Tag: books

Micro Review: Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie 

Hannah Ritchie is a scottish data scientist working at Our World in Data, which is my favorite data-spreading organization.

So when I discovered she wrote a book about climate change, pollution, and the other problems affecting our dear planet, I was quite happy to read it.

Well, to listen to the audiobook. I think non-fiction pop-sciencey books work great as audiobooks, as the authors tend to repeat the same thing over and over and over, otherwise the book would be summed up in an blog post. In this case, I think the author herself is reading the book, which I appreciate from a philosophical point of view, but I found the accent a bit hard to understand at times.

In short, the book talks of a lot of issues currently affecting the planet, but unlike many of this kind, it has a positive look at them, because things are bad, but they’re better than they were, and they can improve more. A desperate look at things, is just as bad as one that trivializes issues. We can do better, and humankind we already managed to fix some large issues.

See, I’m from the ’80s, I grew up with the perspective of losing the ozone layer, and having to apply a pint of sunblock 5000 to stay in the sun. Also, do you remember when acid rains were a constant threat? Or actually seeing the exhaust smoke while in a line of cars? Those are things of the past, in most places! You would be crazy if you looked at things and didn’t see that we can improve and we did it in the past.

Anyway, The book is split in chapters, but the theme is basically the same on all of them, things are bad, but getting better, and there’s things you can do which matter quite a bit and things that matter very little. The chapters are:

  1. Sustainability
  2. Air Pollution
  3. Climate Change
  4. Deforestation
  5. Food
  6. Biodiversity Loss
  7. Ocean Plastics
  8. Overfishing

Most of the things she says I was already familiar with, but may be shocking the first time you hear of them. For example the fact that we already produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet (if we could convince everyone to eat vegetables, and stop using a lot of it as fuel).

The book is pretty pragmatic in suggestions too. A major root cause for many problems is, for example, beef production. The author knows she won’t convince the world to go vegan, so she just points out that, if you can choose, reducing your beef intake is probably the best thing you can do to help with a bunch of issues. If you want to eat meat, just cut a. bit, or prefer smaller animals (chicken is better than pork which is better than beef).

She also tries to slay some misconception, such as the idea that locally produced things are strictly better. They may be from a social standpoint, but they may not from a sustainability point of view. A box of avocados from south america are still better for the environment than a locally sourced steak in Europe.

And I appreciate how she points out that many of the things we consider green cosplay, such as avoiding single use plastic bottles or bags, are actually.. well, not that important. Yes, prefer a reusable tote bag for groceries, but the actual impact of a plastic bag is not that terrible, you shouldn’t feel guilty if you occasionally buy one, or if you get a bottle of soda from a vending machine.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. I think the author lets a few things through without actually explaining them. For example, she is in favor of building new nuclear plants, and while I’m 100% in favor of keeping old plants running and investing in new research, I am not sure the numbers come out in favor of new plants at this point in time. I may be wrong, but I would like to see her preference argued for with numbers, rather than background “bias”.

Vote 7/10: great book if you never heard these arguments, good book otherwise.

Mini Review: The Dark Profit Saga by J. Zachary Pike (books 1-3)

I recently read the third book in The Dark Profit Saga series of books. I was sure I wrote reviews of the first two, but apparently I didn’t. So here’s an aggregate one.

This series of books started out as a kind of comedic fantasy take on the Great Financial Crisis, with the book Orconomics.

The books stick to a standard cliché D&D fantasy world (orcs, goblins, halflings, nagas, gnolls etc) but inject our world’s financial system and society into it.

So, for example, quest runs are financed by investors in exchange for portions of the loot. This in turns means there is a market for stuff like dragon hoard futures, insurance, derivatives (CTO are “collateralized threat obligations“) etc etc.

