Tim Parks è un autore britannico celebrato per i suoi saggi e romanzi incisivi. Il suo lavoro si addentra spesso nelle complessità della vita moderna, nella ricerca di significato e nelle relazioni interpersonali, il tutto reso con una voce distintiva. Parks è noto per le sue acute capacità di osservazione e le sue penetranti intuizioni psicologiche sui suoi personaggi. I suoi saggi offrono riflessioni ponderate sull'arte della scrittura, della lettura e sull'arte della traduzione. La sua scrittura invita i lettori a contemplare il mondo che li circonda.
Henry Dodge faces intensified challenges in this sequel, grappling with the repercussions of the tumultuous Summer of 1985 in Los Angeles. As he navigates the aftermath of his encounters with King George and his crew, he confronts shocking revelations, including a confession of murder from his childhood crush, Danny. The stakes are raised as Henry must deal with the emotional and moral complexities that arise from these events.
Allen and Franco are two young entrepreneurs coasting their last year of Business School in New York. Feeling drained and uninspired by the pressures of success, they take on an expected journey to the jungle of Costa Rica, where they will do what they can to make a business out of an old, abandoned property, submerged in local rumors. Once surrounded by the power of the place, they unravel an unexpected family history, which will take them on a wild and spiritual inner journey. The struggles of arduous work and lack of resources will shape these men's partnership, new friendships, and the way they each understand their lives. In this intimate tale, N.V. Parks takes us on a unique spiritual journey, a rite of healing and transformation into adulthood, unraveling a new meaning of happiness and success, while soaking in the magnificent beauty of Ostional Wildlife Refuge.
Following the critical and commercial success of A Literary Tour of Italy, acclaimed novelist Tim Parks presents a new selection of his latest essays on Italian literature, offering a lively, accessible and stimulating diorama of the cultural landscape of Italy.
From the bestselling, Booker-shortlisted chronicler of Italy, a classic novel about a man's emotional reckoning in a changed world far from home Frank's reclusive existence in a leafy part of London is shattered when he is summoned to Milan for the funeral of an old friend. Preoccupied by this sudden intrusion of his past, he flies, oblivious, into the epicentre of a crisis he has barely registered on the news. It is spring, his luxury hotel offers every imaginable comfort; perhaps he will be able to weather the situation and return home unscathed? What Frank doesn't know is that he's about to make a discovery that will change his heart and his mind. Hotel Milano is a universal story from a unique moment in recent history: a book about the kindness of strangers, and about a complicated man who, faced with the possibility of saving a life, must also take stock of his own.
The acclaimed author of Italian Ways returns with an exploration into Italy’s past and present—following in the footsteps of Garibaldi’s famed 250-mile journey across the Apennines. In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy’s legendary revolutionary, was finally forced to abandon his defense of Rome. He and his men had held the besieged city for four long months, but now it was clear that only surrender would prevent slaughter and destruction at the hands of a huge French army. Against all odds, Garibaldi was determined to turn defeat into moral victory. On the evening of July 2, riding alongside his pregnant wife, Anita, he led 4,000 hastily assembled men to continue the struggle for national independence elsewhere. Hounded by both French and Austrian armies, the garibaldini marched hundreds of miles across the Appenines, Italy’s mountainous spine, and after two months of skirmishes and adventures arrived in Ravenna with just 250 survivors. Best-selling author Tim Parks, together with his partner Eleonora, set out in the blazing summer of 2019 to follow Garibaldi and Anita’s arduous journey through the heart of Italy. In The Hero’s Way he delivers a superb travelogue that captures Garibaldi’s determination, creativity, reckless courage, and profound belief. And he provides a fascinating portrait of Italy then and now, filled with unforgettable observations of Italian life and landscape, politics, and people.
