From the Via Poma mystery to Einstein's windshield, new releases in bookstores

Here's a selection of new releases in bookstores, including novels, essays, investigative books, and reports, presented this week by AdnKronos.

Erling Kagge's "North Pole" is now available in bookstores with Einaudi . Few places on Earth have always aroused the same awe and fascination as the North Pole. For millennia, from Herodotus onward, travelers, cartographers, and scientists have pondered the planet's northernmost point. And it was only with the first, legendary expeditions led by Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Peary in the early twentieth century that many mysteries were solved. Erling Kagge, who reached the North Pole on foot in the spring of 1990, reconstructs the major explorations among the ice and restores the evocative silence, the glow, and the enchantment of a mythical place. "North Pole: The Story of an Obsession" is a book about that handful of visionaries who chased a magnificent dream and about a magical yet fragile universe that is changing, perhaps forever.

'Einstein's Windshield' by Gianluca Dotti

From Solferino comes "Einstein's Windshield" by journalist, physicist, and popularizer Gianluca Dotti. How do you choose the "fastest" line? How do you ride the subway without losing your balance and falling? Is it really possible to predict the weather? Our lives are full of moments when the right strategy could help us avoid a problem, or solve it with less effort. And sure, knowing physics isn't essential to choose this strategy, but it helps. The laws that govern the universe may seem bigger than us, but in reality they're all around us, ready to be used to our advantage. Thanks to them, we can win the eternal battle against time to defrost the windshield without damaging it on a winter morning. We'll know how to best load the trunk without compromising the stability of the car (and without finding ourselves traveling with twelve "unfit" bags cluttering the passenger compartment).

And if we decide to become Olympic freestyle champions, it would be useful to know that the optimal distance between our fingers while swimming should be 8 mm. Of course, even to build a pyramid, or to harness the energy of the sun, water, and wind, it would be best to take into account some tricks of physics. But what if we just needed to figure out whether an egg was fresh or not? Easy, Archimedes' principle will help.

This entertaining, informative, and accessible book explores the many ways in which physics comes to us every day—even when we use a smartphone or open a can of soda. And if anything remains unclear, we can always ask our cat: because even animals, with the ingenious characteristics with which nature has endowed them to adapt to its laws, are remarkable physical talents.

'The Song of Humility' by Giulio Busi

Mondadori will publish "The Canticle of Humility," the latest work by philologist and essayist Giulio Busi, on August 26. Illiterate, naive, and a dreamer, Francis of Assisi is the "saint" par excellence. But he is also, in the common opinion, a figure outside of history, relegated to the realm of mysticism and utopia. Why, then, did the Church decide to raise him to the altars just two years after his death, after one of the shortest canonization processes in the millennia of Christianity? Was Francis a rebel and anti-establishment figure, or a docile instrument in the hands of ecclesiastical power? Giulio Busi examines the chronicles of the time, delves into the boundless sea of hagiography, and then paints a unique Francis, vigorous, at times gentle, more often provocative and uncompromising.

When forced, he knows how to obey and accept authority. But it's a choice that costs him, and from which, each time, he sets out again to pursue the truth. While society around him discovers, and suffers from, the economy of market and profit, Francis welcomes lepers, joins the beggars, and claims a place among the least. In the early days, the right-thinking mocked him, considering him a madman. Meanwhile, however, his charisma attracts more and more followers. In the spring of 1212, Clare of Assisi, a noblewoman by birth, leaves her possessions and her sumptuous family home to follow Francis's example. It is the beginning of a spiritual harmony that will last a lifetime.

The "brothers" who had begun to gather around the Poverello were joined by the "younger sisters," inspired by Clare. Within a few years, the movement's success was overwhelming. And the founder's doubts became increasingly anguished. The Church needed a strong, efficient, and solid Franciscan Order. But would he be able to defend poverty and humility, maintain the simplicity of his origins? At the end of his life, so brief and intense, Francis was ill and disillusioned. He seemed defeated, but in his darkest hour he dictated the Canticle of Brother Sun, a splendid, joyful beginning to Italian literature. Thanksgiving is the opening, a hymn the conclusion. Francis knew it, he always knew it. There is one source, creation has a single purpose. And now his Canticle is free to travel the vast world. May pain go with him, and praise spread with him.

