Mission

"Hai scelto il tuo peccato. Hai la forza di scegliere la tua punizione?"
(Jeremy Irons a Robert De Niro in Mission)

Controsensi

"Lo so che per te è giocare, ma bisogna che giochi con educazione!"




(Un vero controsenso, come insegna Nel paese dei mostri selvaggi)

















Gioca libero...

Beautiful books and useful reviews

A beautiful book has humor, fun, steamy sex, intriguing plot, memorable characters; a fantastic book is fulfilling and cathartic.

Writing a review, focus on why others can love the book; on the characters, artwork, turns of the plot, message; tell if you hang on every word and if it has made a difference for you; write a review heartfelt and sincere, full of insight if it's possible.
The positive informations tell the readers if they are interested in the book or not.
Answer the questions:
- what makes this book different from all others?
- Why should anyone care?
- What is unique in this book?
Report facts accurately; write conversionally and not in reviewese; criticize the book, not the author; never review a book of a friend or an enemy; purge your work of anythin that you wouldn't say to your smartest friend.
Say what you alone can say about the book.
Find paper mentor, a great critic whose you love, read and repeat, hand copy to absorb the style, and then...create your own style.

(How to write a review, found in Net Galley).

For writing and storytelling:

engaging
strong
vivid
heart-warming
heart-breaking
realistic
historically accurate
emotional
funny

Culture et ignorance

La culture coute trop cher?
Essayez l'ignorance.

The madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie

He had no filter, no inibitions, and no sense of societal boundaries, but he wasn't demanding, snobby or entitled. He just seemed so unguarded and guileless.

(Jennifer Ashley, The madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie)

Some words...

Life did not have to be perfect for moments of joy to color it with beauty.

***

You can never have enough books.
















***

From remissive and weak to assertive and strong.

frasi di bimbo e frasi di mamma

"Versò la sua malvagità, la sua rabbia e la sua volontà per dominarli tutti..."
"Ma che stai borbottando?"
"Niente, niente. Solo delle parole..."
"Da che film?"
"Il Signore degli anelli."
"Me le ridici?..."
"ALLORA SAURON, L'OSCURO SIGNORE, NEL FUOCO DEL MONTE FATO, FORGIO' UN UNICO ANELLO, UN ANELLO SOVRANO, IN CUI RIVERSO' LA SUA MALVAGITA', LA SUA RABBIA E LA SUA VOLONTA' DI DOMINARLI TUTTI..."
"Ah...è la frase che ti è rimasta più impressa?"
"Sì."
"Ah..."

(Ma una frase di Gandalf o Legolas o almeno Aragorn no, eh? Sempre affascinato dal lato oscuro...)

La Cappella Sistina

Se non si è vista la Cappella Sistina, non si può avere un'idea di quel che può realizzare un essere umano.

Goethe

Lord Sesshomaru

Mica affascina solo me. Anche Ilona Andrews, basta leggere On the edge...

Night, stars, Christmas

I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.

Stephenie Meyer

About loss and love

“Do you miss a parent you never knew?” he whispered.
Kate considered his question for some time. His voice had held a hoarse urgency that told her there was
something critical about her reply. Why, she couldn’t imagine, but something about her childhood clearly
rang a chord within his heart.
“Yes,” she finally answered, “but not in the way you would think. You can’t really miss her, because you
didn’t know her, but there’s still a hole in your life—a big empty spot, and you know who was supposed
to fit there, but you can’t remember her, and you don’t know what she was like, and so you don’t know
how she would have filled that hole.” 
Her lips curved into a sad sort of smile. “Does this make any sense?”
Anthony nodded. “It makes a great deal of sense”. 


Julia Quinn, The Viscount Who Loved Me

"You can't really miss her, because you didn't know her, but there's still a hole in your life - a big empty spot, and you know who was supposed to fit there, but you can't remember her, and you don't know what she was like, and so you don't know how she would have filled that hole".


E poi, improvvisamente, arriva qualcuno che riempie quel vuoto...e ti dà anchee tu non puoi far altro che abbracciarlo.

2015 book challenge

2015 book challenge completed!

120 books read!

Very proud!!

...

Yeah, I add sometimes books from my past.

Well, I have read them, or not?!

And they were only ten!

...

Stop ruining my day, conscience/sense of honor/superego!

Please, kill my superego.

https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/1992148

Killed. With sugar.