The acclaimed author of Italian Ways returns with an exploration into Italy’s past and present—following in the footsteps of Garibaldi’s famed 250-mile journey across the Apennines.In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy’s legendary revolutionary, was finally forced to abandon his defense of Rome. He and his men had held the besieged city for four long months, but now it was clear that only surrender would prevent slaughter and destruction at the hands of a huge French army.Against all odds, Garibaldi was determined to turn defeat into moral victory. On the evening of July 2, riding alongside his pregnant wife, Anita, he led 4,000 hastily assembled men to continue the struggle for national independence elsewhere. Hounded by both French and Austrian armies, the garibaldini marched hundreds of miles across the Appenines, Italy’s mountainous spine, and after two months of skirmishes and adventures arrived in Ravenna with just 250 survivors.Best-selling author Tim Parks, together with his partner Eleonora, set out in the blazing summer of 2019 to follow Garibaldi and Anita’s arduous journey through the heart of Italy. In The Hero’s Way he delivers a superb travelogue that captures Garibaldi’s determination, creativity, reckless courage, and profound belief. And he provides a fascinating portrait of Italy then and now, filled with unforgettable observations of Italian life and landscape, politics, and people.
Adventures in cutting-edge ideas about consciousness, from bestselling non-fiction writer Tim Parks. Hardly a day goes by without some discussion about whether computers can be conscious, whether our universe is some kind of simulation, whether mind is a unique quality of human beings or spread out across the universe like butter on bread. Most philosophers believe that our experience is locked inside our skulls, an unreliable representation of a quite different reality outside. Colour, smell and sound, they tell us, occur only in our heads. Yet when neuroscientists look inside our brains to see what’s going on, they find only billions of neurons exchanging electrical impulses and releasing chemical substances. Out of My Head tells the gripping, highly personal, often surprisingly funny, story of Tim Parks' quest to discover more about this fascinating topic. It frames complex metaphysical considerations and technical laboratory experiments in terms we can all understand. Above all, it invites us to see space, time, colour and smell, sounds and sensations in an entirely new way. The world will feel more real after reading it. ‘A brisk, chatty and light-hearted account of Parks’s encounters with neurologists and philosophers looking for the location of consciousness’ New Statesman
The long-awaited new book on 'how Italy really works' from the bestselling writer on Italian culture. Forty years ago, Tim Parks made the bel paese his home. Italian Life is his reckoning with his adopted country, an attempt to get to the core of it, to make sense of it, to fold others' stories in with his own experience - now that he is, in his own words, 'to some degree Italian' himself. The result is an arresting, on-the-ground account of 21st century Italy told through the eyes of a rich cast of characters, among them students from poverty-stricken Basilicata trying to start new lives in the wealthy gloom of Milan, a priest, a poet, a young professor from Padua, and an Englishman who refuses to toe the line. At the book's centre is a story of corruption and power. But it is also a celebration of culture and history, fact and fable, sacred and secular, ancient and modern: a thought-provoking, surprising, entertaining and even definitive account of how Italy actually happens.
The best novel I read this year was Tim Parks's In Extremis, a frantic and minutely observed comedy of family, marriage, life and death. There is something in the synaptic twitch of Parks's prose that brings us closer to the pressures and rhythms of a lived life than the work of any other contemporary writer I can think of Mike McCormack New Statesman, Best Books of 2017
Tour the wineries of northern Italy. Explore the cave houses of Matera. Search out mindblowing gelato. Experience Italy unveils new aspects of the Italy you know and showcases the Italy you're yet to encounter.
Thomas und Mary – eine Liebesgeschichte, die mit einer Trennung beginnt. Zärtlich und unsentimental, mal komisch, mal tragisch. Wie das Leben: »Man lebt jahrzehntelang mit jemandem zusammen, in guten wie in schlechten Zeiten. Man zieht gemeinsam in eine andere Stadt um, man zieht Kinder groß. Man erkennt, dass die Ehe zerbrochen ist, dass es einen ganzen Bereich in der Beziehung gibt, mit dem man einfach nicht mehr zurechtkommt, und dennoch gibt es auch eine funktionierende Alltagsroutine: Letztendlich ist man ständig gezwungen, der betreffenden Person nah zu sein, und es gibt immer noch fröhliche Momente. Schließlich wird alles zu viel und man zieht aus.«
The Novel: A Survival Skill radically reevaluates traditional literary criticism offering an exciting account of what is really at stake in the business of writing and reading.
Featuring a thrilling and unpredictable plot, the second Duckworth novel delivers a roller-coaster experience filled with excitement and eccentricity. Readers can expect a blend of humor and suspense as they follow the escapades of a charismatic yet unpredictable protagonist, promising a wild ride from start to finish.
