rykketid

I'm looking for a novel (not an essay) where the Aral Sea is somehow the protagonist, by that I mean that the unfortunate events involving this huge lake mustn't be a marginal detail in the story. Thanks in advance for your help!

So... This is a passage from a review of Brave New World: <<Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers [...]>> What?! Genetic engineering?! There's just one problem: the book had been written years before Watson and Crick discovered DNA structure. Indeed in the book genetic manipulation is never mentioned. This is so disappointing... Such an important novel would deserve a better review.

Brave New World is my favourite one so far. No one suggested you 1984 by Orwell... Maybe it's so famous that it's useless to mention it x-) Another one is The Man in the High Castle by Philip Dick, basically it is the author's guesswork about how the world would have been if the Allies had lost WWII. I also heard some people say that The Giver's trilogy by Lois Lowry is worth reading, but I still have to. And finally, I think that also High Rise by J. G. Ballard may interest you. The novel is set in an ultra-modern high-rise building, the people living in it are like a society isolated from the outside world, but this society, due to some problems, starts degenerating.

Unluckily the video is not in English, but I just wanted to let you see what a wonderful house Umberto Eco owns. Aren't you a bit jealous? :-)

I really really enjoyed The White Rabbit by Bruce Marshall. It is a non-finction book about an English soldier who fought for the French Resistance. It is really a gripping and breathtaking book, the first part is set in Northern France and Paris; we see the protagonist committed to organising some Resistance groups against the Nazis, and it is like having a look into the difficult, "underground" world of Partisans. The second part is set in Germany, in a concentration / extermination camp, and recounts the protagonist's desperate attempts of escape from the camp. In three words, it is engrossing, breathtaking and heart-stopping :-)

I'm looking for a novel set there and possibly with characters from both sides who meet for causes beyond their control, and will have to put aside their ideological views in order to co-operate and achieve something. I know it is quite vague x-) but, yeah, I would like something like that :-) Thanks in advance!

Maybe this thread is a bit off topic but I didn't find any internet section .

My favourite poet is Giuseppe Ungaretti. This is one of my favourite poems by him: Soldiers There we are like leaves on trees, in Autumn He wrote that in the trenches during WW1. I think that in those three verses he managed to explain so thoroughly how soldiers feel when in war.

Whoa! You're the winner for now

Basically it's the story of a purple cow which has the gift of making people tender it's a milk chocolate commercial

Probably I'll be frowned upon but... honestly I don't know if what to read would be my main concern. I think I'd rather devote myself to more hedonistic pleasures XD... after that I would visit as many places as possible all over the world (possibly with my family and friends)... If I decided to read something, I guess that I would choose something about spirituality. Moreover there is a Belgian author, Amélie Nothomb, that I've been always curious about but never read anything by her, and since she says she's really fascinated by death I would probably pick some of her books as well.

I know it's not poetic at all but you reminded me of this commercial XD

I think that the prophecy of Brave New World by Huxley is a more probable prophecy rather than the one of 1984, therefore if I had to choose between these two, I'd say that it's more likely that our society might head towards the Brave New World portrayed by Huxley rather than towards Orwell's scenario, it being understood that they are both dystopian novels. Nonetheless Orwell was a great prophet and is one of my favourite English authors; I think that his idea of Newspeak is genial, but he took inspiration mainly from the European dictatorships that took over in many countries in the 20's and 30's, and that form of government is now over almost all across the world.

This is a contest , the person who posts the shortest poem will win. Mine is Morning by Ungaretti: I illuminate myself with immensity. I challenge you to find something shorter lol

I used to collect minerals, but then I quitted. I still have the minerals in a showcase in my room but stopped enlarging the collection. I also collected Magic: The Gathering cards but not anymore, even though I still love them.

The only one that made me shed a tear was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, when in the end the father dies and his son remains alone in the cave (it was a cave if I'm not wrong), it's very very touching.

Salve! I'm doing well, thanks, and you? :-)

Thanks

Hello Julie! Well... English literature itself is plenty of novels set in Italy, but if I got it right you would like to read something that is about what modern life is like over here. Correct me if I'm wrong. If so, I will need some time to think about that because I do know a lot of books set in my country but none of them is about contemporary Italy XD Unluckily I've never been in the US so far, I had the chance to travel around Europe only; but I would love to visit the US, in particular NYC and San Francisco which are the cities that fascinate me the most. I hope you will be able to come visit Italy and other European countries in the future because it's really worth it. Likewise I hope I'll visit America :-) Ciao! PS: yes, Monster of Florence should be set in Italy.

I'm a 21-year-old Italian guy living in Florence, Tuscany. I really like learning foreign languages, above all English which for now is the only one that I can master quite well (or at least decently lol :-P); I'm also studying some French but I fear that it will take a long time before I reach a good level of it. I'm here because I have a huge passion for literature and books. I'm especially into English literature and this is the main reason why I signed up to this forum. If you want some tips about Italian literature, don't hesitate to ask me. Bye ^^

It is not in your list but to me Earthsea (the world where some of Ursula K. Le Guin's novels are set) seems a really fascinating world therefore that would be my choice.

I, Robot. Not that I disliked the movie but the only thing it has in common with the book by Asimov is the title...

As a non-native English speaker, I like the word "Asunder", not because of its meaning but for the way it sounds, I might not explain rationally why I like it. The first time I found it was in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, in my opinion one of the best and most prophetic books of modern times. <<'Observe' said the Director triumphantly, 'observe'. Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks - already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder. >>

Hi :-) I'm Italian, more precisely from Tuscany. I was born in Fiesole: a very beautiful and picturesque town located on a hill covered by olive trees near Florence, but I've never lived there, I've always lived in Florence which is like 10 km (6 miles)far away from Fiesole.