Read 10 books in Italian

10. Cobra : di Andrew Klavan This is a translation of an english book, it’s one of those true crime stories about an incident that happened around the San Francisco Bay Area, mostly in Berkeley / Oakland. It’s about a renegade gang of bikers and their crime sprees, the wayward daughter of a rich local resident (Honey Graham) who takes up with the gang. The father has aspirations to run for government and can’t have his daughter going around causing scandals so he hires a private investigator who is every bit as rough as the bikers to infiltrate the gang and rescue his daughter. Amid all the drama the twist is that the daughter is playing nearly everyone and is a cold blooded killer. All in all it was entertaining enough, if a bit tawdry.

9. Niente Vero Tranne Gli Occhidi Giorgio Faletti -
Wow, this took me so long to get through partly because I let this goal go for several months for lack of anything to read. Then I found this at a used book store. It seemed okay, but man was it horrible. It was a mystery/thriller of the lowest common denominator, all the cheesy elements and absurd plot twist commiserate with the genre. It got a little better starting about halfway thought but mostly I just wanted to get it over with. I suppose if you’re a fan of that type of book it would probably be palatable, but that happens to be my least favorite category. It’s also by far the longest I’ve read now weighing in at nearly 500 pages. Truly a slog-fest.

Now only 1 more to go, and I have the final book in hand.

8. Ti Con Zerodi Italo Calvino -
If I have to give a clever, concise review I’d say something like “This is an existential journey through time and being that challenges our perceptions of reality with fantastic accounts, and deep discussions of precise moments etched in time.”

It’s just plain weird. The main character’s name is Qfwfq and then it gets weirder. Moons made of soft marshmallow like substance, the origin of birds where continents drift like a raft on the sea, and then the final section of stories all involve moments in time, the author’s t0.

7. Il GGG di Rolad Dahl – This is another tranlation of the popular book for kids. Originally “The BFG” or the Big Friendly Giant, it becomes “Il Grande Gigante Gentile”. For anyone who hasn’t read it already when they were a wee one, it a charming story of an orphan girl who meets the only friendly giant, all the others are nasty brutes who eat people nightly. She and the gentile giant hatch a plan to stop them that involves going to the Queen of England. They succeed in trapping the 9 terrible giants in a hole and the protagonists become heroes to the world!

These are both really short, so I’m only counting them as one—

Mio Nonno Era un Cilegio di Angela Nanetti – A cute story about a young boy coming to terms with the death of his grandparents and how to honor thier memories. “Non si morire finchè qualcuno ti voglio bene”

La Moglie del Capro Espiatorio di Agnès Desarthe – A strange little story about a schoolteacher with a classroom full of kids who he cant control. Fed up he decides to tell them a story with a moral, of the wife of the scape goat who despite her husbands doubts about her ability to fill in for his singularly necessary job of taking blame for everything that goes wrong, she manages to make her clients forget about thier quarrels by singing and becomes a world famous diva in a day. The husband who might otherwise be upset for being shown up is actually extatic because now he’s inspired to persue his original dream of being a great actor and wants to include his wife with her amazing talent. The teacher telling the story wanders and he forgets how the story should go so he just ends it abruptly.

5. Harry Potter e La Camera Dei Segreti – J.K. Rowling
I’ve never read a Harry Potter book until this one, and it’s pretty enjoyable though I’m not really interested in finishing the series in english, it’s just pretty fluffy fantasy. The little differences from the english version were interesting, they changed some of the team names and character names to better fit the intended feel and wordplay. For example Slithern becomes Serpeverde, and Albus Dumbledore is Albus Silente.

4.Il mio nome a memoria – Giorgio Van Straten
This is an account of the author’s family history, the facts are drawn into stories that start about 200 years ago with the story of the ancestor who first took the family name. Now the author is the only one who will carry that name to future generations and after the death of his father felt the necesity of really learning where he came from and preserving the stories of his forefathers, especially his parents and grandparents generations because being jewish in Europe during WW2 meant they underwent some particularly harrowing trials and the few remaining were lucky to escape.

A good book and the first full length novel I’ve read in Italian so far, so I consider it quite an accomplishment. Even though it wasn’t a particularly difficult book to read it took a long time, and it was a bit dull in parts, but overall it’s a well written and interesting account.

3. Se Ancora C’è Domani di Valerio Bartolucci—This isn’t quite what I was expecting, I picked it up based on the fact that it seemed like a simple book to read, and it was but I didn’t know at the time it was a collection of short stories where all the central characters are gay. It’s about the conflict, the hate and struggling against rejection and discrimination that the characters face, confusion and discovery, and also the moments of acceptance and happieness.

1. Io Non Ho Paura – Niccolò Amantini
This is a sad story of a small boy growing up in a poor rural town, who discovers that terrible things are happening around him. He has to put aside his fears, face an unforgiving and confusing reality which is more than a child of his age should be asked to understand. This was a fantasic story, but definitly not a happy one.

2. Sulla sponda del fiume Piedra mi sono seduta e ho pianto – Paulo Coelho
Technically this book is originally in spanish but I happend to find a italian translation in a local used bookstore. This is a story of spirituality, faith and love and a young woman’s stuggle to understand both. It was a pretty sappy story full of psuedo-wise observations. Some of them we reasonally catch and quotable, but I didn’t think this was a great book overall. It was a simple one to read, and great practice. The title forshadows an unhappy ending, but there is catharsis and rebirth for the characters after it seems all is lost.

“L’amore è sempre nuovo. Non importa che amiamo una, due, dieci volte nella vita: ci troviamo sempre davanti a una situazione che non conosciamo … Se non lo accettiamo, morriremo di fame pur vedendo i rami dell’albero della vita carichi di frutti: non avremo il coraggio di tendere la mano e di coglierli.“