100 romanzi da urlo

Su NPR hanno pubblicato la classifica dei 100 romanzi "meritevoli di svenimento". Bene, come molte espressioni inglesi la traduzione letterale non rende, perciò diciamo...cento romanzi da urlo.
Sappiamo che sono operazioni discutibili perché è impossibile che ci sia un accordo tra i lettori, per le varie tipologie di romanzo e le loro differenti caratteristiche e anche perché ovviamente non si potrà essere tutti d'accordo sui criteri usati.
Tuttavia sono anche operazioni utili.
Si scopre che ci sono libri che più o meno tutte (noi lettrici) abbiamo amato.
Si scopre che alla fin fine le autrici meritevoli le sappiamo riconoscere, quindi il gusto letterario femminile non è abissalmente retrogrado e non evoluto come certi critici sostengono.
Si scopre che ci sono caterve di libri belli ancora da leggere, e questo è consolante.
Si scopre che ci sono tanti generi letterari quanti mondi, e tanti mondi quante persone, e che a volte questi mondi si incontrano con singolari sinergie di passione, comprensione e affetto.
A me non sembra poco.

http://www.npr.org/2015/07/29/426731847/happy-ever-after-100-swoon-worthy-romances

Romanzi storici

Loretta Chase, Lord of scoundrels
Beverly Jenkins, Indigo
Diana Gabaldon, Outlander series
Lorraine Heath, Texas destiny
Judith Merkle Riley, The serpent garden
Jennifer Ashley, The madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie
Mary Balogh, The Bedwyn saga
Amanda Quick, Ravished
Lisa Kleypas, The wallflowers series
Julia Quinn, The Bridgerton series
Courtney Milan, The brothers Sinister series
Sarah MacLean, The rules of scoundrels series
Laura Kinsale, Flowers from the storm
Tessa Dare, Spindle Cove series
Elizabeth Hoyt, Maiden lane series
Julie Ann Long, Pennyroyal green series
Julie Gardwood, The bride
Lauren Willig, The pink carnation series
Jude Deveraux, A knight in shining armor
Sherry Thomas, Not quite a husband
Eloisa James, Desperate duchesses series
Judith McNaught, Something wonderful
Laura London, The windflower
Joanna Bourne, The spymasters series
Meredith Duran, The duke of shadows
Judith Ivory, Beast
Patricia Gaffney, To have and to hold
Grace Burrowes, The captive
Jeannie Lin, The lotus palace series
Connie Brockway, All through the night
Susan Johnson, Blaze
LaVyrle Spencer, Morning glory
Pamela Morsi, Simple Jess
Eva Ibbotson, The morning gift
Cecilia Grant, A lady awakened
Kate Noble, The summer of you
Mary Joe Putney, The rake.

 

Classici

Victoria Holt, The India fan
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
M.M. Kaye, The far pavilions
Jane Austen, Price and prejudice
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Georgette Heyer, Venetia

Young adult

Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor and Park
Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the french kiss
Megan Whalen Turner, The queen's thief series
Simone Elkeles, Perfect chemistry
Caridad Ferrer, Adios to my old life


Suspense

Pamela Clare, I-Team series
J.D. Robb, In death series
Mary Stewart, None coaches waiting


Science fiction and fantasy

Nalini Singh, Psy/Changeling series
Meljean Brook, The Iron seas series
Ilona Andrews, Kate Daniels series
Bettie Sharpe, Ember
N.K. Jemisin, The inheritance trilogy
Lois McMaster Bujold, A civil campaign
Sharon Shinn, Archangel
Johanna Lindsey, Warrior's woman



Paranormal

Darynda Jones, Charley Davidson series
J.R. Ward, The Black Dagger Brotherhood seris
Kresley Cole, Immortals after dark series
Karen Marie Moning, Fever series
Susanna Kearsley, The winter
Patricia Briggs, Cry wolf
L.A. Banks, Vampire huntress series
Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dark hunters series

  


LGBTQ

K.J. Charles, The magpie lord
Radclyffe, Fated love
Damon Suede, Hot head
Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux, Cut and run
Amy Lane, Keeping promise rock
Deirdre Knight, Butterfly tattoo


Inspirational

Deeanne Gist, Maid to match
Francine Rivers, Redeeming love


Erotic romance

Joey W. Hill, Natural law
Anne Calhoun, Liberating Lacey
Robin Schone, The Lady's tutor