Morris Duckworth ist älter geworden, verheiratet mit Antonella, der dritten und ältesten Trevisan-Schwester, erfolgreicher Vorstand des Familienimperiums und Kunstsammler – von Gemälden, auf denen Gewalt und Tod abgebildet sind. So kann er seine freie Zeit in Betrachtung von Taten verbringen, von denen er hofft, sie niemals wieder selbst verüben zu müssen. Aber als Morris dem Museum der Stadt eine prächtige Ausstellung vorschlägt, um so alles, was er über Mord, Totschlag und Ästhetik weiß, mit der Welt zu teilen, werden ihm Hindernisse in den Weg gestellt, die auch in dem sanftesten Größenwahnsinnigen mörderische Instinkte hervorrufen.
Tim Parks’ Krimitrilogie: Der Aufstieg eines skrupellosen Hochstaplers in Verona. Morris Duckworth ist von seiner eigenen Genialität und moralischen Untadeligkeit felsenfest überzeugt. Wenn er also ein Durchschnittsleben auf unterstem ökonomischen Niveau führen muss, sind andere schuld. Um reich zu werden und in die gute Gesellschaft Veronas aufzusteigen, schreckt er vor nichts zurück. Erpressung und Entführung, Mord und Totschlag sind manchmal einfach unvermeidlich. Morris Duckworth wollte Massimina Trevisan nicht umbringen. Es war nur eine dieser Unvermeidlichkeiten. So ist es für ihn eine große Erleichterung, als er merkt, dass der Geist des Mädchens überaus lebendig ist, immer noch verliebt in ihn und bereit, ihm zu helfen, seinen rechtmäßigen Platz an der Seite ihrer Schwester einzunehmen. Endlich ist er in der Familie Trevisan und damit in der guten Gesellschaft Veronas angekommen. Nach allem, was sie durchgemacht haben, ist keiner zimperlich, wenn es darum geht, Hindernisse zu beseitigen, die ihnen im Weg stehen.
Why do we need fiction? Why do books need to be printed on paper, copyrighted, read to the finish? Do we read to challenge our vision of the world or to confirm it? Has novel writing turned into a job like any other? In Where I’m Reading From, the internationally acclaimed novelist and critic Tim Parks ranges over a lifetime of critical reading—from Leopardi, Dickens, and Chekhov, to Woolf, Lawrence, and Bernhard, and on to contemporary work by Jonathan Franzen, Peter Stamm, and many others—to overturn many of our long-held assumptions about literature and its purpose. In thirty-eight interlocking essays, Where I’m Reading From examines the rise of the “global” novel and the disappearance of literary styles that do not travel; the changing vocation of the writer today; the increasingly paradoxical effects of translation; the growing stasis of literary criticism; and the problematic relationship between writers’ lives and their work. Through dazzling close readings and probing self-examination, Parks wonders whether writers—and readers—can escape the twin pressures of the new global system and the novel that has become its emblematic genre.
Morris Duckworth has a dark past. Having married and murdered his way into a wealthy Italian family he has long left aside the paperweight and the pillow to become a respected member of Veronese business life. But itâe(tm)s not enough. Never satisfied with being anything short of the best, he comes up with a plan to put on the most exciting art exhibition of the decade, based on a subject close to his heart: killing. All the great slaughters of scripture and classical times will be on show, from Cain and Abel, to Brutus and Caesar. But as Morris meet stiff resistance from the Neapolitan director of Veronaâe(tm)s Castelvecchio museum, everything starts to unravel around him. His children are rebelling, his mistress is asking for more than he wants to give, his wife is increasingly attached to her ageing confessor, and worst of all itâe(tm)s getting harder and harder to ignore the ghosts that swirl around him, and the skeletons rattling in every cupboard. The shame of it is that Morris Arthur Duckworth really did not want to have to kill again.
'All Italy is here' Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education and A Season with Verona Longlisted for the Dolman Travel Book Award In 1981 Tim Parks moved from England to Italy and spent the next thirty years alongside hundreds of thousands of Italians on his adopted country's vast, various and ever-changing networks of trains. Through memorable encounters with ordinary Italians - conductors and ticket collectors, priests and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants - Tim Parks captures what makes Italian life distinctive. He explores how trains helped build Italy and how the railways reflect Italians' sense of themselves from Garibaldi to Mussolini to Berlusconi and beyond.
