Stories I want to share

Marina, a homebody

Marina does not know how to throw away things, but this book will even inspire her to part with a pair of old sweaters, and at the same time with an uncomfortable chair. It’s not that we don’t have many design books, but this one is special. It is not about furniture, but about care and a sense of happiness. Decorator Deborah Needleman “has grown to appreciate homes filled with emotion”—and filled the book with them. And the watercolors of Virginia Johnson turned her into a real fairy tale.

D. Needleman «Home Sweet Home». Translation from English by Yulia Pimenova. Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 256 p.

Mom who often remembers the past

Mom has a difficult relationship with her youth. And therefore, the novel of this year’s Nobel laureate, Frenchman Patrick Modiano, will definitely be close to her. His 60-year-old hero remembers his youth as a time of loneliness, defenselessness, restlessness, poverty and fear. He recalls with regret that he once lost to fear, and with happiness that youth has passed and everything that inspired paralyzing horror in childhood and adolescence has remained in the past and now seems empty and ridiculous.

P. Modiano «Horizon». Translation from French by Ekaterina Kozhevnikova. Text, 160 p.

Lera yearning for love

“Paid regular sex is the key to a strong marriage”, “many lovers will protect you from loneliness” … The heroes of the erotic novel by the Frenchman Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt believe in this until that sunny morning when they receive an anonymous letter: “Just know that I love you. You guess who.» «Finally!» — they whisper. “It’s no longer necessary,” others mourn. But the life of all is rapidly changing at the first sign of hope for love.

E.-E. Schmitt «Parrots from the Piazza Arezzo». Translation from French by Elena Berezina, Alina Popova. Alphabet, 608 p., 363 rubles.

Tanya, connoisseur of violent passions

She loves mystical stories and black humor so much, she loves to laugh and empathize! And all this is intertwined in the tragicomic story of Oscar, a teenager from the Dominican Republic. An evil fate gravitates over him — the curse of fuku. No, really, and who else could ruin Oscar’s relationship with his parents, make him fall in love with Puerto Rican beauties and compete with their tough guys? Teenage ambitions and manic desire for sex, jealousy, leading to thoughts of murder — everything becomes an occasion for grotesque humor in the story, which received a dozen awards.

D. Diaz «The Short Fantastic Life of Oscar Wow». Translation from English by Elena Poletskaya. Phantom Press, 381 p.

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Mary who sees through everyone

She loves tea with milk, sitting on the sofa with legs and books with sequels. She will love the crime story, where the investigation is led by private investigator Cormoran Strike and his beautiful assistant Robin Ellacott. By the way, Kormoran is a confirmed bachelor, and Robin is engaged. I wonder if they will have an affair? The English detective story is a reputable genre, and JK Rowling, who writes under the name Robert Galbraith, promises five more puzzles for her characters and readers in the future.

R. Galbraith «Silkworm». Translation from English by Elena Petrova. Foreigner, 480 p.

Olga, who believes that life is beautiful …

…and not believing that modern Russian prose can be light, cheerful and life-affirming. A collection of almost fairy-tale stories for adults, funny, life-like and with a happy ending, was written by: Marina Boroditskaya, Linor Goralik, Mikhail Zhvanetsky, Dina Rubina, Viktor Shenderovich, Tatyana Tolstaya and other authors — so that we can have comforting and saving miracles on long winter evenings hand.

«Book of Magical Stories». EKSMO, Vera Foundation, 480 p.

Pavel, who never misses a single photo exhibition

He once printed photos in the bathroom, and now he floods Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia) with them. Maybe a huge volume of the world’s 200-year history of photography will distract him from the camera for a little while. Dagger’s first experiments, photographic portraits of Beatrice, Warhol’s «Factory», frank 60s, urban landscapes and other milestones in the history of photography … Open from any spread.

«Photo. The World History». Editor Juliet Hacking. Translated from English by Giulia Carrisi. Magma, 576 p.

Svetlana, who lives in the Silver Age

She is well-read, restrained and even strict, yearns in a world of haste and money, does not like gadgets and wears hats. The stories of 96-year-old Marina Gustavovna Storkh, daughter of the Russian philosopher Gustav Shpet, were recorded by TV documentary filmmaker Elena Yakovich as if for Svetlana. They transfer to “living history”, to the families of Andrei Bely, Moskvin, Shchusev, Pilnyak, Pasternak … There they could say about their own grandfather and emperor: “They did not like each other”, and Russia was in true glory and greatness.

E. Yakovich «The daughter of the philosopher Shpet.» Corpus, 224 p.