What was the best book you read in 2013? This is the question I asked the eKuota team. The answers are very different and reflect the different personalities involved.
Let’s start with Raffaele Zenti. He’s our “Quant – triathlete – portfolio manager – creative cook” partner. Raffaele indicated two books. The first is his re-reading of A Private Matter by Beppe Fenoglio.
“I love the dry, salty writing of Fenoglio and Pavese, their novels smell of the hills, communicate raw animal emotions, throw the casual brutality of life right into your face (in this case, the war). This is the book of Fenoglio; it sums up everything . “
The second is Hyperion, by Dan Simmons.
” It’s sci-fi (another great passion of mine). It’s the story of a group of space travellers, following the Canterbury Tales in terms of narrative structure, a series of fascinating stories of the various characters, a senior army officer, an academic, an investigator, a priest, a diplomat, a poet. The main plot is not exceptional in itself, but the secondary tales are very beautiful and visionary; there are many great ideas.”
Fabio Zambelli is our senior front-end developer; he recommended In the Sign of the Sheep by Murakami . A Japanese writer who has nothing to do with manga comics . He is a writer of fairy tales for our time which use unreal characters to uncover more about reality and humanity.
Fabio Liberali, our expert PR manager partner, suggested a trio of books. “I never read a single book at a time and I don’t have just one favourite book for 2013:
Syrian Notebook by Jonathan Littell. The war correspondent would like to have been: underground in Syria in order to experience the civil war at first hand. Raw, violent and first hand;
In India by William Dalrymple. The book for plane trips, it can disclose something more about the place that I have only seen a little of, just on business trips. Dalrymple is well-known to me as a historian: here he proposes a current vision of the contradictions of India;
Things We Have in Common – 44 letters from the Liquid World by Zygmunt Bauman.
Everyday stories to capture the extraordinary. The theorist of ‘liquid modernity’. The gaze of a wise old man, disenchanted and unconventional”
My personal choice for best book of 2013 is The Story of Irene, by Erri de Luca . A surreal story in which the skill of the writer fascinated me. The words he uses compose an extremely intense symphony of rhythms and emotions.
Some really good tips from eKuota, all books that reveal an important feature of our team: we are always looking for something that gives colour to the present and that fascinates for the future.
Happy 2014!!!
