Sunscreen, notes for boredom protection: each has its own task to make the holidays a truly pleasant and, in its own way, useful time.
The book-to-read-under-the-beach-umbrella predictions, while sipping a mojito in Rangiroa or at the local Lido Luigi, have been going on for some time.
Now it’s time to decide whether to trust the advice of the guru who, between #scrounged dinners and glossy posts, recommends the reading that can change our lives, or randomly pick a book at the newsstand between the Settimana Enigmistica and the latest gossip magazine.
Of course, a crossword by Bartezzaghi always has its charm (and its very high difficulty quotient), just as the more secrets and spicy details of Albano’s summer holidays arouse strong curiosity (or not?), yet beyond this, there’s more.
Marketing and creativity manuals are our daily bread. Recommendations on readings with this theme fill the social media walls of creative agencies and freelancers. But who said that creativity cannot be stimulated even through readings that are not strictly part of this world?
After duly appreciating some evergreens in the sector (is there still anyone who doesn’t know La Parola Immaginata by Annamaria Testa or L’uomo di marketing e la variante limone by Walter Fontana?), let’s try to go further, perhaps dusting off some great classics often forgotten.
- Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse – Roland Barthes
Summer is the season of blossoming or confirmed loves, fleeting relationships or marriage proposals. Whether you are single or want to declare yourself to your sweetheart in a way other than handing them a fried squid ring, this book by Roland Barthes is for you.
It is not a manual, nor the book that will give you seduction advice, it is just an original way of telling the dynamics of a couple. Each chapter is independent, each page is capable of making you reflect. Warning: if at the end of the book you come to the conclusion that your story is similar to Werther’s, we will not take responsibility. - Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity – Marc Augé
Less than a month after his death, it is right to pay homage to the man who revolutionized the concept of space and place, writing history, even (perhaps) unconsciously that of in-store marketing or in the places he himself defined as “non-places”: Marc Augé.
The French anthropologist’s book tells and defines spaces, in which we often find ourselves during our holidays, non-identity spaces, frequented by people perpetually in transit who do not relate to each other: airports, stations, hotels, highways.
An illuminating book for its relevance, despite being several years old. - The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday – Rob Walker
Curiosity is creativity. Observing (being careful not to stare, it wouldn’t be appropriate…), studying people and situations, from the person lying on the sunbed next to ours to the person we met in a holiday village: raise your hand if you have never been a victim of this temptation.
Rob Walker in this book teaches us to observe things from a new point of view, building a path made of 131 original exercises to do in the most varied moments of our day and/or vacation: on the way to and from work, while we look out the window at home or, simply, while lying on the sofa. Any place is the right one to stimulate creativity. - Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
Yes, we know, with this book we like to win easily. It is the Holy Grail of the copywriter, a book that sheds the obligation to build a well-defined plot, leaving room for wordplay, rhetorical figures, and various linguistic registers.
In summary, this collection of stories by the French writer Raymond Queneau consists of 99 variations of the same story, reinterpreted and revisited with a literary style that is different each time. In 2001, Stefano Bartezzaghi (yes, the one from the Settimana Enigmistica mentioned above) added texts and an afterword to the book: pure coincidence? - La civile indiscrezione (Civil Indiscretion) – Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
Irreverent, sacrilegious, rich in a lucid malice to the point of making the cynicism of current paparazzi and gossip columnists pale in comparison. Put aside the vulgar gossip about the current heartthrob and enter the Parisian salons of the mid-nineteenth century (yes, you read that right).
The Goncourt brothers paint a ruthless portrait of a series of characters who crowd the cultural world of the time and the literary salons, indulging in descriptions and judgments that are nothing short of peculiar. Flaubert is considered provincial, hypocritical, and ambitious; Baudelaire lacks originality and stubbornly insists on constantly copying Poe; Zola is a big boy full of envy.
Read it to believe it. - Mercedes – Daniel Cuello
What happens when the eye wants its part but you don’t want to give up the pleasure of stimulating reading? Easy! You delve into the meanders of graphic novels.
Mercedes is a story of power, crimes, success, and notoriety. The most important woman in the world becomes a victim of her own lies and falsehoods.
Political, religious, and social criticism is framed by a colorful, fast, and never monotonous design.
All the characters are important and all offer food for thought, mirrors in which to look and look inside. - Black Water Lilies – Michel Bussi
A dreamlike setting in Normandy, an investigation conducted to solve mysterious murders, three fascinating women and, last but not least, the enigma of the black water lilies: the stolen, or lost, paintings of the Impressionist artist Claude Monet.
The right dose of suspense, art, and creativity that keeps you glued to the pages and activates all the mechanisms of lateral thinking.
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