'The Intrigue of Via Poma' by Gian Paolo Pelizzaro and Giacomo Galanti

Via Poma. Two words. And a photo from the 1990s comes to mind. There's a young woman on the beach in a white one-piece swimsuit. Her name is Simonetta Cesaroni. On August 7, 1990, she was murdered in Rome in the office where she went twice a week, in the afternoon, to enter her accounts on the computer. The case—which is covered in "The Intrigue of Via Poma" ( Baldini+Castoldi ) by Gian Paolo Pelizzaro and Giacomo Galanti—is still unsolved. On December 19, 2024, the murder returned to the headlines after the preliminary investigations judge decided to continue the investigation, rejecting the prosecutor's request for a dismissal. The key details of the crime that the judge highlighted in her order had already been detailed in a book by journalist Gian Paolo Pelizzaro—titled "The Intrigue"—ready for publication and acquired by the then magistrate on October 31, 1996.

But that investigation was suddenly shelved, and the documents at the heart of Pelizzaro's book were disappeared. It was another journalist, Giacomo Galanti, who rediscovered the manuscript of that book while searching for documents for the podcast "The Shadows of Via Poma" in 2020. This is not only the story of one of the most famous murders in postwar crime and judicial reporting, but of a specific historical moment that saw the twilight of the First Republic and some of its key figures closely intersect with this story. It is the story of a previously untold behind-the-scenes story, of unpublished documents, and of a lost book. A story that has once again become forcefully relevant.

'Broken Moonlight' by Mariachiara Lobefaro

'Broken Moonlight' by Mariachiara Lobefaro is on the shelves with Gallucci . At the heart of the book, two tormented hearts, the allure and mystery of Hong Kong: a romance that leaves its mark. Sixteen-year-old Vicky Middleton has just moved to the frenetic metropolis of Hong Kong. Her meeting with Sean Lau—almond-shaped eyes and jet-black hair—is love at first sight. Charming and mysterious, Sean reveals his secret: the God of War has placed a curse on him, transforming him forever into a creature of the night. The only chance for salvation, according to the necromancer Fang-Shi, is to find an ancient artifact, lost two centuries earlier. Love drives Vicky to offer her unconditional help, provided Sean tells her the whole truth. "For a moment," the author recounts, "Vicky felt truly small, in that unfamiliar city, in a universe that had just revealed itself to be equally unfamiliar to her. Sean held out an inked hand, and she took it. 'Okay. Take me wherever you want.'"

'The Game of History' by Philip Kerr

Fazi publishes "The Game of History" by Philip Kerr. It's 1954, and the colorful atmosphere of Havana is shattered by violent police repression against dissidents to the Batista regime. Bernie Gunther, living in Cuba under a false identity, has won a boat at the gambling table and is preparing to leave the island for Haiti. With him is the young Melba, a revolutionary prostitute wanted for the murder of a policeman. When the two are stopped on the high seas by the U.S. Navy, Bernie is arrested and taken to New York, into the custody of CIA agents Silverman and Earp, who accuse him of being a "Nazi bastard."

From there, he will be taken to Germany, to Landsberg Prison, to cell number 7, the same one in which Hitler was locked up after the Munich Putsch and where he wrote Mein Kampf. In that suffocating space, haunted by the ghosts of the past, Gunther retraces his actions during the war years, answering the intense questions of the secret services and trying to recall events that no longer seem so clear: although he has always been anti-Nazi, his conduct has often been questionable. The line between reality and fiction becomes increasingly blurred, and keeping one's nerve is not easy. Bernie Gunther knows that telling the truth is not always the right solution if you want to save your skin, so he will have to carefully choose which cards to play in this new game at the table of history: his very life is at stake.

Once again, Philip Kerr—the publishing house emphasizes—writes a novel packed with action and wit: sardonic, written by a highly skilled pen and with a perfectly orchestrated plot, The Game of History, previously unpublished in our country, is ready to conquer Italian readers.

Graham Greene's 'Confidential Mission'

Sellerio brings back to the bookstores "Confidential Mission," one of Graham Greene's finest "entertainments," following in the footsteps of spy stories like "The Istanbul Train" and "A Gun for Sale," a thriller peppered with unexpected twists and desperate actions. D. is a secret agent on a mission to London. He comes from a country ravaged by civil war. Sent by the legitimate government, he is forced to act as the weaker side because the coup plotters, it is understood, have powerful backing. He is in London to secure a coal supply that the republican government needs more than tanks. He brings with him secret documents with which to introduce himself to a group of extremely wealthy businessmen.

His enemies—visible and invisible—do everything they can to prevent him, but the republican strategy soon becomes ambiguous, mysteriously twisted: D. is drawn into an endless web of intrigue and corruption, involving especially those he should trust most. The only person who is truly his friend is the most unlikely: the very young, capricious Rose. Besides, D. is not a true secret agent himself, either by profession or by vocation. He is a middle-aged professor of Romance languages, with a tragic past, aware that the leaders he fights for are not immune from guilt and misdeeds.

