Book cover of Forbidden Notebook: A Novel

Book description

"Powerful." -The New Yorker
"Brilliant." -The Wall Street Journal
"Astounding." -NPR
"Forceful, clear and morally engaged." -The Washington Post
"Subversive." -The New York Times Book Review
"An exquisite, tormented howl." -The Financial Times
"Quick, propulsive, and addictive." -Los Angeles Review of Books
"Gripping." -Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A remarkable story." -Publisher's…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Forbidden Notebook as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a book you will love or hate. I loved it and found it frighteningly relatable despite being originally published in Italy in the 1950s.

Forbidden Notebook, newly translated into English, is an intimate, almost claustrophobic, account of how our protagonist, Valeria, begins writing her thoughts and feelings in a notebook, which she keeps hidden. Only in the act of hiding it does she realize that she has nowhere of her own in the shared family apartment, and only by writing does she gain a sense of her own self after years devoted to her family.

To quote…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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