Sex ist im Dasgupta Institut verboten. Was also macht die unglaublich attraktive Beth Marriot hier? Warum verbringt eine junge Frau, deren unwiderstehliche Vitalität und selbstbewusstes Ego einst auf Eroberung und Ruhm aus waren, jetzt einen Monat nach dem anderen als Helferin im vegetarischen Restaurant eines puristischen Buddhisten-Retreats? Beth bekämpft Dämonen. Eine Folge von katastrophalen Ereignissen hat alle ihre Hoffnungen auf Glück unterminiert. Aus diesem Trauma gibt es für sie nur einen Ausweg: die asketische Strenge einer Gemeinschaft, in der man um vier Uhr morgens geweckt wird, keinen Augenkontakt mit anderen haben darf, geschweige denn mit ihnen sprechen, und in der Frauen und Männer streng getrennt sind. Aber Neugier stirbt zuletzt. Als Beth über ein Tagebuch stolpert, muss sie es lesen und fängt an, den Mann zu beobachten, dem es gehört. Und je mehr sie sich nach der Reinheit der schweigenden Priesterin des Retreats sehnt, desto mehr begehrt sie die Priesterin selbst.
Machiavellis Werk, ursprünglich als Empfehlung für den designierten Fürsten von Florenz verfasst, zählt zur Weltliteratur und gilt als erstes Werk der modernen politischen Philosophie. Es behandelt die Grundsätze politischer Herrschaft, die moralischen Eigenschaften des Regenten und verschiedene Herrschaftstechniken zur Schaffung effizienter Ordnung. Machiavelli wird oft missverstanden; der Satz „Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel“ ist nicht von ihm, sondern stammt von seinen Kritikern. Sein Ziel ist die Begründung eines autonomen, moralfreien Politikbegriffs, jedoch nicht die Förderung von Immoralität im politischen Handeln. Sein pragmatisches Ethos betont, dass der politisch Handelnde von der historischen Situation, den Zielen und den realen Möglichkeiten abhängt. Die zentralen Tugenden des idealen Herrschers sind Necessità (Einsicht in die Notwendigkeit), Fortuna (Geschick basierend auf historischem Wissen) und Virtù (Fähigkeit zur Autonomie). Für die kommentierte Neuedition wurden die ältesten Handschriften sowie die von Machiavelli verwendeten historischen Quellen wie Livius und Thukydides kritisch betrachtet. Der italienische Text basiert auf der kritischen Ausgabe von Giorgio Inglese.
The story follows Antonio, a notorious playboy returning to his hometown after a stint in Rome, where he is pressured by his father to marry the lovely Barbara. However, a year into their marriage, the unexpected scandal arises when it is revealed that Barbara remains a virgin, challenging societal norms and the couple's relationship. This twist sets the stage for exploring themes of reputation, fidelity, and the complexities of love and marriage.
'Just when the medical profession had given up on me and I on it, just when I seemed to be walled up in a life sentence of chronic pain, someone proposed a bizarre way out: sit still, they said, and breathe ... ' TEACH US TO SIT STILL is the visceral, thought-provoking and improbably entertaining story of Tim Parks' quest to overcome ill health.
The Medici are famous as the rulers of Florence at the high point of the Renaissance. Their power derived from the family bank, and this book tells the fascinating, frequently bloody story of the family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bank (from Cosimo who took it over in 1419 to his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent who presided over its precipitous decline). The Medici faced two apparently insuperable problems: how did a banker deal with the fact that the Church regarded interest as a sin and had made it illegal? How in a small republic like Florence could he avoid having his wealth taken away by taxation? But the bank became indispensable to the Church. And the family completely subverted Florence's claims to being democratic. They ran the city. Medici Money explores a crucial moment in the passage from the Middle Ages to the Modern world, a moment when our own attitudes to money and morals were being formed.To read this book is to understand how much the Renaissance has to tell us about our own world. Medici Money is one of the launch titles in a new series, Atlas Books, edited by James Atlas. Atlas Books pairs fine writers with stories of the economic forces that have shaped the world, in a new genre - the business book as literature.
