A Good Winter by Gigi Fenster

 The @newzealandbookawards has been on my radar for some time. I Google in every year to see the long list and then the winner. Unfortunately the physical books are not easy to find here in Europe (Italy, where I live). Well, for some books if we are lucky, we can download them as ebooks on kindle.

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Gigi Fenster @gigifenster is a writer from New Zealand

. She also teaches Creative Writing at University. She has previously published other 2 books: The Intention Book and Feverish. This is her third book, already a winner of a literary award, The Gifkins Prize and now also listed for the New Zealand Book Awards for Fiction.

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A Good Winter is a dark psychological thriller told from the perspective of a very lonely woman in her sixties with a difficult past history, named Olga. She develops a kind of a friendship which turns into an obsession with her neighbor, Lara. Lara's daughter, Sophie suffers from post natal depression and this difficult situation unites them.Olga offers herself to help Sophie and Lara. Olga's competence and efficiency is always needed or at least this is what she believes. Even when the situation improves and Sophie gets better, Olga continues to step in. This stalking behavior, this love obsession for Lara, and the complexities of this obsession, her need to manipulate everything and everyone.

As the story grows she completely loses touch with reality. Fenster is such a skilful writer in creating such a disturbed character and especially putting us as readers into her Mind. She has a great knowledge of the human nature and behavior. It's not easy to be in Olga's mind, I had to slow down, take a break and then come back to the story. 

Olga reminds me a lot the main characters of two of the latest novels I have read The Push and Inferno.

I appreciated the ending very much, she does not tell us right away what happens, we can guess but we are never sure until the end.

#thenewzealandbookaward, #NewZealandliterature, #gigifester #agoodwinter, #textpublishing, #instabooks, #bestbooks2022, #justfininshedreading, #booklover, #bookaddict, #bookaholic

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Wonderful bookish gifts for Christmas

 This is beautiful pstack of books I gifted myself for Christmas. I think that my TBR list is OK fir the next two months read. Looking forward to reading them all...

📖#giveandtake by #adamgrant which gives as an insight on what success really means, about hard work, talent and luck and how these 3 shape our lives in search of success.
📖#thevictorianhouse by #judithflanders, which follows the daily life of the middle-class Victorian house from room to room...
📖#inferno by #catherinecho, a memoir of a young mother who is separated from her newborn son and husband and how she rebuild her identity after a psychosis.
📖#undying by #michelfaber, a wonderful love diary dedicated to his wife who died after a long battle with cancer. A great collection of love and grieve poems.
📖#linvernodeileoni by #stefaniauci, the second volume in the Florio saga, a historical novel.
📖#themadnessofgrief by #richardcoles, a mourning account about the devastation of losing someone so loved.
📖#thegrievevolumes Stories and Poems about Grief and Loss
#tbrlist, #booksfor2022, #loebooks, #instabooks, #bookstagram, #lookingforwardtoread, #Christmasgifts

If you are a cofee lover, you should read this The Devil's Cup...

 

This is the first book I finished today, January 1st. I started it on December 27th (last year obviously) and ended it today.
At first I was intrigued by the title of the book, because I am a coffee drinker and a bit of a caffeine addict ☕😁
Then I also saw that the wonderful Kim from @bookmarksnbreadsticks read it and reviewed it, and I decided to give it a try.
It's part historical book and part travel diary.
Allen 's quest for the best coffee begins in Ethiopia, then goes to Yemen, India, Turkey, Europe (especially Vienna), Brazil and finally the USA.
Each chapter gives us a historical and cultural overview behind the now famous beverage.
I mostly enjoyed the chapters about Europe, the Viennese coffee houses of the early 1600s and how a group of Italian monks gave rise to the now welknown drink called 'cappuccino'.
Definitely a non-fiction read I recommend to everyone, especially if you are a coffee lover.
#stewartallenlee, #thedevilscup, #justfininshedreading, #firstreadof2022, #instabooks, #bookstagram, #booklover, #induction, #foodnonfiction, #traveldiaries

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My best book of 2011, The Push by Ashley Audrain

 I think I've just finished my best read of 2021. It's so well written and so heartbreaking. It makes me wonder about what family really means, about marriage and most of all motherhood.

It is so well written in such a real and honest way that it totally freaks me out.
This story is so dark, mysterious, unsettling, depressing and nonetheless beautiful. I read it in two days, I just couldn't put it down.
This book highlights every single one of my fears about being /becoming a parent, a mother.
This mother-daughter relationship developed in three generations of women who suffered from mental illness women who tortured their daughter and in the end they committed suicide.
Still Blythe, our main character did her best to connect with her daughter Violet, but there seems to be something wrong with this daughter. Nobody believes her. Even her husband thinks she isn't capable to be a good mother.
Did Blythe suffer from mental illness like her mother and grandmother or is her daughter an evil person? Can children be evil?
This book left me with so many questions and I would love to talk about it with someone
Did you read it, and if so what do you think of it?
#ashleyaudrain, #thepush, #pameladormanbooks, #justfininshedreading, #instabooks, #bestbooks2021, #bookstagram, #booklover, #bookaddict, #psychologicalbooks

My wonderful Christmas books collection

 

Il Duomo di Carrara

 

Opening of the Sarteschi House