Michele’s Reading List

Bar Sport by Stefano Benni is a great book, which unfortunately I wasn’t able to find in a translated version, so I presume it’s only available in Italian.

In this book the author tries to portray in a comic way the Italian society, what really happens in small towns. And let me tell you, he really manages it.
Throughout the whole book, Benni centers the activity of his stories in the Bar Sport. A Bar Sport is a common name given to bars in small towns which are usually the place where elderly people and other strange characters gather during the day.

Of course, everything is a joke, but if you’re Italian or have been in Italy for a while, you know this joke’s for real.
While reading it, I happened to burst out laughing while on the tube a lot of time, because every single story is incredibly funny and somehow a tad real.

If you can read Italian, make sure you get this gem, and you’ll sure spend a couple of hours laughing out loud. :)

The Art of the Start was more on a technical point-of-view, The Big Moo, instead wants to be an inspirational kind of book.

It features 33 articles of a variable length written by some of the smartest people in the business world.
Instead, of telling you how to have success by imitating others, they try to convince the reader to act differently, because there’s no way one can change the world without acting in a way that’s different from what everyone else is doing.

The book is quite short and I found it a great read. I’d suggest it to anyone interested in business, marketing, or simply interested in being different.

In July I incorporated my first company so I felt the need to read about start-ups and how to properly start a business.
This book was great!

Guy Kawasaki definitely knows what he’s talking about, so I found most of his tips brilliant.
It’s not enough to read a book to build a successful business, but having good advices like the ones found in this book is extremely important.

If you’re running a start-up, you might find this book very interesting.

I wanted a good book on atheism, and there it was.

Bertrand Russell is a great thinker and this book provides a very good starting point for everyone interested in atheism and religions in general.
Throughout the book, Russell tries to confute the more common explanations Christian usually use to explain the existence of God, and IMHO he’s successful.

Probably, I liked the book because I think almost the same things Russell believed, so it might be interested to know what others think about it.
Also, as I said, it’s a starting point: it’s not enough to read this book and personally I think it would be stupid to take everything is written there for granted.
Russell was a great personality and a well renown atheist, but many of the things he say in this book are just pointers to other books or articles the reader should read in case he/she wanted to go further in his/her research.

I’m very interested in religions, so I found the book a great read as I love to read about them.
Still, I think everyone would find this book interesting as religions are something anyone should care about, either if they are in favour or against. And nowadays, as always, religion is a big issue.

Camera Lucida is Barthes’s study on photography’s nature and essence.

Throughout the book, Barthes tries to dissect photography, ending up with the discovery of two fundamentals characteristics a photograph should have: studium, being the social and cultural aspect of a photo, and punctum, being the detail that connects the spectator, not to be confused with the photographer or subject, and the photo at an emotional level.
Basically, there’s no Photo without a punctum, which in turn is a very subjective thing.

I’ve found the book to be very interesting and it helped forming my thoughts on photography which were shortly exposed in my Is Photography Art? post.

This was the first book by Kerouac I’d ever read and I absolutely loved it.The book, which is almost an autobiography as most — all? — of Kerouac’s books, narrates the story of Sal’s journeys around the States and inside his soul, and his friendship with a very weird and eclectic guy: Dean.If you think this is just a novel about some weirdo driving around the States, you’re so wrong. I mean, it is, but it’s so much more.I love traveling, I always had and always will, but this book gave a whole other meaning to the word travel. While I was reading it, I just wanted to hop on a car and drive with no destination. Traveling for the sake of it! That is, I believe, what traveling really is about: it’s not where you end up, it’s how you got there.If after reading this book you don’t yearn for a trip, then something must be desperately wrong with you.

Max Barry is, IMHO, one of the best young authors around.
I mean, it doesn’t talk about rocket science or write deep and long philosophical dissertations, but his books are very funny and make a great read for when you’d just like to sit down and enjoy a good read for a couple of hours.

In each of his novels, Barry has a look at society from different viewpoints. It was marketing in his first two novels — Syrup and Jennifer Government — and now it’s the enterprise world.

Company is a very funny and clever account of what happens in a big company.
Sure enough, in Barry-esque style, everything is brought to exaggeration, which is, I guess, how the author tries to deliver his message.
What I mean, is that yes, he exaggerates, but not bringing the story to something unbelievable or that could never happen, it’s like if he’s having a look at where we’re heading.

Again, if you’re in for a light, yet interesting read, just give it a try. :)

Since buying Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection, I’ve been amazed by the work of Robert Capa. So I started looking for books about him and found Slightly Out of Focus, Capa’s WWII chronicle.

The book gave me another perspective on WWII. Most accounts are from soldiers, historians or regular people, which all had something in common: they tried to avoid the War. Capa, instead, always tried to be where the action was.

Capa wanted to be a writer, not a photographer, and you can tell it by his work.
His photo were probably not perfect from a technical standpoint, but they got into the action, they give an inside view of the scene, and I think it’s because he wasn’t trained to be a photographer, he just happened to be one.
His unprofessionality is what made his work great, I believe: he understood photography better than most other photographers.

