Richard Seltzer Ordine dei libri

First of a trilogy of historical novels based on the life of Alexander Bulatovich, a Ukrainian/Russian explorer in Ethiopia, a cavalry officer during Russia's conquest of Manchuria, and later a monk at Mount Athos and a religious leader.

Dive into the world of the Trojan War as lived by Helen. Paris, and Menelaus; Polyxena and Achilles; Ktimene (Odysseus' sister) and Eumaeus the swineherd. What should they do? Do they have a choice?

This bittersweet comedy and romance has touches of tragedy and magic. Writing during the pandemic and feeling nostalgia for what has been lost, the narrator, Abe, recounts stories told around the dinner table on a Caribbean cruise two years before. Abe explains the title: "I'm writing from the midst of this crisis, not with the wisdom of hindsight. Even if it gets no worse than it is right now, much has been lost. "I'm hoping that we can gether. That's a word that isn't in the dictionary. "To gether is to find new ways to be together, new ways to meet, to bond, to love. "Even when physically isolated, we can come together in spirit, to share experiences and emotions to the point that we are intimately connected." "In any case, may we always treasure our normal life, knowing, as we now know, that it is fragile and should never be taken for granted."

Without knowing why or how, two college students wake up 50 years older than they were when they went to sleep and with no memory of what has happened in between. Trying to figure this all out, they read a novel that Frank wrote about them and his family before the missing years. This novel within the novel is a coming-of-age family saga with Charlie, an amateur movie maker; Sarah, his insightful bible-believing mother; Irene, his creative and uninhibited wife; Frank, his nephew, the author of the novel; and Marge, who loves and hates both Frank and Charlie. Can they sort truth from fiction when perception and action are often shaped by lies? Frank and Marge bond with one another as they find ways to slip through cracks in time and space. Cracks that are doors to their past, present, and future. The first door is birth. The second is death. Finally, Frank and Marge go through the fourth door.