all accounts more interested in walking his dog than in newspapers and businesses and everyone from the editor-in-chief, cool and collected Kathleen, to the hopeful freelancer in Cairo are feeling the pressure.


Every chapter follows a different character and where this could lead to disconnect and to a lack cohesion, it instead brings out the best and the worst in every character as we get to see them from a range of angles. At worst this is interesting, at best it is riveting. Just like even the dodgy, grimy parts of Rome have a unique, rustic charm, even the most frustrating of these characters have personality and trait that makes you root for them.


My personal favourite was Herman Cohen who relentlessly chases spelling mistakes, Abbey Pinnola also known as Accounts Payable, the finance director and single mother of three and Oliver Ott, the young publisher who is as devoted to his dog Schopenhauer as most men would only be to their mother or vintage car. These three characters somehow spoke to me more than the others and I almost cried in the final chapter that features the young and hapless Ott.
Other chapters made my stomach hurt with the descriptions of loneliness and human tragedy, especially the ones about copy editor Ruby Zaga, who becomes someone else and much less happy, as soon as she comes to work, and Athur Gopal whose life changes in the blink of a moment.


This a beautiful novel, home of a range of stories that are like pearls on a string: every single one is beautiful and unique and together they are a piece of art.


Read it if: You long for a week in Rome. You always dreamt of working at an international newspaper.  You like literary fiction with a little more oomph!

Venice in February!

I went to Venice some years ago and it was amazing. I loved it. Amazing city. More beautiful than you can imagine. I would love to go back and that is why I am considering participating in the "Venice in February" reading challenge.
Read all about it here at Dolce Bellezza's blog - thanks to Sam at Tiny Library for inspiring me.

Review: "The Pregnant Widow"

There were so many reasons to pick up "The Pregnant Widow" by Martin Amis. First of all, I really like "London Fields" by Martin Amis and I quite enjoyed "The Rachel Papers" so it seemed like a reasonable assumption that I would enjoy "The Pregnant Widow" as well. Also I think the title is really cool - the paperback cover on the other hand I am not too keen on but hey, you can't get it all and I chose the hardback cover to accompany this review as I think that is quite pretty.

"The Pregnant Widow" is Amis's 12th novel and in my opinion it is a really great one. The story is quite interesting and multi-facetted with lots of details that kept me fascinated and with beautiful descriptions that made Italy - where the story is set - really come to life.

The narrator is a 20-year-old male with all the trouble and issues that come with being way too focussed on sex and at the mercy of women... Poor guy! Keith Nearing is quite the anti-hero, he is a days away from his 21st birthday and far away from home on a holiday in Italy. It is the 1970's and girls are intent on behaving like boys and being liberated which means that Keith's relationship with girlfriend Lily is not going to well, she is too liberated and to little in love with Keith, who sees her as some sort of sister. Instead he has his eyes on her friend, the gorgeous upper-class girl Sheherazade with the amazing body who is starting to understand exactly how much power she has over the male gender. As if that wasn't enough to cook up a dramatic story, Amis then throws a bunch of interesting minor characters into the mix - such as every-girls-dream the Italian count (with only with drawback that keeps him from ever getting Sheherazade) and the depressed twentysomething who is hiding out in shame. It is a dangerous mix and Keith is too messed up by a mix of his own hormones, feelings and dreams to take caution. He spends his days in a frenzy of reading - only disrupted to have conversations with the girls or looking at their breasts.... It is a summer that he will always remember and that will change his life forever.

It is a fantastic book if you ask me - I read it and loved it and some day I will read this in Italy on a warm summers day and it will feel like I am almost there with Keith as he faces the difficulties of youth and the conundrums of women.

Read it if: You love early Martin Amis - or if you are no longer a teenager but remember how difficult being hormonal was...

Review: "The Monster of Florence"

Another book with a lame title... Sorry to authors Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi but this title (even though it is very describing and fits the subject well) is just not good... It hints at something sordid, it is a tabloid title. The headline of one of those newspapers that you'd never read in the bus for fear of being seen with it... You know what I mean?

This book, "The Monster of Florence", deserves a better title because it is very far from the tabloid style. In order to explain, let me first give you a quick summary of the plot of this non-fiction tale where truth is so strange that it has inspired the novel (and movie) Hannibal by Thomas Harris.
The case of the monster of Florence takes its beginning in Florence (obviously...) in the 1970's and 1980's where a serial killer targets young couples making love in cars in the hills around the beautiful renaissance city. The crimes are ruthless and barbaric, the victims young and the motives unclear. And the murderer turns out to hide his tracks very very well.
Mario Spezi is the journalist who becomes known as the monstrologer, the man who follows the case and investigation closely and who knows as much if not more about the case than the police. In 2000 the case is still unsolved as thriller author Douglas Preston moves to Florence to write a novel about something completely different but ends up becoming fascinated with the monster and friends with Mario Spezi.



As the police struggles to explain the unsolved case and as the possible theories become more and more impossible and unreal, Preston and Spezi get dragged further and further into the investigation until one day, they are under suspiscion.

You shouldn't read this book if you main interest is the gory details of the murder because that is not what this book is about. This is a book about the importance of the freedom of the press and about the power of false accusations. As the people of Florence become more and more scared, they also begin to suspect each other of being the monster and innocent lives are ruined by false accusations. The authors cling to the importance of the principle of innocent until proven guilty and sometimes they seem to be the only sane persons in the entire city...
The most scary part of this book is not the murders though they are gruesome, it is the fact that the police are seemingly willing to ignore all facts if they can get someone, anyone, convicted as the monster of Florence.

Read this if: you liked "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher" by Kate Summerscale