All Forms of Art

  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was already a favorite book of someone very close to me, but I wasn’t sure it would become my gem.  I had also read several reviews claiming it wasn’t funny at all. That made me even more skeptical. Humor is subjective, after all — and clearly this book isn’t for everyone. But I gave it a try. And I was positively surprised. Reading the Ultimate Edition I picked up The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , a special edition that includes: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Life, the Universe and Everything So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish Young Zaphod Plays It Safe Mostly Harmless I intend to read the remaining stories as soon as I can. If the first one is any indication, the journey through the rest of the galaxy will be just as strange — and just as thought-provoking. Absurdity as a Mirror of Humanity What struck me most is how full the story is of metaphors ...

  South of the Border, West of the Sun  was not at all one of my favorites.  After reading so many glowing reviews, I must confess I was genuinely disappointed.  That said, I didn’t stop reading. Not even once. And that, in itself, says a lot about Haruki Murakami as a writer. I didn’t enjoy the book until very close to the end, but Murakami’s prose kept pulling me forward. He has that rare ability to make you continue reading even when you feel, deep down, that the story might be going nowhere. Beautiful Writing, Distant Characters Murakami writes beautifully—there’s no denying that. His sentences flow effortlessly, scenes are carefully composed, and everything feels precise and intentional. But I felt no empathy for Hajime, the main character. I couldn’t identify with him, nor did I particularly care about what happened to him. And it’s hard to love a story when you don’t care about the people living inside it. This emotional distance reminded me, at times, of ...

  When the Ordinary World Turns Hostile Marie NDiaye ’s My Heart Hemmed In begins like a domestic drama and slowly turns into a psychological nightmare.  Nadia, a teacher in Bordeaux, suddenly finds herself shunned by everyone — neighbors, coworkers, even her husband. She has no idea why, and neither do we. It’s a setup that feels almost Kafkaesque — think The Trial or The Metamorphosis — where the real horror isn’t monsters or ghosts, but society itself turning inexplicably against you. A Hall of Mirrors Like in Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment, NDiaye dives deep into a woman’s unraveling mind, showing how fear distorts perception until reality itself becomes unreliable. Nadia’s paranoia grows, her body reacts in strange ways, and the city around her feels charged with invisible hostility. Reading it feels like being caught between a dream and a panic attack — much like Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, where logic keeps slipping just out of reach. Language That...

  The Long Emergency is a book by James Howard Kunstler that will open your eyes. It forces you to look directly at everything most of us seem to choose to ignore. It is not new. The Long Emergency is a book from 2006, but it is as fresh as it could be and an excellent alert for those who refuse to see what is right in front of their noses.  Its primary focus is the civilization we built based on cheap oil and how that's ending with the world reservations disappearing quickly.  Shocking data Kunstler is not trying to sugarcoat our situation, and some of the data can be very surprising for you - shocking.  Humans pollute and corrupt the planet. We destroy everything, and unless you work on the field, I assure you, you'll never think that the numbers could be this big. Why didn’t we act? Reading this after the COVID pandemic can make you feel some anger. It has been a while since the scientific community expected a pandemic that would destroy everything - not only ...

  "This story is about courage, hate, and exclusion." You can read in the final pages of this book. It is true. This book came to my hands by chance, and I never thought I would be so impressed by it. I can't remember the last time I read a book this quickly. I found two different English translations of it, so I'll use its original title in this review. De Crèche tells the story of a group of Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. The children would be separated from their parents. They would go into this institution until it was time to go to the concentration camps. In the middle of such tragedy, these brave young women would go against all the laws to keep them safe.  Elle Van Rijn's narrative is thoughtful and sweet but never disguises the truth - the horrible truth those people were living in.  She makes you care We can't stop reading, you want to know more. You need to know more. The story follows a chronology; you can't avoid feeling a shive...

  The Lying Life of Adults shows us, once more, that the teenage years and growing up can be painful.  Giovanna is the main character of this story, and she is feeling all the fast changes adolescence demands in a deeply divided town. Before this situation, her body and her opinions and desires are changing fast. Perhaps, too fast. Parents aren’t perfect. It is usually in those teenage years that we realize our parents aren’t perfect. They are humans with all the flaws that that implies. Giovanna is no different. Her parents are not as she thought they were, and her perfect family isn’t perfect at all. Those adults, those references that she admires, hide things, lie, and do things that she considers wrong. They are like everybody else. They are not heroes. When we realize that our parents are not the superheroes we believed they were when we were very young children, it can hurt.   Why is it so important? Because when we realize they also can fail, with the destruc...

  Once more, Yuval Noah Harari raises questions about Mankind. But, this time, instead of looking back, he focuses on the future. Analyzing what's happening right now, he looks for answers. What does the state of our lives say about the future? What is it to come? Technology - will it make us Gods? Throughout history, human beings have always had three main goals: end famine, epidemics, and war. So now that we have (virtually) the solution for all of them, what are we going to do?  Even the most recent (and scary) COVID pandemic showed us that we have the technology to overcome it in a way that we never did. So, where do we go from here?  God? I'm god In our modern world, diseases kill more than war, but, despite that, they aren't a great concern anymore. This is because they aren't the result of God's wrath but instead of human incompetency. Death itself is no longer looked at the same way. We don't die because God demanded, but because someone made a mistake. ...

  Like the previous books from the saga, A Feast for Crows holds your attention from the very beginning.  George RR Martin filled the story with strong characters.  It avoids the  cliché  of damsels in distress and perfect, shiny-armor knights coming to save them.  The characters are not stereotyped, and you can feel their anger, their fears, their love. You care about them (or you hate them). Either way, they look alive.  Reading the Books vs. Watching The Show No matter what you do, you cannot ignore the massively successful show produced by HBO. That brings a few issues. After watching the show, you cannot undo the image of the characters in your head. At least, not easily. I will always listen to the voice of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau whenever Jaime Lannister gives an order. The bitterness in Cersei’s remarks will always be Lena Headey’s. Yet, reading is different and, once more, better. Richer in detail and emotion, it makes a big difference to...

In the last book of the series, Lila and Lenú’s relationship remains the center of the novel. A new pregnancy for both of them brings the two women closer again until a tragedy hits them. Freedom from the heart Until the last book, Elena was too attached to Nino, but now he starts to lose his charm. His weaknesses can’t be ignored anymore. He doesn’t look so wonderfully intelligent when Elena starts to be able to see his arrogance. Sometimes, his rudeness towards other people. The spell was broken. Nino is not only selfish but shows a total lack of respect by Elena and other women around him. Slowly, he starts to remind her of his father, the man that abused Elena so many years ago. Elena is now a more mature woman, and maturity brought her some calm and objectiveness. Yet, was she ever happy? Is she now?  Back to the neighborhood and its problems While we were happy to see Elena with a better life and conquering her goals, we miss the complicated intrigues from the neighborhoo...