The month of May has begun and with the arrival of the first hints of summer, the opportunities to spend moments of leisure outdoors are increasing.
And what better company than that of a good book?
In this article we therefore recommend 5 books to read in May with which you can best welcome the arrival of the beautiful season.
Here are 5 books to read in May
1- Remember me as you like by Michela Murgia
Michela Murgia he left us on August 11, 2023, and yet, his voice is more alive than ever.
After Three bowls and the posthumous release of Giving lifean essay dedicated to surrogate motherhood, the writer and journalist returns to bookstores again with Remember me as you like.
A collection of writings that offers an account of what power, feminism, faith, literature are: all themes dear to Michela Murgia.
The work is the story of a particular week in the life of the writer who, on the eve of her death, told herself to Beppe Cottafavi, her editor and friend and editor of the book.
The opportunity to tell our story was the launch of Three bowls: while preparing the social videos, Cottafavi and Murgia had the idea for this book and so in an entire week they addressed many themes and all the lives lived by Michela Murgia.
This latest work is thus interwoven with the writer’s living voice and is a wonderful journey into the depths of her soul.
2- When you die, Zerocalcare remains with me
Baopublishing and Zerocalcare return to bookstores from May 7th with When you die, it remains with me.
The Roman cartoonist decides this time to tell, with his unmistakable style, an important part of the history of our country: the Great War.
After No Sleep Til Shengalin which he told of a minority of Iraq, the Ezidi population, Zerocalcare turns his gaze to Italy and intertwines history with her of history.
The journey with his father to reach the small village in the Dolomites where the paternal branch of the family comes from becomes an opportunity to discover something more about his parent.
It’s a shame that the arrival in the town brings back old grudges that have roots in the Great War and bring to light a mystery that Zerocalcare will have to carefully unravel, gradually revealing its most intimate and personal history.
When you die, it remains with me will be previewed at the Turin Book Fair on 9 May.
3- You Are Here by David Nicholls
After wowing readers around the world with One Dayfrom which the recent serial adaptation available on Netflix was taken, David Nicholls he is still the author of You are herea new love story featuring protagonists Marnie38 years old and with an elusive and directionless life.
While everyone around her already seems to be clear about the direction she will have to take and is getting married, having stable jobs, raising children, she still remained in London, with the only company of her beloved books.
And she also deals with books for a living: she is a proofreader, an occupation she loves but which can still be very solitary. Michaelon the other hand, is 42 years old, has a fresh divorce and is a geography teacher.
By pure chance, Marnie and Michale’s lives intertwine and the two find themselves trekking together, discovering they have more in common than they thought.
4- Magnificent and tremendous was the love of Maria Grazia Calandrone
Maria Grazia Calandrone was among the finalists of the Premio Strega 2023 with the wonderful, intimate and poignant Where you didn’t take me (which we told you about in our review).
And, once again, it is her family history that offers the author the inspiration for Magnificent and terrible was the love, out on May 28th by Einaudi.
The love told in the book starts from the pages of crime news: on 27 January 2004, after twenty years of violence, Luciana kills her husband Domenico with 12 stab wounds and throws his body into the Tiber.
The same river into which, in 1965, the author’s mother, Lucia, the luminous and sad protagonist of Where you didn’t take me.
Luciana’s case is thus thoroughly investigated by the sensitivity of the writer, who tries to understand the reasons for that violence and, without any condemnation, tries to narrate about a magnificent and tremendous love.
5- The Summer of Carrion by Simon Johannin
The rookie Simon Johannin with The summer of carrion, winner of the Prix de la vocation in 2017, it transports us to La Fourrière, a non-place in the remote French countryside.
Here, in this village, children soon lose their innocence, killing dogs and watching their parents skin the animals.
They play and learn to live among the carcasses of these dead creatures, in a horror that keeps them away from the world, separated from it.
A journey of deformation, horrid and cruel, to tell the darkest sides of adolescence and the journey to adulthood.
Article by Maria Castaldo.
