Summer is given to a person in order to feel loved – by family, city and world, to be nourished by meetings with nature and to be filled with all the most beautiful that is on earth. We offer a selection of eight books that you can take with you on a trip.
First Love
“Venice is not in Italy” by Ivan Kalberak
The debut novel by the French screenwriter and playwright Ivan Calberac about the new Romeo and Juliet is a light and sad book. Emil is 15 years old, he is in love with the same age – and mutually. They live near Paris, go to Venice for holidays. Emil is embarrassed by his parents (mom in sweatpants, dad commies), Pauline is angry at her own, authoritarian-refined. First love rarely lasts, but it’s still beautiful. There is a lot of youthful reflection and a little rebellion in this story. If you are traveling with teenagers, take it with you.
Translated from French by Nina Kulish. Sinbad, 288 p., 387 rubles.
Memory
“One Story” by Julian Barnes
Barnes promises that this story in his life is the main one. The one you tell over and over again to anyone who will listen. This is a misalliance: he is 19, she is 48. He will save her from everything: from a despot husband, evil daughters, loneliness, a prim British province, from alcoholism, old age, madness – and, of course, will not save her from anything. They will be very happy and unhappy, they will part a hundred times – and no, death will separate them – and no. This is an unbearably touching story about the only love in its maximalism, selfishness, exactingness, forgiveness and inescapability.
Translation from English by Elena Petrova. Alphabet, 320 pages, 339 rubles.
Family
“Adopting America” by Ann Tyler
Typically, Tyler’s novels have little to no plot—but not this one. Two families, American and Iranian, adopt two girls from South Korea, get to know and communicate with each other – this is both a bright plot and a deeply personal one. Tyler’s husband is from an immigrant Iranian family, so the topic is close to her: Tyler sees America at the same time with his own eyes and his. Like mother and stepmother. The name Digging to America is translated inaccurately. This is not the adoption of America and not the adoption by America, this is climbing inside America so that it informs and gives birth again.
Translation from English by Lyubov Summ. PhantomPress, 352 p., 371 rubles.
Traditions
Macbeth You Nesbø
In the Shakespeare XXI project, the authors rewrite the plots of the classics in a new way. The best detective of our time took up the darkest play. The Scottish town and mountains of corpses remained as they were, the “bubbles of the earth” became ugly Chinese women brewing a drug potion, and Birnam Wood became a train standing on a siding. There will be no real detective story – we know who killed King Duncan (Commissioner Douglas). And yet, the noir thriller perfectly conveys the stuffy and creepy atmosphere of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
Translation from Norwegian by Anastasia Naumova. Eksmo, 608 pages, 377 rubles.
Of fate
“Not the Most Important” Paolo Sorrentino
Sorrentino embodied an interesting idea: he took 23 photographic portraits of strangers made by Jacopo Benassi and wrote pseudobiographies of them – several pages each. This mosaic is ideal for reading aloud: colorful, bright, amazingly alive. The beautiful Elzina Marrone falls in love with a racing driver, the clever Ada Bacco recalls how her father cried in the kitchen, the unrecognized genius Alcide Farina drinks and writes reviews. The world lives, and this life is keenly wanted to share. I share.
Translation from Italian by Anna Yampolskaya. Corpus, 352 p., 650 rubles.
Creation
“Flower Recipes” by Altea Garampolis and Jill Rizo
Psychotherapists claim that contemplation of flowers prevents depression – and I believe them. I really love flowers, garden, field, forest, whatever. The authors of this book are artists and florists from San Francisco. They tell how to create small bouquets and large arrangements of roses and burdock, peonies and sweet peas – describe 40 flower names and offer 100 step-by-step recipes perfectly illustrated. It is worth practicing the art of floristry in the summer, so that by Christmas weave wreaths of mistletoe and hawthorn for friends.
Translation from English by Alexandra Lumina. MYTH, 272 p., 1298 rubles.
Art
Sergei Diaghilev. Russian Seasons Forever by Shenga Scheyen
He was just an entrepreneur. Not a critic, not a choreographer, not an artist. He had no home, no family. Only the address of the hotel in Venice, where he visited and where he eventually died, surrounded by lovers. About the controversial figure of the “crusader of beauty”, the creator of the “Russian Seasons” Sergei Diaghilev, the Dutch researcher Sheng Scheyen writes easily, witty and honestly, moreover, this is the most complete biography to date.
Translation from Dutch by Nadezhda Voznenko and Svetlana Knyazkova. Hummingbird, 608 p., 610 rubles.