Profilo utente

A classic, still very instructive. A few parts have not aged well, but most of it remains prescient. For example, Monbiot gave us a simple message: there's no way we can make fast travel environmentally sustainable, we just have to give it up: we can't replace the growth in air travel with an equal growth in trains going at 300+ km/h. Some people still don't get it, even in the environmental movement. And this is just one example which reminded me of this book the other day.

This book has a good premise, but the execution is catastrophically bad. Pages upon pages of bad and unremarkable prose are spent trying to convince us that capitalism doesn't help produce happy relationships: thank you very much. I understand that this might still be news to some people in the USA, but this filler completely destroys the book. A good editor would probably have cut the book in half without losing any substance. If the filler is necessary to give some air of academic value, it could be in endnotes.

The good part of the book is what comes from the author's qualitative research, namely the interviews with people after their relationships ended. There's a lot one can identify with, but which is seldom talked about.

Quite a useful reference to get a general sense of direction in the field.

A very enjoyable read which opens a window on much of today's software development. The way Agile is deployed to solve every single problem in the world is an outrageous simplification, but that's what makes it fun.

Not my favourite Virginia Woolf, to be honest, but you can't avoid reading Orlando. A remarkable play with time.

A good reference, mostly because it's so compact and well thought out. I've not managed to use it that much in practice, but it can be a good starting point for conversations or for self-improvement if you're confused about where you stand.

Orribile: pesantissimo e noiosissimo. Lo leggerò un'altra volta, perché leggere qualcosa di D'Annunzio è obbligatorio.

Piuttosto noiose: sono proprio cronache cronache e anche censurate. Non finito.

Back in 2004 I had great hopes for John Kerry, and his digital campaign was very innovative, so I was interested in seeing his take on the classic genre, "memoir to re-write history and raise the profile of one's late career". The book is well written, no doubt, but it remains a bit hard to reconcile the anti-Vietnam war beginnings with everything happened afterwards.

It was nevertheless very interesting to learn about a number of episodes in decades of behind the scenes. There are a few remarkable admissions.

Non ho mai deciso che cosa pensare di questo libro. È Virginia, però vista attraverso la lente del marito. Non so quanto aggiunga veramente ai diari pubblicati in seguito.

One of the best summaries of ancient philosophy I've ever read. Plato gets completely destroyed, and he deserves it.

From chapter 9: «Aestheticism and radicalism must lead us to jettison reason, and to replace it by a desperate hope for political miracles. This irrational attitude which springs from an intoxication with dreams of a beautiful world is what I call Romanticism. It may seek its heavenly city in the past or in the future; it may preach "back to nature" or "forward to a world of love and beauty"; but its appeal is always to our emotions rather than to reason. Even with the best intentions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in makin it a hell–that hell which man alone prepares for its fellow-men.»

Un romanzo sull'impossibilità per il narratore di scrivere un romanzo, per questioni stilistiche e narrative che emergono dalla storia e da tutti gli "inserti meta-narrativi" (mi invento il nome tecnico, vabbè, insomma qualcosa meta-qualcos'altro). Intelligente e divertente, ma leggendolo ho avuto la forte impressione che tale tecnica fosse già superata cinquant'anni fa, insomma non stupisce piú nessuno, e resta senza scopo una certa pesantezza linguistica che quindi non appaga molto. Comunque val la pena di leggerlo, anche perché è corto. Qualche citazione qui: it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tommaso_Landolfi#La_biere_du_pecheur