Poet in New York - Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca died young, at the beginning of the Spanish civil war, probably killed by the falangists, either for being homosexual or socialist or both, or else for more private reasons. Nobody knows for sure.
A few years earlier, between 1929 and 1930, he traveled to the American continent, spending time in New York, Vermont and finally in Cuba, before returning to Europe. He managed to witness the '29 Wall Street crisis, therefore experiencing both the excesses that predated it and the desperate times that followed it. He wrote this collection of poems during those months.

The Ides of March (Idi di marzo) - Valerio Massimo Manfredi

I knew about the topic of this book from my high school years. I don’t know how many times I had to translate some of Caesar’s and Cicero’s passages as part of my Latin classes. Yet, reading Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s version of the events that lead to Caesar’s assassination - enriched by details, characters’ insights and cultural references - was a real pleasure.
As usual, Manfredi’s books combine the competence of an expert and the skills of a talented novelist. A good way to learn history, especially if you are not keen on reading specialized textbooks.
The story: Caius Julius Caesar has recently pacified the state.

Thus bad begins (Así empieza lo malo) - Javier Marías

In this novel Javier Marías makes use of a literary technique that has been employed in the past by some very famous colleagues of him: Francis Scott Fitzgerald (The great Gatsby) and Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany's), just to name a few.

The main character, with whom the readers become very acquainted as the story unfolds, is actually just a proxy through which the author tells his story: he acts as a mere narrator and has little or no impact on the plot, besides observing and relaying, of course. On top of that the plot itself is not particularly engaging or original. Why did you read the book then? Or why are you recommending it? You’ll be asking. Because the plot is not necessarily what makes a book a good book.

Wild swans: three daughters of China - Jung Chang

This novel reminds me of great family sagas such as War and Peace, One hundred years of solitude or The house of the spirits, where the authors tell the history of their respective countries over many decades through the vicissitudes of a few generations of one or more families.

Jung Chang recounts the history of twentieth century China while writing the biographies of three women: her grandmother, her mum and herself.