As he said after the book was released, the whole book is based on actual facts, but there are a few fictional elements here and there to have a better flow and make the story a tad more impressive, so it can’t be considered 100% true, even though most of it is.

It doesn’t matter if your interested in photography, you should read this book.
It’ll give you some more info on WWII and you’ll also get to know about a very eclectic individual and an amazing photographer.

I wanted a good book on photography. One that talked about different kinds of cameras, lenses, filters, accessories. One that would introduce me to various concepts of visualization, development, printing and archiving.
One that would basically talk about Photography.

Unfortunately, nowadays it’s difficult to get a good photography manual. More are just about connecting your digital camera and printing your digital photos with your inkjet printer.
If you want a book about real photography, you need to turn to Ansel Adams.

The Ansel Adams Guide: Basic Techniques of Photography is a book in two parts that tries to sum up and revamp a bit Ansel Adams’ teachings. And BTW, the author was a student and a collaborator of Ansel Adams.
I feel this is a very good book for both newbie and advanced amateurs as it covers almost every aspect of photography — well, mostly B&W photography.

If you’re serious about Photography — the one with film, developers, fixers, not the point-and-shoot kind of experience you get out of digital photography — this book might put you on the right path.

Silvano Agosti is an Italian movie director, writer and thinker in general.

This book is an attempt at imagining his perfect society.
A society where everyone is important, where everyone can live in piece, where everyone can Live. And when I say Live I mean it in the deepest meaning you can give to this word.

He imagine to be forced to stop and spend a few weeks in this perfect country — Kirghisia — while flying to some place.
During his stay, he write a few letters to his friends describing how beautiful life is in Kirghisia.

It was a very nice book to read. It’s maybe pure Utopia, but it gives some hope to think a place like Kirghisia exists, even if only in one person’s mind. Actually, I think Kirghisia exists in the mind of many.

Given there’s no published English translation I know of, you can always read Letters From Kirghisia online on Silvano Agosti’s website. :)

I love biographies. No matter who they are about: they’re so fascinating. And this one is a great biography about a great person: Steve Jobs.

What makes it so good is Jobs’s aura of mystery. An aura he put up on purpose, indeed he never talk about his personal life with journalists and when they try to, he will either quickly skate over it or leave the room full of rage.
So the author, Alan Deutschman, had to gather information from present and past friends, employee, colleagues and so on.

What comes out is a very well done portray of this strange figure. It’s neither a good or bad portray. Actually it’s like Jobs himself: good and bad.
Good Steve and bad Steve are both part of the man and equally and cyclically appear every now and then.

No matter if he’s good or bad, he’s a genius in his field, and I really wonder if there’s someone else who can compete with him. Bill Gates’s smart, but he’s not as charming for sure. Ok, Gates’s got more money, but it’s not about money here, it’s about the persona.

A very pleasurable read for Mac enthusiasts, geeks and generally for people who like to read about a great story: how he started, how he stumbled and how he got back.

You know I love Palahniuk. And this book, again, is pure Palahniuk: sarcastic, cruel, funny and subtle.

As always, you can read a critic to America’s — and, in general, western — way of life. It’s myth, untold truths and lies.

The book is about a top-model who’s wounded by a flying bullet and almost die. The bullet hit her in the face, which make a monster of her.
No wonder she can’t be a model anymore, so she struggles to get a new life.
She has to fight against her new aspect and against well established demons in her life — such as the death of his gay brother which ruined her relation with her parents.
And the end is a regular turn-it-over Palahniuk’s ending.

A must read for every lover of this genre.

Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest thinkers alive — if not the greatest.
Reading his books can be an eye-opening experience and I really suggest you read them if you want to know a bit more about what’s going on in the World.

This one is about globalization, democracy and what we could do to make things a little bit better.
If you follow politics and read about current events, you might not be astounded but what he says in this interview — yes, the book is an interview with Noam Chomsky –, but you might end up looking at things in a slightly different way.

Noam Chomsky is great for those who are already interested in politics, economics and globalization. And it’s even better for those who don’t know much, but would like to start learning about them — which made it great to give as a present ;) .

I’ve always been fascinated by Charles Baudelaire and Decadent artists in general.
There’s something about them that I find tremendously appealing to me. Maybe it’s because Decadence emerged from the ruins of Romanticism — or at least I think so — which is a movement I love. Maybe it’s because it’s a modern movement, but not Modernism, yet.
What I’m sure about is that I really like it.

Artificial Paradises is composed of two parts: an essay on the use of wine and hashish, and translation/revisitation of De Quincey’s Confession of an English Opium Eater.
What comes out is an accurate description of how mind altering substances can enrich or lower a person. And he really knew about it since he died an opium addict.

One thing I really loved about this book is how well written are descriptions about the hallucinations given by different drugs — mainly swallowed opium.
Baudelaire wrote about those experiences from an outside point-of-view, but we can tell they are almost for sure — or at least in part — his own experiences.

It’s a wonderful read for those who, like me, are fascinated by Decadence. Plus, it’s a great essay on drugs and wine viewed from another point-of-view.
Another wonderful read from Baudelaire bibliography is Les Fleurs Du Mal.

