Janneke Zwart Libri

Tra i grandi personaggi dell'antica Roma, nessuno è stato più geniale, astuto e controverso di Marco Tullio Cicerone. Eppure ben pochi avrebbero scommesso sul suo futuro quando, all'età di ventisette anni, scelse di lanciarsi nell'infido e violento mondo della politica, deciso a raggiungere con ogni mezzo l'imperium, il sommo potere statale. Cicerone era un avvocato promettente, oltre che un affascinante oratore. Non discendeva da una delle grandi famiglie aristocratiche, non poteva presentare il conto dei favori politici elargiti dai suoi antenati, non disponeva delle enormi ricchezze di Crasso per aprirsi corsie preferenziali e, a differenza di Pompeo o di Cesare, non aveva alle spalle l'esercito per legittimare la sua candidatura a primo cittadino di Roma. Era quello che si potrebbe definire un perfetto outsider. Vulnerabile, intelligentissimo, assetato di onori, spesso subdolo, era tuttavia un uomo ricco di interessi ed estremamente sensibile. A raccontare la sua straordinaria vicenda è il fedele Tirone, il segretario particolare sempre al suo fianco nei momenti più radiosi e in quelli più difficili.

From the acclaimed author of The Waters of Eternal Youth, Commissario Guido Brunetti dredges up dark secrets from Italy's anti-Semitic past in his captivating eleventh case. Mystery lovers everywhere are addicted to Donna Leon's ever-honorable Commissario Guido Brunetti and her portrayal of Venice's beautiful but sinister byways and canals. In Willful Behavior, Brunetti is approached for a favor by one of his wife's students. Intelligent and serious , Claudia Leonardo asks for his help in obtaining a pardon for a crime once committed by her now-dead grandfather. Brunetti thinks little of it-until Claudia is found dead. Soon, another corpse and an extraordinary art collection lead Brunetti to long-buried secrets of Nazi collaboration and the exploitation of Italian Jews-secrets few in Italy want revealed.

Quando viene a sapere che una vecchia amica sta morendo in un paesino ai confini con la Scozia, Harold Fry, tranquillo pensionato inglese, esce di casa per spedirle una lettera. Ma poi, arrivato alla prima buca, comincia a camminare. Forse perché ha con la sua amica un antico debito di riconoscenza, o forse perché la vita non è stata gentile con lui, Harold cammina, incurante della stanchezza e delle scarpe troppo leggere. Ha deciso: finché lui camminerà, la sua amica continuerà a vivere. Inizia così per Harold un imprevedibile viaggio dal sud al nord dell'Inghilterra, ma anche dentro se stesso: mille chilometri di strada e di incontri con tante persone, che Harold illuminerà con la forza del suo ottimismo. Finalista al Booker Prize, un romanzo toccante e commovente che ha scalato le classifiche in Italia, Inghilterra, Stati Uniti e Germania. La più bella celebrazione dell'amicizia, dell'amore e dei sogni che vi capiterà di leggere per molto, molto tempo.

Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the Whittakers—a family of botanical explorers, led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker, a poor-born Englishman who makes his fortune in the South American quinine trade, and swiftly becomes the richest man in the New World. His daughter, Alma, born into great luxury in 1800, ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. She is brilliant and insatiable, driven by an unquenchable sense of wonder, and also by a desperate need to understand the hidden mechanisms behind all life itself. But as Alma’s research takes her deeper into the central mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man who draws her in the opposite direction—into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Exquisitely researched and told at a breathless pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia, Tahiti, Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all is the story of Alma Whittaker—a true and tireless seeker who stands at an extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas.

At the end of her bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love,Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with Felipe - a Brazilian-born man ofAustralian citizenship who'd been living in Indonesia when they met.Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other,but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legallymarried. (Both survivors of difficult divorces. Enough said.) Butprovidence intervened one day in the form of the U.S. government, who -after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing -gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipewould never be allowed to enter the country again. Having beeneffectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage bydelving completely into this topic, trying with all her might todiscover (through historical research, interviews and much personalreflection) what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is.The result is Committed - a witty and intelligent contemplationof marriage that debunks myths, unthreads fears and suggests thatsometimes even the most romantic of souls must trade in her amorousfantasies for the humbling responsibility of adulthood. Gilbert'smemoir - destined to become a cherished handbook for any thinkingperson hovering on the verge of marriage - is ultimately a clear-eyedcelebration of love, with all the complexity and consequence that reallove, in the real world, actually entails.