Dario Ferrari wrote in his note that D. "seems to be the predestined victim of the ferocious climate of war and espionage, but instead ends up becoming the hunter, precisely because of a profound sense of justice and an unwillingness to accept the atrocious consequences of war." Graham Greene wrote the novel in 1939, during the wartime climate of the Second World War. But the power with which the author draws us into that world of psychological insecurity and ethical dilemmas stems from a narratively perfect combination of factors: the couple of protagonists, D. and the young Rose, bearer of all the ambiguity of love, and above all the anti-epic banality of the world of spies, which is the turning point Greene gave to 'Confidential Mission' where "war, feelings, desire, and fear are present from the first page, and remain in the balance until the last page," writes Domenico Scarpa in the afterword.

'The Lost Soul of Israel' by Tahar Ben Jelloun

Tahar Ben Jelloun, author of "The Lost Soul of Israel," a book out with La Nave di Teseo at the end of August, retraces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The author highlights the responsibilities of both sides, but in the face of Israel's military response following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, he doesn't hesitate to use the term genocide. He criticizes a war fueled by Netanyahu's personal interests and obsession with the annihilation of the Palestinian people, which has led to the Israeli Prime Minister's conviction by the International Criminal Court.

With passion and searing arguments, Ben Jelloun denounces the complicit silence of many European countries and calls for a distinction between criticism of Zionism and anti-Semitism, a word too often used to silence voices of protest. We cannot remain silent in the face of these crimes, he reminds us, because the spiral of hatred generated by this war could have grave consequences. Translated by Anna Maria Lorusso.

"Like Salt on Your Skin" by Anna Pavignano

Alba, late 19th century. On a night shaken by thunder and lightning, little Camilla ventures out of her home in a desperate search for her parents and siblings. In the midst of the storm, a horse-drawn omnibus, running far behind schedule, overturns her. Thus begins "Come sale sulla pelle," the novel by Anna Pavignano published by Piemme .

She survives, but the infection progresses, and doctors ask for permission to amputate her leg. Her mother opposes it, fearing her daughter will become a half-woman. Her father, however, chooses life above all else and authorizes the operation. Years later, Camilla has learned to tolerate the village ignorance and the burden of the nickname they have sewn onto her: the lame one. At a party, relegated to the sidelines like a wallflower, she meets Felice, a medical student in Turin, gifted with a sharp intelligence and a kind soul.

He is the first to see the beauty and strength of the girl with the wooden leg. A passionate and stubborn love blossoms between them, challenging convention and the mistrust of their families. Their story is destined to face harsh trials: for love, Felice gives up her studies and seeks work in the salt mines of Aigues-Mortes, France, where Italian emigrants, unwelcome to the locals, are swept away by the fury of violence. With sensitive prose and the wit of a master storyteller, Anna Pavignano delves into the most intimate depths of her protagonists, creating a powerful and vivid historical portrait inhabited by authentic, fragile, and extraordinarily human figures.

'The Nettle Rule' by Nunzia Scalzo

Nunzia Scalzo's "Le regole dell'ortica" (The Nettle Rules) is available in bookstores with Feltrinelli . Catania, 1965. Young Norma Speranza is rushed to the hospital by her husband and the doorman in serious condition and dies shortly thereafter. She shot herself in the living room with a rifle, or at least that's what the investigation concludes, although many doubts remain about the manner of the act and the motive. A note found next to the body confirms the suicide hypothesis: "Everything is destroyed and I'm killing myself." However, the family is convinced it was murder, and that the note was crafted to provide an alibi for the killer.

Sixty years later, Norma's granddaughter commissions Bea Navarra, an intuitive, stubborn, and unconventional forensic graphologist, to analyze the note once again. Was it suicide or murder? Through the firsthand accounts of each individual involved in the cold case—including the couple's relatives, the building's doormen, her friend Evelina, her husband Andrea—and thanks to the investigation of Bea and her friend and journalist Domenico Grimaldi, the dynamics of the death are pieced together.

Nunzia Scalzo, a forensic graphologist like her protagonist, leads the reader on a journey of discovery through a profession that deciphers handwriting, while simultaneously exploring the secrets we unknowingly reveal about ourselves. Secrets that Bea Navarra would call motives. A thriller in which every voice conceals a scandal—domestic, sexual, criminal—adds clues and misleads, offering its own vision of the world, where the world is the "high-class Catania" of the 1960s.