Waiting for BookWyrm
Latest reads from an aficionado of reading lists, book reviews, reading communities, and books of all kinds—from philosophy to visual studies, from romance to adventure, from comics to PhD theses.
Since my Now page is becoming a bit too crowded, and while I explore Bookwyrm, I'd rather gather here a detailed list of the latest books I've read. It's both helpful and satisfying to keep track of them.
Latest Reads
📚 [Novel] "Les fabuleuses aventures d'un indien malchanceux qui devient milliardaire" aka "Slumdog Millionaire", by Vikas Swarup
Useful to put life into perspective, and witness how cruel and unfair societies and people can be. And how luck can have a bitter taste. Up next: watching the movie.
📚 [Novel] "L'Île Longue", by Victoire de Changy.
I was wandering around in Bruxelles in mid-February and, as I usually do every time I see one, I got caught by one of those cosy independent libraries that smell good paper and adventures. I'm always up for a new read, but didn't really know what to pick. While I was checking Belgian writers, I found this little book whose story takes place in Tehran, Iran.
Contemporary, feminist, dramatic, and culturally rich.
Beautiful.
Victoire de Changy
📚 [Economy] "Que crève le capitalisme" (Capitalism should die) by Hervé Kempf. He's the author of a comics novel I've recently read and liked for how the data and numbers are shown in a digestible, pedagogic way. Powerful.
Hervé Kempf
📚 [Kids] "Arthur and the Golden Rope" by Joe Todd-Stanton. It's a beautifully illustrated comics book for 7-9 years old from the same author as one of our favourites children books, "A mouse called Julian" ("Jules et le renard", en français).
Name *
📚 [SF] "Nous" by Christelle Dabos.
I was walking in sunny Montpellier at the end of August, during a solo one-week trip to visit my friend Marlène, when I found this little, geeky, independent library at the heart of the city centre. I walked in and wandered around, and this book hooked me. It's dystopic, it tells the story of a global entity, the "Nous" ("us" in French), that connects everyone through their Instincts. Each person can't help but obey to her Instinct, for the common good. Or at least, that's what they say...
Christelle Dabos
📚 [Philosophy] "Infocracy" by Byung-Chul Han.
After having read "Non-Things" by the same author, I followed with this one: a clear analysis of the structure that governs today's communications, and the risks associated with it.
Sandro
📚 [Philosophy] "Non-Things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld" by Byung-Chul Han.
A necessary philosophic essay on the way society values data more than anything else. And how we should reconsider, and cherish, the little mundane, daily things.
Byung-Chul Han
📚 [Novel] "The Vegetarian", by Nobel Prize winner Han Kang.
Caught by the title, I didn't expect it to be so raw and disturbing at times. Surprenant, I'd say in French, but not sure I'd feel like reading it again.
Contributors to Wikimedia projects
📚 [Novel] During a slow one-week trip from Alsace to Puglia by train in June, I've started and finished "American Dirt" by Jeanine Cummins. It had me in tears.
Contributors to Wikimedia projects
Hello, I'm Simona, and this is my happy place on the web (more on that here). I am an Italian designer and illustrator based in France, my happy place on Earth.
💌 sym at simonacasolari.com
🐘 A new home for my thoughts
🖍️ Visual experiments in a grid
🧚♂️ Casolina nel livello segreto (🇮🇹)