Contemporary

Jennifer Crusie, Bet me
Francis Ray, Heart of the falcon
Julie James, Something about you
Laura Florand, The chocolate kiss
Sonali Dev, A Bollywood affair
Kristen Ashley, Dream man series
Nora Roberts, Chesapeake Bay series
Jill Shalvis, Lucky Harbor series
Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Chicago stars series
Suzanne Brockmann, Troubleshooters series
Robyn Carr, Virgin river series
Linda Howard, The MacKenzie family series
Kristan Higgins, Blue Heron series
Brenda Jackson, The Madaris family series
Christina Lauren, Wild Seasons series
Donna Hill, Intimate betrayal
Molly O'Keefe, Crazy thing called love
Julie Ann Walker, Black knights Inc. series
Jojo Moyes, The girl you left behind

Category

Sarah Morgan, Doukakis's apprentice
Kathleen O'Reilly, Sex, straight up
Carla Kelly, Her esitant heart

I titoli in grassetto sono quelli che ho letto. Ventuno su cento, non è male. Venticinque ora.
Prossimamente la mia Lista personale dei cento romanzi più belli!

A single person

“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.”

— Joan Didion

From The Year of Magical Thinking

Goodreads è una miniera di citazioni...una al giorno da anni, fantastico, soprattutto perché sono quasi tutte delle scelte felici e oculate.

A love letter

A love letter

"The letter had been crumpled up and tossed onto the grate. It had burned all around the edges, so the names at the top and bottom had gone up in smoke. But there was enough of the bold black scrawl to reveal that it had indeed been a love letter. And as Hannah read the singed and half-destroyed parchment, she was forced to turn away to hide the trembling of her hand.

—should warn you that this letter will not be eloquent. However, it will be sincere, especially in light of the fact that you will never read it. I have felt these words like a weight in my chest, until I find myself amazed that a heart can go on beating under such a burden.

I love you. I love you desperately, violently, tenderly, completely. I want you in ways that I know you would find shocking. My love, you don't belong with a man like me. In the past I've done things you wouldn't approve of, and I've done them ten times over. I have led a life of immoderate sin. As it turns out, I'm just as immoderate in love. Worse, in fact.

I want to kiss every soft place of you, make you blush and faint, pleasure you until you weep, and dry every tear with my lips. If you only knew how I crave the taste of you. I want to take you in my hands and mouth and feast on you. I want to drink wine and honey from you.

I want you under me. On your back.

I'm sorry. You deserve more respect than that. But I can't stop thinking of it. Your arms and legs around me. Your mouth, open for my kisses. I need too much of you. A lifetime of nights spent between your thighs wouldn't be enough.

I want to talk with you forever. I remember every word you've ever said to me.

If only I could visit you as a foreigner goes into a new country, learn the language of you, wander past all borders into every private and secret place, I would stay forever. I would become a citizen of you.

You would say it's too soon to feel this way. You would ask how I could be so certain. But some things can't be measured by time. Ask me an hour from now. Ask me a month from now. A year, ten years, a lifetime. The way I love you will outlast every calendar, clock, and every toll of every bell that will ever be cast. If only you—

And there it stopped."

Lisa Kleypas, A Wallflower Christmas

Prospettive, sogni, magia, storie

Le prospettive sghembe tipiche dei sogni...

La vera magia è la personale capacità di inventare delle storie.
La vera magia è la speciale capacità di inventare, cioè trovare e ricreare, la propria storia personale.

(da appunti su un foglietto, con la dicitura: The magician's boy - Susan Cooper - San Giorgio e il drago)

San Giorgio e il drago, Vitale da Bologna

La copertina del libro di Susan Cooper, illustrato da Serena Riglietti.
Ne deriva che probabilmente le frasi le avevo scritte a seguito della mostra
sui disegni di Serena Riglietti che vidi a Gradara qualhe anno fa.

Creare una propria storia.

Creare la propria storia. 

Tessere la propria storia.

Wuthering hights, di Emily Bronte

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Emily Bronte, Wuthering hights

Anna, di Lucy M. Montgomery

“Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”
—L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Expo2015 #1

Cattiva:
Andare da chi è in fila da tre ore e sta per entrare in un padiglione e dirgli che quel padiglione non è un granché...non ha prezzo!

Buona:
sentire chi lungo il Decumano sta dicendo che preferisce andare nel padiglione della Romania che almeno non c'è fila e inserirsi nel discorso consigliando di andare sulla terrazza del padiglione, che è carina, verde e tranquilla...e ricevere un ringraziamento di cuore!

Stranita:
consigliare ai propri studenti il padiglione dell'Ungheria per le foto di Capa e dopo 10 minuti che si parla sentirsi chiedere: Chi è Capa?

Felice:
trovarsi con i propri studenti ai tavolini del cluster Biomediterraneo e chiacchierare felici ed entusiasti, ma rilassati, per un'ora intera mangiando focaccia con gelato di Sicilia.