The first book’s subtitle is “a satire” and it’s a pretty harsh one. The criticism of our economic reality is hard and transparent. The criticism of our society is just as bad: there’s a downtrodden population, the shadowkin, which can be killed and looted, unless they have special papers to be accepted into “proper” society… except those still won’t grant them proper standing (e.g. a subplot follows the murdering and looting of an innocent gnoll for a minor infraction and the lack of judicial consequences). Drug addiction, stereotyping, sexism, religion. Perhaps even too much stuff.

Overall, I found the first book quite funny, so I followed up with Son of a Liche and finally with Dragonfired. I think over time the author moved a bit from “easy” irony which you may appreciate or not

I would say the irony is rarely as clever as the best Terry Pratchett, but it matches the early Discworld stuff.

I find the D&D setting uninteresting, but the author turned it upside down enough that it becomes entertaining (such as the Orcs trying to integrate into lightling society by moving from raids and pillage to The Path of The Aggressive Seller).

The abundance of puns, especially in the first and second book, is just very entertaining for me, at least once I noticed it. Off the top of my head, with mapping in footnotes (so you can feel clever too!)

  • Lamia Sisters §
  • J.P. Gorgon §
  • A Mr. Samel Fitch, author of a system to rate CTOs§
  • A Mr. Stearns, who turns out to be a werebear§

A bunch more references can be noticed (if you pay attention) to games, movies and other things from our own world. Again, not as thick are deep as Terry Pratchett, but enough to cause you a giggle when you notice it.

The books also have genuinely good plots, and the author has a penchant for that trick of connecting sentences across scenes which I find delightful and very cinematographic.

I am not sure what the name of this thing is, but imagine something like the party opening some dungeon door and staring, one character goes “Oh Gods is that ..” then a quick cut to different people at the bar where one says “That’s a pile of bullshit“.

I looked up an example, tho it doesn’t make much sense without context


The bolt hit home before the thought did, punching into Oopa’s back with enough force to flip her over in midair.

Something pink and bright flitted past her face as the messenger sprite flew above her, speeding off toward its destination.

Then she rolled in the air again and lost sight of her final message. Trailing blood, she plummeted toward the dark water below.

<chapter break>


The crimson olive dropped into the amber liquid with a faint plop.

Perhaps these are cheap writing tricks, but I like them.

One important mention: I listened to all these as audiobooks, and the narration by Doug Tisdale Jr. is excellent (if you enjoy narrators that do different voices for all the characters).

There’s a fourth book out, perhaps I’ll manage to post a single review for that one, meanwhile

Votes:

Orconomics: 7 quite funny and original, tho a bit cheap on irony.

Son of a Liche: 6.5 less slapstick but also inspired, perhaps.

Dragonfired: 7 less funny overall, but somehow feels like it has more heart.

Review: The Once and Future King, by T.H. White

Some time ago I came upon someone asking what would be a good introduction to the Arthurian cycle and the matter of Britain, and the replies mentioned that this book would be a good one that covered “most of it“.

Dear Reader, if you have been here me for a while you’ll know I am deeply lazy and love “most of it” works, so this piqued my interest.

I am glad it did cause this book was very good, and also extremely odd, but in a good way. Mild spoilers ahead.

The book was actually multiple shorter novels published separately and then bound together in a single volume, and while there is some unity, they read quite differently.

What’s in the books

First, let me mention this: did you see the 1960s “The Sword in the Stone” animated movie from Disney? The one where they turn into squirrels and flirt with other squirrels? The one with the magic battle where they turn into animals and such?

Well, that’s the first book in this saga. Almost all of the movie is from the book. This isn’t Disney making a crab jamaican, it’s 90% White’s imagination.

And the whole saga has all the same character the movie does! It has a ton of anachronisms, Merlyn is a time traveling savant with a bad memory, badgers and urchins (hedgehogs) discuss political systems, Guenevere and Lancelot argue as an old couple (I loved the fact that Lancelot and Arthur call her “Jenny“), the fearsome Questing Beast has to be nursed back into health after falling in love with two knights in a costume (a scene worthy of Laurel & Hardy!). And there is so much more beyond the comedy.

