📚 🚶Introducing our May book
Discover Natalia Ginzburg's astonishing essays The Little Virtues
Dear walking book clubbers,
This book is life-changingly brilliant.
I am so happy to introduce many of you to an astonishing collection of essays by this wonderful, recently rediscovered Italian writer. And for those of you who already know and love this book, this is the ideal excuse (not that you need one) to re-read.
Exploring everything from motherhood and marriage to friendship and terrible English food, covering ground from the Italian South, where she and her husband were exiled under fascist rule to the streets of 1960s London, this book is one to treasure, full of unconventional wisdom to return to time and again. And please don’t be put off by it being a collection of ‘essays’ - they are not remotely stuffy but in fact are the easiest, most enjoyable essays I’ve ever read.
Nobody expresses the wonder of this book more eloquently than the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, who chose it for BBC Radio 4’s A Good Read. He talks beautifully about the combination of darkness and light in this book, Ginzburg’s emotional honesty and how her essays read like fiction. He too describes this book as life-changing. I challenge any of you to LISTEN HERE to the first 11 minutes of this podcast and not want to read the book immediately! It’s the perfect introduction.
Scroll down for more links about Natalia Ginzburg, and keep on going to get links to our June Christopher Isherwood events - tickets have just gone on sale today.
Our May discussions
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 14th May, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £5-15
On Zoom: Monday 15th May, 8-8.40pm, £1-10
On Our Reading Radar: Friday 26th May, 1.30-2pm This is a chance to share what else we’ve been enjoying over the month, and also our recommendations for all things ITALIAN!
Buy The Little Virtues from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in the group if you’re buying it in the shop.
Discover more about Natalia Ginzburg
Many of you enjoy reading around the book, so here is a selection of some of the best things I’ve found about Natalia Ginzburg (pictured above). But this isn’t homework: please don’t feel obliged to click on anything, if you’d rather not!
HERE, in the New Yorker, you can read why Belle Boggs describes this book as ‘the book that taught me what I want to teach my daughter’. You can also get a feel for the book in this extract, ‘Winter in the Abruzzi’ on Salon, HERE.
THIS long New Yorker piece by Joan Acocella gives a beautiful full picture of Ginzburg’s life and writing. I also really like Lara Feigel’s piece about her for the Guardian, HERE, and Abhrajyoti Chakraborty’s for the New Republic HERE.
Discover why Italo Calvino called Ginzburg ‘the last woman left on earth’, in the Paris Review, HERE. And HERE is an insightful interview with Natalia Ginzburg herself for Salmagundi, published in 1992.
I was so honoured to be asked on to Backlisted - my favourite books podcast - to discuss Natalia Ginzburg’s autobiographical novel Family Lexicon. I loved talking to publisher Marigold Atkey, John, Andy and Nicky about this book very much in the context of her other work. (Doing all the reading to prepare for this was such a delight!!). You can listen HERE.
If you missed the link at the top of the newsletter, DEFINITELY listen to Jonathan Safran Foer talk about how The Little Virtues is life-changing on Radio 4, HERE.
This little clip shows Natalia Ginzburg talking about Elsa Morante. It is rather special to see her face and hear her voice. (I have now earmarked Morante’s work La Storia to investigate for a future walking book club…)
And the most astonishing line-up here for an hour-long panel about Natalia Ginzburg at NYU, including her daughter Alessandra Ginzburg, author Jhumpa Lahiri, translator Ann Goldstein, and Jenny McPhee her translator!!
Finally, feast your eyes HERE on the gorgeous array of Ginzburg’s books that Daunt Books have brought back into print. There are no duds! So if you enjoy this one, do go on and read her fiction.
June
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
*** TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE ***
A Single Man is a breathtaking work of compressed brilliance. This slender, achingly powerful novel, charts a day in the life of George, an English 58-year-old professor in 1960s California, who is grieving the loss of his lover, Jim. Through Isherwood's cool, camera-like gaze, we see George go through the motions of life, while suffering a shattered emotional world. Celebrated as a masterpiece from its first publication in 1964, the novel continues to enthral.
Why did I pick it? Isherwood - he’s one of those names that I’ve been meaning to get to for a very long time. When I finally began reading it, I was spellbound. The writing - it’s something else: elegant, spare, powerful and also unexpectedly funny. This is a vital work of gay literature that’s left me excited to discover Isherwood’s other books too. N.B. It’s also very slim, so you have a bit more time to get going on July’s lengthier Saplings.
On Hampstead Heath: Sunday 11th June, 11.30-1pm, setting off from Daunt Books Hampstead, 51 South End Road, NW3 2QB, £5-15
On Zoom: Monday 12th June, 8-8.40pm, £1-10
On Our Reading Radar: Friday 30th June, 1.30-2pm These threads are a chance to share what else we’ve been enjoying reading and watching and listening to over the month, as well as sharing any great recommendations about GAY LOVE.
Buy A Single Man from Daunt Books HERE and receive 10% off using the code WBC at checkout, or just tell them you’re in the group if you’re buying it in the shop.
Happy reading,
Emily