This novel is about intrigues, cheating and rivalry in the IT business. Kind of a techno-thriller.
No more, no less.

I found it to be pretty well written. Very easy and fast to read: almost unputdownable.
Of course, it’s not the kind of book that will improve you persona, but still it’s a very decent read giving you a few hours of entertainment in a hot summer day — or cold winter night, for what that matter.

Joseph Finder has a degree in Russian Studies and I guess he is well-known for his studies on Cold War and Soviet secret services.
So espionage, which is the foundation of Paranoia, is something he really knows about. Which might explain most of the goodness in this book.

A must read for those who like techno-thrillers or thrillers in general. And those interested in the IT business might find it interesting, too.

I picked this book because last year I’d read about 1996 Everest disaster on Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and since there are lot of controversies open about what really happened, I wanted to read what another witness thought about it.

But I was happy to discover this isn’t only an account on what happened on Mt. Everest that year. Instead, it provides an insight look at Sherpa’s way of life and culture.
The author also tells us about his relationship with his father: Tenzing Norgay, who was the first man to top Mt. Everest together with Sir Edmund Hillary.

The book is well written and easy to read. But I don’t think you’ll be very interested if you don’t like to read about alpine expeditions.
It gives, as a said, a very nice perspective on Sherpa’s culture, so this might be a good reason to read it even if you don’t like this kind of books.

And BTW, if you’re into this stuff — or if you simply want to read a great story about an amazing adventure –, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is a wonderful read.

It’s very easy to write a review of this one, because it’s such a good book. And he is telling something obvious that many people forgot: we shouldn’t make wars!

Right after 9/11 Tiziano Terzani decided to begin a new journey: at around 60 with a very bad cancer, he travelled to war zones around middle east.
And every now and then he wrote letters to the most important newspaper in Italy — Corriere della Sera — and kind of began a confrontation with another Italian journalist also writing letters — pro-war letters — to that newspaper: Oriana Fallaci.

A must read.

Mutant Message Down Under is the account of Marlo Morgan’s walkabout through Australia’s Outback. What’s special about this journey, is that she joined a very old group of Aborigines.

At the beginning of this adventure, she is literally undressed of everything she has: dress, jewelry, money, documents, etc.; and she is given only a piece of fabric to use as a dress.
Throughout the trip, she learn how Aborigines managed to live in the desert throughout millenniums. How they find water, food, how they communicate and how they cure illnesses.

Many times, while reading the book, I asked myself: “Can this be true, or is it just a piece of fiction?”. Every single time, the answer was: “Who knows…”.
Things like telepathy are far away from are culture, thus we are naturally inclined to doubt it can exist. But we can’t be sure they never existed.

So believing it, or not, is you choice. What’s sure, is that the book tries to deploy a clear message.
We — as in the whole humanity — are driving the World to a point where it will break down. We have to realize that we are just one thing together with all the other creatures in the world.
We have to feel as a unique group. Because we all live on the same planet and instead of fighting because of are differences, we should feel lucky of being able to enjoy such differences: each person, with its bundle of characteristics and skills, is a unique piece of the same whole.

We should understand that we can’t take from the earth and never give back. We should use only what we need, and give back what we don’t really need.
We should respect nature. We should respect other creatures.
We should understand Earth is not ours to use at our will.

The Motorcycle Diaries is a diary about Ernesto Guevara and Alberdo Granado’s journey around South America: they left from Cordoba, Argentina, and went through Chile, Peru’, Colombia and Venezuela.

While reading the first pages, I remember I thought Ernesto Guevara’s writing style was stunning: a very well written and captivating book!
And the story is incredibly captivating to: it’s really a one-shot book; you can’t put it down once you start it.

Throughout the book, you can also notice how Guevara’s political awareness changed during the journey: he started with simple theoretical notions and ended with an inside-look at South American life and politics, and developed his own ideas about how he’d like America to be: one big unique nation where everybody is like each other; because Americans are all equal: indeed, they’re all Americans!

Another reason why I liked this book so much, is because this is exactly the travel I dream of doing one day: visiting South America on a motorcycle. Even though doing it like they did — they were like America’s guests: always finding a place to sleep and eat, or a truck to catch to go somewhere, without, almost every time, having to pay a single cent!

A very nice reading. And after you read it, you might want to watch the movie about this travel: The Motorcycle Diaries by Walter Salles.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with a friend about travels. And he suggested me to read Patagonia Express by Luis Sepulveda.
And let me tell you, it’s an incredible book.

It’s very short and is made of short notes Sepulveda took on his Moleskine notebook while traveling around wonderful Patagonia.
He is a great writer who can really get to the essence of things he sees. And what come out is a quick, but effective and intense glimpse at Patagonian life.

While reading it, I felt like I was there with him, and after finishing it, my will to go to Patagonia is bigger than ever — if you’ve read my about page, you should know visiting the whole South American continent, possibly by motorbike, is one of my biggest dreams.

I feel like suggesting this book to everybody I know. So, I suggest you read this book, too!