The second book contains the most harrowing unicorn hunt I have ever read (SPOILER!): the children of the Orkney clan (who will end up as the knights Gareth, Agravain, Gaheris, Gawain) saw their Mom going with various man looking for a unicorn in the forest, so the good children decide to hunt one to make her happy.

Except, they end up murdering it. And then decide to carry the corpse to their mother. But they are children and can’t obviously lift a horse, so they decide to hack at its neck to detach the head and then have to drag the poor thing until the castle, crying and commiserating themselves and the creature, finally having to prop the ruined thing on a chair. And their mother does not notice it at all. Until she does, and has the kids beaten.

Look, this single bit may be one of the best bit of literature I have read in my life. I will never forget it. I literally can see the kids doing this in my mind for how beautiful a rendering it was.

Book three is instead a proper cavalry book! With the quest for the grail, and the Lance/Jenny love story. And even here, White is brilliant, even tho he does not make it epic, it’s still great, and as he says “That (Thomas Malory‘s) way of telling the story can only be done once“.

And then we get Mordred’s betrayal and everything else, and we get to the last book, where once again Arthur joins up with his old teacher Merlyn, the badger, the urchin, the snake. And he has more adventures turning into birds, and debating the nature of humankind.

What’s actually in the book

The whole saga might be about Arthur’s (or Merlyn’s) effort to bring might under control, to see whether our species can be better than brutes. That is what Camelot is about! That’s why the round table exists!

The original books were published between 1938 and 1940, with the background of the rise of war and totalitarianism (Merlyn is staunchly individualistic and anarchic and never fails to criticize communism too, although he throws shade on democracy and capitalism too), and these topics come up again and again in the book, but particularly in the last book, written much later. But notice, they are always put in the context of the use of force, e.g. at one point Merlyn says

There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos.

The saga, which opens with hope and a young Arthur which learns from animals, ends up in the same way, except this time he no longer has his life in front of him to fix the world, and has to actually abandon it.

The book has a certain sadness to it, because despite all their efforts, Arthur can’t fix the world, Lance can’t help but betray his king, and Jenny can’t help but end up alone (to leave her lover free of the choice between her and God!). All this while Elaine, Gawaine and all the rest of the cast suffer and die.

And yet, it is a book of hope. The conclusion has this bit

For I am inclined to believe that my beloved Arthur of the future is sitting at this very moment among his learned friends, in the Combination Room of the College of Life, and that they are thinking away in there for all they are worth, about the best means to help our curious species: and I for one hope that some day, when not
only England but the World has need of them, and when it is ready to listen to reason, if it ever is, they will issue from their rath in joy and power: and then, perhaps, they will give us happiness in the world once more and chivalry, and the old mediaeval blessing of certain simple people—who tried, at any rate, in their own small way, to still the ancient brutal dream of Attila the Hun.

(I will note en passant that, like maybe Arthur and many others, Attila’s son Csaba also lays in wait ready to come and help his people in time of need.)

Btw, this is an infinitely quoteable book. I am not aware of a good place for book quotes (wikiquotes sucks for this) beyond goodreads, so go read some there.

Conclusion

This was in no way the book I expected it to be. In almost every way, it was a better book than that. I enjoyed it as an audiobook from Naxos read by Jason Neville, which was a wonderful narrator in many, many morning walks.

So my judgement is clouded by his voice, and if you read the book in dead tree form it might be better, or worse.

And I missed a lot of details, because of that. Audiobooks are great but also terrible. I may re-read it in paper one day.

Vote 8/10: I hope I’ll have time to back to childish things when I’m older, like Arthur.

Review: Il sergente nella neve di Mario Rigoni Stern

Conoscevo il titolo di questo libro da sempre. È uno di quei libri del dopoguerra che hanno formato la classe degli adulti quando io ero bambino.

