Happy book years 2024

As 2023 comes to an end, and hopping that all of you can take some time to rest and refuel with the family, let me share a few of my favorite recent readings, sometimes with some relevant lessons learned for our way of dealing with our life or our businesses 😉.

And you, what are yours ?

I wish all of you all the best for 2024, health, happiness, personal and professional successes, and pleasures in reading !

[Sorry that most are in French and probably not translated…]

1. Barbarossa, la guerre absolue, by Jean Lopez & Lasha Otkhmezuri. A masterpiece : this long and very detailed book describes both the strategy and the tactics, helicopter-view down to microscope, it goes from Hitler’s war guiding philosophy & preparation to the battles of this exceptional operation. Among other themes, I retained from this reading that this fantastic series of victories were based on German superiority vs. Soviet made of a unique blend of leading-edge technologies, talent of Wehrmacht generals, and maybe above all, autonomy of their officers (incl. “mid-management”) and priority given to speed in operations. In opposite, final Russian victory resulted on German’s logistics inability to cope with long-distances and the well-known Russian reservoir of people and ability to never stop fighting.

1. Erasme, by Stefan Zweig. A short portrait of the great humanist from Basel, the 1st true European citizen, in Zweig's crystal-writing. How he stayed firm in his thinking, promoting tolerance and doubt, curious of everything and wishing that most people can access knowledge and science through the recently invented printing. At a time when fanatism was growing in Europe, this is also the story of his growing confrontation with Martin Luther, that he finally decided to avoid. A must-read, and then take an inspiration to always pause and think before talk.

1. La vie de Liszt est un roman, by Zsolt Harsanyi. Because I am a fan of music and piano, therefore of Lizst. Let’s step back and discover the incredible life of the 1st music superstar of history. He was famous and acclaimed throughout the world, celebrated like a legend when he 1st came back in his native country thanks to the Hungarian rhapsodies. Met so many celebrities, starting with Beethoven as a kid, discovered and promoted Wagner against all establishment (and lost his daughter to the opera maestro), had many women but ended as a priest…Among other lessons for us : he travelled through Europe in a customized cart and with his piano, making transcripts of all famous music pieces (esp. operas) to allow European publics to discover them before disc-recording. Life with passions is worth living !

1. A ma sœur et unique, by Guy Boley. A beautifully-written novel on Fredrick Nietzsche’s sister, how she progressively took-over control of his life, writings and legacy when he became mad. A simple mind, she was all about fame, power and purity, and was ready to all treasons, dishonesties and compromissions to reign in hell – a true Shakespearean play, also with Wagner as a character. At the same time, reading the novel drives to acknowledge how Nietzsche’s philosophy deserves to be re-read and cleaned from all those scurries and add-ons that have made him what he is not, even with his “God is dead”.

1. Bomarzo by Manuel Mujica Lainez. This book is a meteorite, from an Argentinian writer (his only book ?) written in a baroque style. It tells the invented story of one duke of Bomarzo, the eponym Italian little town in middle of Lazio, where a fantastic “monster park” was built in the forest during Renaissance, mixing natural rocks with statues. We follow the duke Pierre Francesco Orsini, and he meets famous personalities incl. popes and kings, artists such as Michelangelo, Cervantes, and participates to Lepanto’s battle, Charles Quint’s coronation, etc. This book shows what imagination can create a fully realistic and credible parallel reality from an original material/dream, and also that imagination has enough strength to make a one-life-masterpiece artist.

1. La vengeance de Fanny, by Yaniv Iczkovits. This book from an Israeli author describes shtetls from old Europe, with their traditional life and economics, series of wars and pogroms, amidst Polish/Russian/Ukrainian powers - all in a general atmosphere of violences. It tells the story of a young woman whose husband has disappeared, and how she escapes traditions to go search for him, even herself using violence to a level others fear. It is a novel of woman’s empowerment and disobedience to rules when they are iniquitous and obsolete.

1. Les enfants de la Volga, by Gouzel Iakhina. I end with this one because Russian literature is usually my favorite. But here we have a young Russian author, with her own style but still with a clear link to traditional authors such as Dostoyevsky or Tolstoi. And we read the story – or the tale – of a man who retrenches from the world, deciding to avoid choosing between Good and Evil, focuses on simple things and lives within the powerful nature. And at the end love for children will save the world !