Book cover of Lampedusa

Book description

Like Colm Tóibín’s The Master or Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, a novel about art and writing in the life of one of the greats

Set in a sun-drenched Sicily, among the decadent Italian aristocracy of the late 1950s, Steven Price’s Lampedusa explores the final years of Giuseppe Tomasi, the last…

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Why read it?

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

Steven Price creates a vision of crumbling palaces and waning tradition in this lush novel, and it’s a joy to lose oneself in its wistful poetry.

Set in post-WWII Sicily, this is the true story of an island’s last prince who is desperate to leave a legacy in a world that has already forgotten him. Every page is heavy with loss and longing—I found myself mourning a world that no longer existed, the decadent realm of Italian aristocrats that was shattered by the war, even though I didn’t identify with anything that world stood for. What I could understand, though,…

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Book cover of December on 5C4

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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