Ho sempre evitato di leggerlo perché, fondamentalmente, ho avuto un’overdose di racconti di guerra, di olocausto, di fascismo etc.. quanto ero bambino. Col senno di poi, meglio averlo avuto, visto come va il mondo di questi tempi.

La scorsa estate avendo finito la scorta di audiolibri che ascolto quando vado a camminare la mattina, ho provato a cercare qualcosa su MLOL – Medialibrary Online, il servizio meraviglioso che permette di accedere a tantissime biblioteche italiane.

Nella mia ho trovato questo libro in versione audio, e ho deciso di dargli una chance. Sono contentissimo di averlo fatto.

Tanti racconti della seconda guerra mondiale sono stati fatti dalla parte dei partigiani, dei deportati, degli alleati, ed è ovvio il perché.

Questo invece è un racconto fatto da un membro dell’esercito italiano durante la catastrofica campagna di Russia, e della marcia di ritirata.

È un libro delicato, quasi rarefatto. C’è tanta umanità dentro, senza la mitizzazione della guerra, ma anche senza dipingerla come un continuo dramma. Perché alla fine, la guerra è fatta da persone, e le persone non sono mai una cosa sola, quantomeno non per troppo tempo.

Ci ho messo tanto a scrivere questa recensione, e il caso ha voluto che nel frattempo leggessi Tapum, che ha una citazione proprio di Rigoni Stern.

Pare che Emilio Lussu, autore di Un anno sull’altopiano, fosse rimasto deluso dalla totale amarezza del film Uomini Contro, basato sul suo libro, e gli avesse detto che lui lo sapeva, che “in guerra qualche volta abbiamo anche cantato..”.

Era un’altra guerra, ma poco cambia.

Certo, leggendo il libro viene da chiedersi quanto abbia omesso l’autore, che si trova sempre “dalla parte dei buoni” quando si incontra con le popolazioni locali, o quando ha a che fare con altri soldati.

Suona un po’ il solito mito degli italiani brava gente, ma è un mito confortante.

Voto 8: uno dei libri che ho apprezzato di più nel 2025.

Mini Review: Tapum di Leo Ortolani

Leo Ortolani è famoso per Rat-Man, il fumetto comico italiano. Io non son un lettore storico di Rat-Man, ma nel corso degli anni mi è capitato di leggere cose scritte da lui, e ho capito perché i suoi fan lo amano.

Leo fa ridere. Riesce spesso ad essere profondo e commovente anche tra le battute, ma direi che non è quella la cosa principale nei suoi fumetti che ho letto.

Questo libro ribalta la situazione: è un libro che parla della battaglia dell’Ortigara, uno degli episodi drammatici della prima guerra mondiale, e quindi è prima un libro commovente, e poi un libro comico.

Si è detto, scritto, filmato tutto sulle guerre, quindi è difficile essere originali, ma l’autore riesce a trovare un suo spazio e una sua dimensione espressiva. I personaggi hanno senso e hanno una loro identità. I dialoghi son sensati, e i disegni sono belli (a meno di non odiare la “maschera” delle facce di Ortolani, che è sempre quella di Rat-Man).

Ci sono un po’ di cose troppo didascaliche per il mio gusto, ma a me questo libro è piaciuto un sacco. Le note a fine libro rendono più chiara la genesi della storia, e quali fossero i riferimenti dell’autore, e li ho apprezzati molto.

Consigliatissimo.

Voto: 8/10, sarà che mi hanno sempre affascinato gli Alpini.

Micro Review: Money for Nothing by Thomas Levenson

I listened to this last summer, but it took me a long time to write something so here it is: the book talks about the first great financial crisis, the South Sea bubble.

The actual full title is “Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich” which is an appropriately verbose title to talk about the early 18th century.

