First of all, I'd like to apologize on being constantly late on my entries. The subject has kind of lost its meaning since I hardly make it on time each week...
Reading a book, watching a movie and listening to an album each week is not a difficult task, it's reading a GOOD book, watching a GOOD movie AND listening to a GOOD band each week that makes it tough! I don't know if that's obvious for you but I do try to talk about artists/writers worth the try and not too extremely known unless when I feel like their fame could be some kind of a brake (I'm sure you know the title of many famous books you haven't read simply because 'everyone' knows about it already)

A book: Primo Levi, Se Questo È Un Uomo (If This Is A Man)
Many historians have been talking about concentration camps but shouldn't we rather (or at first) listen to the people who were actually in those camps? Isn't it the best way to have a more accurate insight of what it was, how it really was, and what a man could think in such situation?
The problem is that the remaining witnesses and the one who wrote about it are scarse... Primo Levi was one of them and his (autobiographic) novel is poignant. His description of what he saw is almost surgical, he makes a clear distinction between what he witnessed and what he was told then or later, and this only makes the book worth reading.
The tone also is important: Primo Levi doesn't use the victim lexical field, he doesn't look for pity, he doesn't look for understanding, he simply relates what he endured, what he saw and what he thought at that time.
Actually he goes beyond that: he tries to make us reflect on what life in a concentration camp like Auschwitz was and how men could turn into empty shells, acting (and treated) as cattle.
As for Art Spiegelman's Maus, you feel like you're getting in touch with the most objective source of information on the matter.

Music: Omar Sosa, Inside
I knew Omar Sosa's virtuosity in front of a piano, his somehow wild compositions and that is why I've been taken aback when listening to Inside.
The title is pretty well found since on this album the songs tend to remain calm, aerial and dreamy. The first song, Para Ella (For Her) gives you the chill after only three notes and the second song, The Boy Is Here, is confirming the orientation of the album. What is the third title? Muy Solo (Very Alone)... Do I have to say more?
If you're looking for a piano album all in reserve and delicacy, you'll certainly love this one!

A film: The Great Dictator
(No, my point was not to use the WW2 theme for this entry, it is pure coincidence!)
Charly Chaplin is often remembered dressed up in his "tramp" costume, jumping around and creating havoc but his acting and writing skills were going way beyond that. In The Great Dictator, he is playing two roles: a jew barber and a dictator 'oddly' resembling a darkly famous one...
The rise of violence toward jews, the hate speechs, the vacuity of their 'argumentation' and the birth of craziness in mankind are all very well rendered.
Because of their resemblance, the barber and the dictator will swap places giving the opportunity to the former to give a breath-taking speech (you can find it here [link] with a couple of other great quotes). And so is the movie considering the fact it was made in 1940!
For his first talking film, Chaplin not only did better than his fellow actors, managing the profound difference of acting between talking and silent movies, but he made a historic (I often wary the word but here I do find it proper) one!

Voilà for this week!

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Past weeks:
001: Don DeLillo, Americana / Grupa Palotaï, Minimyths / Elling
002: Sarah Kane, Complete plays / Nitin Sawhney, Prophesy / Irma La Douce
003: Donna Tartt, The Secret History / Craig Armstrong, As if to nothing / Singing in the rain
004: René Barjavel, La nuit des temps / Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Live at Juan Les Pins / Nousukausi
005: Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club / Avril, That horse must be starving / Annie Hall
006: Wladimir Kaminer, Russian disco / Elliott Smith, Either or / Hotaru No Haka
007: Michael Ende, Momo / Zero7, When it falls / Night On Earth
008: Mark Z. Danielewski, House of leaves / Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden / Les invasions barbares
009: Umberto Eco, Il Pendolo di Foucault / Archive, You all look the same to me / Pane e tulipani
010: Simon Singh, The last Fermat's Theorem / Black Heart Procession, 2 / Un coeur en hiver
011: John Kennedy Toole, A confederacy of dunces / Sigur Rós, Ágætis byrjun / Festen
012: Yves Simon, Le prochain amour / Múm, Loksins Erum Vid Engin / The Last Supper
013: Boris Vian, L'Automne à Pékin / Ben Folds Five, Whatever and Ever Amen / Garden State
014: Ian Pears, An instance of the fingerpost / 3 Fish - 3 Fish / A la folie, pas du tout
015: André Comte-Sponville, Le capitalisme est-il moral ? / Dead Can Dance, The serpent's egg / No Man's Land
016: Roland Barthes, Fragments d'un discours amoureux / Alice in Chains, Jar of Flies / Memento
017: Philippe Delerm, La Première Gorgée De Bière / Silje Nergaard - At First Light / Savrseni Krug
018: Svétoslav Minkov-Konstantin Konstantinov, The heart in the cardboard box / Ani DiFranco, Live in Japan / First $20 million is always the hardest
019: Alexandre Jardin, L'Ile Des Gauchers / Migala, Así duele un verano / Off The Map
020: Raymond Queneau, Zazie dans le métro / Disturbed, The Sickness / How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog