Book Recs

Some of the last reads I’ve had and absolutely devoured, loved, left me a huge insight, or I simply continue to think about them today, regardless of how much time has passed by.

2022 recs:

I ate this book up in a 10 hour flight. And Sara Barquinero ate. Love the way she writes! A woman finds an old diary in the trash dump next to her house and starts to roam through it. She realizes its the writings of a woman which longs for the one that got away and he never reached back to. her. It’s the story of everything she does to help, somehow, figure out what happened with this guy and this woman and do something to help her. It sounds cheesy the way I describe it, but it isn’t as cheesy, promise!
What would happen to society if we’d get a blindness pandemic? A book that made me fall in love with reading (and Saramago’s work!) 🙂
A man finds out he has a double and well… he gets on a quest to find him. The rest is history…!
We need silence in this life, and not only on sound ;). The writer used to be a monk and live in monasteries, and from this, she talks about how much silence is a part of our life and how much it impact the absence of it, as well as being fully immersed into it.
We have no idea what depression really is. This guy flips the idea of how we have been taught about this issue. Its also written in such a digestible form… I think about it now a days, still!
THIS BOOK is a holy grail for many, and I am many. It is not religious, but even for people who are atheists can find something valuable here. This is a spiritual book, but it doesn’t mention, ever, meditation or so. It’s simply a book talking about being in the present moment, completely immersed in it and how it looks and feels like. As well as how can it be achieved.
This book was a recommendation from a dear friend 🙂 and it is a really beautiful book about the history of philosophy told though the eyes of a girl called Sophie, which meets a mysterious philosophy teacher with which she goes to different adventures and learns about the evolution of human thought.
Not the most fun, but definitely helpful and necessary book. Its a book that talks about how to think critically and to learn to not believe everything you read, hear, and think. To question everything a bit more and seek to dve deeper into questions and topics. To have smart arguments, basically.
This guy?! He was into something else… can we travel in time? what is inside a black hole? this guy is funny and smart. provides answers based on his perspective and studies. VERY eye opening, in my opinion.
Feels like advice from a big sister. She has some really nice reminders about different topics and opened up my eyes about many aspects when I read it. Insightful :).

2023 recs:

Stories of Married Women – My mom recommended this and she was not wrong with this! It’s the story about three women friends which work in a magazine editorial. This is the story of each one of them, and the story of them together. Cristina Campos portrays her vision on women-hood, being a mother, being a wife, relationships, having a job, between others… crazy story! Easy and fun read 🙂
ooooooh boy… for someone to talk about you the way Patti does about Robert is just something many dream during their lifetime. She has this beautiful and master prose and describes the scenes from their rise to fame and their love and friendship in such a way in which she makes the reader feel as if they were experiencing the moment with her. She is such a fricking icon and there should be so much more conversation about her art, her transcendence, her story, and well… just her. This book took my heart and shredded it to a million pieces, but I loved the experience of reading it. Its one of those book to which I’d pay whatever in order to be able to read it again… devastatingly beautiful. hope this description gives a mere glimpse of how much I admire her! I wrote an entire thread on twitter (or X now-a-days) which you can check out if your interested 🙂 @BatizMilena
THIS MAN! OH MY GOD! CAN SOMEONE JUST GIVE THIS MAN A HUG AND TELL HIM EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK??? I am a big Kafka fan, but the fact the woman to whom he writes is called the same as me, was (and continues to be) one of my roman empires. This book is the knife I turn inside myself. Hope some of you understand the reference :´) and if not… one day you will my dear. This book brought me joy, tears, and it punched my heart just as much as it held it between feathers.
This is a book about nothing really… but I like that! It’s a simple book of a girl that starts having a problem with alcohol during her time in university and meets a man in a station. It’s not a romance book, but that’s all the book is about. THE PROSE THO!! Kawakami has beautiful writing and describes the most mundane and everyday situations and objects SO BEAUTIFULLY that it makes you ask yourself AND FOR WHAAAATT!!!!! ALL THIS!!! (in the best way possible!)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – This is confidently one of my all-time-favorites and I don’t think I will ever shut up about it. It is such a beautiful book!!!!! If Kundera was still alive, I’d send him the longest and dearest of the letters, dedicating so much gratefulness for his creation of this transcendental piece of literature. I can’t even bring myself to say what it is about, because its about SO many things! It’s a book about life. That’s it. You follow the story of 6 different people and couples. He talks about the relationship humans have to living creatures, death, love, jealousy, missing, grief, despair, happiness, joy, disappointment, range, sadness, anger, communism, village life, city life, moving cities, the things love makes you do, and all of other types of paradoxes of life. Is the weight or the lightness negative? Which one is positive? Is it always that we can divide things like this? WHAT A FRICKING MASTER PIECE !!! A shame I didn’t read it earlier. Really. READ THIS! FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY!
CONTROVERSIAL! YES! And Humbert is one of the biggest monsters out there, just as the people who are like him. I would not read this book again, but NAbokov always knew what he was doing and managed to write beautiful prose. This book made me angry in so many ways, but I could not deny that the way it is written, is simply *chefs kiss*. The structure, its tone… descriptions, plot, story, character development… well… amazing! in this aspect. And in the end, art is supposed to create an impact! deliver a medium to reaction and provocation This definitely does.
I love you Pizarnik. That’s the only thing I have to say. I love you. The fact she existed and created, ceases my own existance.
‘The Danger of Being Crazy’ (is sort of the translation) – AND I ADORE YOU ROSA MONTERO!!!!!! TE AMO Y AGRADEZCO TU EXISTENCIA Y ACTO DE CREACIÓN!!!! This book is for all of those people who have always been, a little bit of the ‘weird’ ones, or the odd ones out. She writes about how this is something normal! To be the odd one out is normal and it means something! And well, besides that, she also talks about artists and their struggles with mental health, overall. This book felt like a massive hug and a kiss on the forehead.
Short book. Delivers. You know what is going to happen since the beginning, because Alejandro Zambra tells you immediately, but that doesn’t mean that what follows doesn’t impact the reader. First book I read of his, and I enjoyed it soooooo much. I read it during a sunny summer day in Berlin and <3<3<3<3<3<3 simply yes. Delivered. I like this guy. He must be cool irl. That's only my opinion tho!