The South Sea bubble is one of those things that often come up when talking of the issues of the financial system, together with tulip mania and John Law’s bankrupting of France, but I had never actually understood what happened there.

The book explains that, and it does it in a fairly enjoyable way, without being too preachy and showing how disastrous events came about following a lot of reasonable choices and only a modicum of dishonesty. It also explains how innovations from the era have become staples of our modern world (e.g. ideas on how to compute the value of financial investments).

Where the book fails, imo, is trying to connect the events with contemporary developments in science and mathematics. There are connection (Isaac Newton was Master of the Mint after all) but they seem kinda stretched.

Also, in the most important bits, I felt the explanation could have been better, I could not understand, at first, how the South Sea company could make any sense.

The South Sea company was funded as a way for the government to get rid of a bunch of previous debt obligations: the government allowed the creation of a company that could emit shares in exchange for obligations, and the government would grant the company the monopoly of the South Seas trade (notice the plural, and realize this meant slave trade).

The government would get simplified accounting as it now only owes money to the company (and at a lower rate), the company owners would make money, but why would an investor give their government-baked bonds to the company? Well, because they were forced to, but the book doesn’t really explain why they couldn’t be forced even without the company existing?

I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter, since people were eager to do the exchange as they had very little trust in the government, and because soon the share price was skyrocketing, and stonks only go up is not a modern invention.

Anyway, the book does a pretty good job of explaining the situation before, during, and after, and if you have a casual interest in finance or economics, I recommend this book.

Vote: 7+/10, recommended if you like finance, and seeing the world burn.

Guida Galattica per gli Autostoppisti: And Another Thing

NOTA: questo è un post scritto originalmente il 18 luglio 2010, sul mio primo blog che si chiamava “PDI^” e girava su Blogsome, una piattaforma che non esiste più.

È da un bel po’ di tempo che non scrivevo, e dubito di ritornare a farlo con frequenza a breve termine, ma il bello di avere un blog è che puoi scriverci comunque quando vuoi dire qualcosa.

E ho qualcosa da dire.

Ho appena finito di leggere And Another Thing che altro non è che il sesto libro della trilogia della guida galattica.

Solo che nel frattempo Douglas Adams è passato nella prossima vita, per cui il libro non è stato scritto da lui ma da Eoin Colfer, non m’è ben chiaro il perché.

Ora, io ho letto un certo numero di n-logie, in cui gli ultimi capitoli sono stati scritti da altri che l’autore originale, per capitalizzare brutalmente sui fan. Alcuni casi, come la pubblicazione di tutta la roba post-tolkieniana sono tollerabili.
Altri, come la conclusione di Dune, un po’ meno.

Per cui, quando ho scoperto che esisteva un seguito della guida galattica (che finisce con, beh, finisce che non può esserci un seguito) sono partito da un discreto livello di scetticismo.

Eppure, il libro è molto più piacevolo di quel che mi aspettassi.

Genesi di questo blog
Caro Lettore, prima di andare avanti dobbiamo chiarire una cosa: mai notato il titolo di questo blog?
PDI^2 sta per “Propulsione D’Improbabilità Infinita”.
Io non sono bravo a ricordare le cose, e non potrò mai essere un vero fan che recita a memoria i personaggi dei libri o film che ama. Però li amo lo stesso.

La guida galattica per l’autostoppista è non solo uno dei miei libri preferiti.
Nella mia lista di libri senza cui non sarei la persona che sono, è praticamente l’unico che non avrei potuto sostituire con nient’altro.
La Guida è in un sacco di modi il modo in cui avrei voluto vivere.

Quella gioia che c’è in ogni paragrafo, quel fatto che le cose vanno a puttane ogni due minuti però si va avanti comunque che sul pianeta accanto c’è qualcosa di figo e tutti da $DEITY in giù hanno cose di cui pentirsi che però vabè, capita e andiamo avanti.

