Otto Biersma Libri

Vietnam, 1969: il ventenne tenente Mellas comanda un plotone impegnato nella giungla al confine con il Laos. Le alture hanno i nomi di montagne svizzere, e i marines di Mellas dovranno riconquistare il Matterhorn, da loro stessi fortificato, poi abbandonato, e adesso occupato dai nemici, al sicuro nelle trincee e nei bunker scavati dagli americani. Quest'impresa cruenta e insensata serve a Marlantes per raccontare la paura e l'attesa del combattimento, l'orrore e l'esaltazione dell'azione, l'amicizia e l'odio tra i soldati, tra superiori che pensano alla carriera e inferiori gettati al macello, tra bianchi razzisti e neri che sognano la rivoluzione. Storia di un ragazzo che diventa uomo e scavo in profondità della natura umana, Matterhorn è il romanzo epico sul Vietnam che ancora doveva essere scritto.

When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: 'Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.' It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, On the Move is infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California and then in New York, where he discovered a long forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, as well as with a group of patients who would define his life, it becomes clear that Sacks' earnest desire for engagement has occasioned unexpected encounters and travels - sending him through bars and alleys, over oceans, and across continents. With unbridled honesty and humour, Sacks shows us that the same energy that drives his physical passions - bodybuilding, weightlifting, and swimming - also drives his cerebral passions. He writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual, his guilt over leaving his family to come to America, his bond with his schizophrenic brother, and the writers and scientists - A.R. Luria, W.H. Auden, Francis Crick - who influenced him. On the Move is the story of a brilliantly unconventional physician and writer - and of the man who has illuminated the many ways that the brain makes us human

Jonathan Safran Foer ci propone una riflessione sul cibo partendo dal ricordo personale di sua nonna, dalla forza che durante la guerra la spinse a rifiutare della carne di maiale che l'avrebbe tenuta in vita, perché non era cibo kosher, e «se niente importa, non c’è niente da salvare». Il cibo per lei non era solo cibo, ma «terrore, dignità, gratitudine, vendetta, gioia, umiliazione, religione, storia e, ovviamente, amore». Una volta diventato padre, Foer ripensa a questo insegnamento e inizia a interrogarsi su cosa sia la carne, perché nutrire un figlio è ancora più importante che nutrire se stessi. Così nasce questo libro, frutto di un’indagine durata quasi tre anni, che è insieme racconto, inchiesta e testimonianza e che invita tutti alla riflessione, indicando nel dolore degli animali – e soprattutto nella nostra sensibilità verso chi è «inerme» e «senza voce» – il discrimine fra umano e inumano, fra chi accetta senza battere ciglio le condizioni imposte dall’allevamento industriale e chi le mette in discussione.

The inspiring story of a son and his dying mother, who form a "book club" that brings them together as her life comes to a close.

The narrator of THE GARGOYLE is recovering from a horrid car crash that leaves horrible burns over much of his body. During his convalescence, a sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. She relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England. He falls in love with her and is release from the hospital into her care. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she only has twenty-seven sculptures left to complete - and her time on earth will be finished.

A young woman named Calista meets the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder in the sweltering summer of 1976. She knows nothing about him or his work, but this chance encounter will change her life for good. But while Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself - struggling to raise the money for his next feature film - is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane. In his new novel that is, by turns, funny, tender and profoundly truthful, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze to the nature of time, fame, family and nostalgia. When the world is catapulting towards change, do you hold on for dear life or decide it's time to let go?

Med afstikkere i alle litteraturens og videnskabens retninger fortælles om det år, da den 16-årige Blue van Meer begynder at sætte spørgsmålstegn ved det liv, hun og hendes akademikerfar har levet i overlegen intellektuel foragt for alle undermålerne

Winner of the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas. One of the Ten Best Books of the Year - The New York Times Book Review 'Vivid, graphic and poignant' Washington Post 'Powerful and moving . . . An impressive success' New York Times Book Review '[A] jazzy, sinewy debut . . . Thomas's urgent, quicksilver prose makes even the darkest moments of this novel shine' O' the Oprah Magazine On the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday, the unnamed black narrator of Man Gone Down finds himself broke, estranged from his white wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a friend's six-year-old child. He has four days to come up with the money to keep his kids in school and make a down payment on an apartment for them to live in. As we slip between his childhood in inner city Boston and present-day New York City, we discover a life marked by abuse, abandonment, raging alcoholism, and the best and worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is a story of the American Dream gone awry, about what it's like to feel preprogrammed to fail in life and the urge to escape that sentence.