In the dramatic landscape of the Italian Alps a group of English canoeists arrive for an 'introduction to white water.' Camping, eating and paddling together, six adults and nine adolescents seem set to enjoy what their leader insists on calling a 'community experience.' Their hosts are Clive, a taciturn figure, and Michela, his fragile girlfriend. Joining the group late are Vince, a banker trying to make sense of the flotsam of his existence, and his teenage daughter whom he feels moving inexorably away from him. The dangerous river manages to bring out the group's qualities and failings in the most urgent fashion, provoking sudden conflicts and unexpected shifts of alliance. An ideal love affair breaks down and an apparently impossible one timidly buds. A banal disagreement turns violent. Meanwhile, the hottest summer on record is filling the glacier-fed rivers with a melt water so wild that it is surely unwise of the distracted instructors to launch their party into the last day's descent of the upper Aurina.
«Non c’è frase di questo romanzo che non commuova e non sospinga verso la prossima con spontanea curiosità e gratitudine. Poi, però, finisce, ma giusto all’ultima parola e non a una di meno» (Aldo Busi).In una calda primavera del 1942 una sensuale ventiquattrenne, dopo aver inutilmente aspettato la telefonata del suo uomo del momento, lascia la sua stanza d’albergo e si butta per le vie del Village, depressa. È piena di debiti ma gira in taxi, va a letto all’alba ma lavora fino al tramonto – e affronta una mondanità sfrenata con il solo corredo di «completini lisi e infeltriti». Sotto la scorza cinica e dissoluta conserva una polpa romantica, perché non ha smesso di cercare l’Amore. Ma dentro la polpa romantica nasconde un nocciolo pragmatico, perché continua a desiderare il matrimonio e la famiglia. Com’è arrivata Letty Fox a questo punto della sua vita? La Stead ce lo racconta con una scrittura in cui la parola assume un profilo duro, potente, spietato, capace di rendere ogni vibrazione emotiva.
Already a highly successful lawyer, Daniel Savage has just been promoted to the position of Crown Court judge--though jealous colleagues whisper that his promotion might be due to the fact that he is black. He decides that it's finally time to settle down, forswear philandering, and rededicate himself to his family. His teenage children require a father's attention, and his career demands responsible behavior. But this supposed pillar of society has been leading a double life for far too long. Just when he seems to have it all--success, money, a wonderful family--everything is about to fall apart. On the eve of a shocking murder trial, a young woman from his past--who holds an explosive secret that could threaten both his family and his career--begins making mysterious phone calls to his house. As lives and lies tangle inside his courtroom, Judge Savage finds his own existence spiraling downward into violence, blackmail, deception, and confusion that will keep readers guessing to the last page.
Is Italy A United Country, Or A Loose Affiliation Of Warring States? Is Italian Football A Sport, Or An Ill-Disguised Protraction Of Ancient Enmities? After Twenty Years In The Bel Paese, Tim Parks Goes On The Road To Follow The Fortunes Of Hellas Verona Football Club, To Pay A Different Kind Of Visit To Some Of The World'S Most Beautiful Cities, And To Get A Fresh Take On The Conundrum That Is National Character. From Udine To Catania, From The San Siro To The Olimpico, This Is A Highly Personal Account Of One Man'S Relationship With A Country, Its People And Its National Sport. A Book That Combines The Tension Of Cliff-Hanging Narrative With The Pleasures Of Travel Writing, And The Stimulation Of A Profound Analysis Of One Country'S Mad, Mad Way Of Keeping Itself Entertained.
Christopher Burton erhält an der Rezeption seines Hotels einen Anruf, der ihn über den Selbstmord seines Sohnes informiert. Aber warum ist Burtons erster Gedanke bei dieser schrecklichen Nachricht, jetzt, nach fast dreißig Jahren Ehe, seine Frau zu verlassen? Schicksal - ein fesselnder Roman über Ehe und Identität, über die spezielle Dynamik, wie einer sich auf Kosten des anderen entwickelt und ein Dritter auf der Strecke bleibt.
This collection of 13 essays looks for philosophical inspiration in the quotidian.