I Vogon che vengono schifati dall’evoluzione, cercare qualcosa da bere mentre l’universo finisce, i topi che citano bob dylan, il pangalactic gurgle blaster, il robot depresso e le porte che godono ad essere aperte. Non c’è una singola cosa nei 5 libri che non abbia amato (tranne la bistromatic, che era un po’ fiacca).

Il che, ovviamente, ha causato la sua buona parte di problemi per una quindicina d’anni quando la mia risposta di default a ogni domanda è stata “quarantadue”.

Insomma, “And Another Thing” dovevo leggerlo anche a costo di lanciarlo contro la parete dalla rabbia.

E invece, non è stato così.

Scusate per il disturbo

Ritrovare Arthur, Ford, Zaphod e Trillian è stato come rivedere amici che hai perso di vista ma con cui hai fatto un sacco di cose da ragazzino. Certo, non è la stessa cosa ma fondamentalmente rimane un filo che vi unisce.

Ed Eoin Colfer, che io conoscevo solo per i libri per ragazzi della serie di Artemis Fowl (non capolavori, ma godibili) s’è guadagnato rispetto. Secondo me, nel libro si vede che è stato scritto da un altro appassionato. Certo, ci sono un po’ di ammodernamenti di contesto che stonano forse un po’, ma son pure passati trent’anni, e adesso ci troviamo con una versione quasi concreta della guida galattica, anche se gli manca il “don’t panic” e un bel po’ di ironia.

Colfer non è Adams, e la genialità di alcuni pezzi della Guida manca (vaso di petunie anyone?) ma non è un misero pastiche, né una fanfic infima.
Quando l’autore va a ripescare Thor, personaggio che poteva essere completamente dimenticato nel tourbillon di apparizioni dei cinque libri non sembra essere mancanza di idee, ma genuino lavoro nel ricollegare pezzi apparentemente scollegati, cosa che rendeva la guida così deliziosamente “comprensiva”.

Ed il titolo stesso è una perla, essendo una citazione da “So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish”

The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying “And another thing…” twenty minutes after admitting he’s lost the argument.

Se c’è una differenza, ma può darsi me la sia inventata io condizionato come sono da informazioni extra-libro, è che la guida era, chiaramente, british. Questo è, decisamente, irish.
Colfer è irlandese, e così è uno dei personaggi nuovi nel libro.
C’è un pianeta, e un continente, che si chiamano Cong, e Innisfree.
E mentre la guida aveva quell’aria di aplomb inglese (di un secolo fa?) di Arthur che cerca il tè in accappatoio su un’astronave, “And Another Thing” ha l’allegra barbarie degli irlandesi (moderni?) che usano parole straniere senza ragione sbagliandone lo spelling.

Il libro è spiritoso, ritmato e ben scritto. Ci sono una mezza dozzina di deus ex machina, solo che se in qualsiasi altro libro uno si sarebbe avvelenato il sangue, nella guida sono, boh, quasi necessari.

C’è anche quel pizzico di coraggio di mettere dentro personaggi/cose/eventi che nell’originale non c’erano e che non stonano, ma senza esagerare.
Inizia che non ti convince, poi pian piano ti prende e poi finisce con un finale che, si è sensato, ma forse si poteva fare di più.

Insomma, non è male, se vi capita, provate a leggerlo, senno chiedetemelo e se posso ve lo presto 🙂

Micro Review: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

Another classic by Roger Zelazny, and another one I had in my reading list for years.

The book follows Conrad Nomikos, the titular immortal, as he wanders a future Earth which has become a shadow of her former self, with a tiny population and overrun with mutated and alien lifeforms.

Well, I say wander, but actually Conrad is accompanying some aliens tourists on a visit to Earth’s historic sight.

The book is brilliant for coming up with a novel approach to the post-apocaliptic distopia: failed Earth as a tourist destination§, and I loved the protagonist, who is at least a hundred years, but often speaks as if he’s been around for millennia. Conrad is witty, clever, and nasty in the right amount, e.g. he’s having the pyramids of Egypt torn down to basically spite the tourists.

