Oliver sapeva raccontare le storie in un modo davvero coinvolgente e aveva uno strano modo di farlo: parlava sempre come se fossi io il protagonista dei suoi racconti. Amava profondamente il mare ed io, appena potevo, correvo da lui ad ascoltare le sue storie. Una volta me ne raccontò una che non dimenticherò mai: parlava degli abissi e delle bizzarre forme di vita che li popolano. Mi fece vivere un’avventura che mi permise di scoprire le bellezze di questo mondo sconosciuto e di apprezzarne le infinite sfumature cogliendo quella sottile differenza che distingue l’impossibile dall’improbabile. L’IDEA RACCONTATA DALL’AUTORE “Tutto è iniziato da un piccolo problema di compensazione ad un orecchio che mi impediva di scendere nelle profondità del mare. Non potevo resistere, desideravo con tutte le forze tornare ad immergermi in apnea ma non potevo: i dottori mi dissero che avrei dovuto aspettare almeno 3 mesi. Era un tempo assolutamente troppo lungo così ho deciso di solcare le profondità con la fantasia visitando luoghi davvero incredibili. Alla fine ci sono voluti 8 mesi per finire il libro e altrettanti per tornare in mare, ma in fondo ne è valsa la pena. Il libro è stato un modo per ricordare e ordinare tutte le emozioni che il mare mi ha regalato e in più la prima volta che ho rimesso la testa sotto a quel manto blu incantato ho provato una sensazione davvero magica: mi sembrava una favola e probabilmente lo era e lo è ancora oggi.”

He is relentlessly defiant. He is exceedingly libidinous. His appetite for the outrageous is insatiable. He is Mickey Sabbath, the aging, raging powerhouse whose savage effrontery and mocking audacity are at the heart of Philip Roth's astonishing new novel. Sabbath's Theater tells Mickey's story in the wake of the death of his mistress, an erotic free spirit whose adulterous daring exceeds even his own. Once a scandalously inventive puppeteer, Mickey is now in his mid-sixties and besieged by ghosts - of his mother, his beloved brother, his vanished first wife, his mistress of thirteen years. Bereft and grieving, he embarks on a turbulent journey back into his past, one that brings him to the brink of madness and extinction. But no matter how ardently he courts death, he is too exuberantly alive to succeed at dying. Sabbath's Theater is a comic creation of epic proportions, and Mickey Sabbath is its gargantuan hero. This book, which presents Philip Roth at the peak of his powers, is sur

Even as little girls, Sarah and Emily are very different from each other. Emily looks up to her wiser and more stable older sister and is jealous of her relationship with their absent father, and later her seemingly golden marriage. The path she chooses for herself is less safe and conventional and her love affairs never really satisfy her. Although the bond between them endures, gradually the distance between the two women grows, until a tragic event throws their relationship into focus one last time.

"The work of Giorgio Caproni has been translated into French, German, and Chinese, among others, but this collection is his first book-length English publication. His works are finely tuned to modern man's preoccupations with existence in a world deprived of certainties (for example, the existence or inexistence of God). Most are touched by experiences such as the Second World War and its atrocities, the Resistance Movement, or the death of loved ones, events that represent the conviction of a subject that will do its best to survive all adversity, uncompromised" -- from the Introduction by Pasquale Verdicchio

Examining the key works of Buzzati and Morante, Siddell looks at two coexisting and conflicting approaches: one which defined place as an outcome of individual perception, and another in which place is understood as an arrangement of locations separate from the individual. The progression of Buzzati's texts from plausible indications of location to perception-bound space is examined, as is Morante's use of enclosed spaces as the basis of a conceptualisation of elsewhere, paying attention to the contrast and interaction between opposing constructs of place.