A brilliantly comic, dark and dyspeptic novel about an obsessive love gone sour. Jealousy and revenge, passion and dread intertwine in one man's soul as he's trapped in the awful claustrophobia of a three-day coach journey across Europe with a group of people he loathes - and the woman who broke his heart. Written with extraordinary stylistic and emotional intensity and an hilarious sense of the absurd, this story of inescapably enchanted disenchantment is Tim Parks' finest novel to date.
Der Brite Tim Parks schildert in "Alle lieben Raymond" die Last, mit einem geistig Verwirrten zu leben - und erzählt vom schnöden Los der Mittdreißiger. ----------------------- Tight and disturbing, Loving Roger begins with a dead body and a chilling question. Why has nice, ordinary, affectionate Anna picked up her kitchen knife and murdered the man she insists she loves?... This brief novel is a mordantly illuminating essay on the way love contains the seeds of vindictiveness and hatred.
Bored and broke, Morris Duckworth, an English teacher in Verona, stumbles on a plan for financial salvation - to marry Massimina, a seventeen-year-old student. And if his intentions are frustrated by a suspicious, conservative family, is it any fault of his that the lovely girl chooses to elope? Obsessed by self-advancement and excitement, Morris' dreams of blackmail, theft and murder plunge him deep into a chilling nightmare of deception and violence.
Ach, die guten Menschen! Vater in Afrika als Missionar massakriert; die Mutter nicht ganz von dieser Welt, aber alle Mühseligen und Beladenen der Nachbarschaft strecken ihre Beine unter den Küchentisch; der grantelnde Großvater aus böser alter Zeit; die Tante hat einen Elvis-Club gegründet und später den Kopf in den Backofen gesteckt. George will raus da, und die Zeiten sind günstig.§Maggie Thatchter regiert, junge Leute werden gebraucht. Also: Studieren, heiraten, Karriere machen, um es der arbeitsscheuen Verwandschaft zu zeigen und dahin ziehen wo die besseren Leute wohnen.§Ein schönes Programm, und so überzeugend, denn George erzählt alles selbst: Wie man es schafft, wie man Konkurrenten abhängt, sich eine Freundin nimmt, wenn es in der Ehe nicht so richtig läuft, und ein Kind macht, damit alles bleibt, wie es ist.
Pietro Germi con il suo Signore e Signori ha rappresentato in modo impietoso e graffiante una città di provincia del Veneto. Più o meno gli stessi luoghi in cui è ambientato questo libro, seppure in un'atmosfera diversa. E tutto d'un tratto si vivranno le vicende di un inglese trapiantato in Italia, con moglie italiana, che affitta una casa e ci racconta la sua storia di un anno. Nulla sfugge alla minuziosa descrizione di questo starniero. Molti italiani vedranno nei loro vicini quelli dell'autore, che ci ricorda, spesso con annotazioni folgoranti, manie, difetti, vizi e (perche no?) qualche virtù.
An American expatriate describes life in Verona, the collision between invading suburbia and the die-hard peasant tradition, the architecture, wine bottling, gardening, religion, health care, and the Veronese
Tight and disturbing, Loving Roger begins with a dead body and a chilling question. Why has nice, ordinary, affectionate Anna picked up her kitchen knife and murdered the man she insists she loves?... This brief novel is a mordantly illuminating essay on the way love contains the seeds of vindictiveness and hatred.
This novel, by the same author as "Tongues of Fire", "Loving Roger", and "Home Thoughts", deals with Raymond, who has gone mad. His family have planned their lives very carefully, and insanity was not one of the things they had expected to deal with. The problem is, what will they do with him?
A collection of short stories by young British writers, this provides an introduction to the work of Iain Banks, Peter Benson, H.S. Bhabra, James Buchan, Patricia Ferguson, Ronald Frame, Patrick Gale, Carlo Gebler, James Lasdun, Deborah Levy, Adam Lively, Aidan Mathews, Candia McWilliam, Geoff Nicholson, Tim Parks, Philip Ridley, Joan Smith, Rupert Thomson, Daisy Waugh and Mathew Yorke. Many of these have already received critical acclaim. The collection is introduced by Graham Swift, author of "Waterland" and "Out of this World".