But the story itself is kinda episodic, and while it has a satisfying ending, I didn’t feel the sense of “progression” that I enjoy in books. Also, some things just didn’t make much sense to me, perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention.

Still, the book was a joint winner (with Frank Herbert’s Dune) of the 1966 Hugo Award for Best Novel, so I think you should give it more than a chance.

Vote: 7-/10, I wish there were more stories of Conrad Nomikos

Micro Review: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

This book kept being mentioned to me for a decade or so, and I thought I should give it a go, as it falls into a category I think I enjoy, a sci-fi retelling of mythology or religion or classic stories.

The book takes on hinduism and buddhism, and describes a world where the Hindu gods (which are actually people) rule (unjustly) over a world where Buddhism, in the form of the protagonist Sam, is a revolutionary force (or, “accelerationist” as they are called in the book, who want technology for everyone not just the Gods).

Many of the characters and tropes of indic religions appear such as the reincarnation, karma, plenty of deities, rakshasas.. and we even have conflict with Christianity.

The book is written in what I can only describe as “non-epic”. It’s hard to explain, but it seems to be telling big stories with the least possible gravity.

Yet, I didn’t love it, and I found it a bit hard to follow, but it is a classic, and I’m glad I read it.

Vote: 6.5/10, would reread in my next incarnation.

Mini Review: The Path to the Nest of Spiders

I read this as a teenager, and decided to re-read now. It’s a story about the Italian partigiani, the people who fought against the nazi and fascist forces towards the end of world war two.

The author, Italo Calvino, actually was part of the resistenza, and he wrote this book from a place of deep emotion. Famously, he wrote the first edition and published it in 1947 but was very unhappy with it, so he reworked it hard, and added a preface which is, in some ways, more interesting than the book itself.

But I like the book, even if it’s different from the “rarefied” vibe of the latter Calvino, of Invisible Cities and the likes, which I love. I like it cause it’s partly a fairy tale, and partly a story about a child like the great classics of children literature, but it’s, also a story of war, of politics, and a story about the Italian people under the Fascist regime.

The book tells the story of a child, Pin, who ends up involved with the partisans by sheer chance. The story is told, for the most part, through the eyes of a kid who has had to deal too much with grown up topics, and does not really understands them.

I think one my favorite bits is when he hears the word GAP, and has to fake knowing what he means, and then tries to ask another kid, and when the kid does not know it either, he takes the chance to mock him brutally.

This feels a deeply true representation of how kids can be both innocent and cruel, and something that may have well happened for real. The same is true for most of the book.

Calvino wrote Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno with the intent to memorialize his comrades, while at the same time fighting the two tendencies in Italian culture to both trivialize the partigiani and to make them into flawless saints.

He goes against the latter part by showing how partisans could be reprehensible, unlikeable, and in some cases ended up on the side of “good” by chance, just like many of those who ended up with the fascist black shirts did that for a variety of reasons, and often by accident.

This seems pretty obvious now, but the reduction to black and white of the Italian civil war is very common, and it was very much so back when this book was written.

To counter the other argument, Calvino has a random character go on a tirade which is both weak and preachy. I think this is the part he regrets the most, and which most readers and critics will like the least.

But this bit conveys a very important message, if a simple one: there were good and bad people on both sides, and both sides did bad things and good. But there is a fundamental difference which will forever distinguish those who fought in the resistenza, and those who fought for the nazi-fascism: one side was fighting for the right version of the world, and the other was not.

Surprisingly, this book is very much loved by Italian readers, but it seems to be universally considered mediocre in reviews by english speakers I could find online. I wonder if this may have to do with the translation, or with a difference in the cultural context. Still, I think it’s a good book, and a short one, and you should read it.

Vote: 7.5/10, I wish we got one more rewrite.