WAIT FOR ME AT CAFFÈ NAPOLI

WAIT FOR ME AT CAFFÈ NAPOLI

Aug 24, 2025 | BOOKS

Wait for me at Caffè Napoli by Chiara Gily published by Mondadori: I sincerely thank my aunt and uncle for this gift, which could not have been more thoughtful!

Discovering that Caffè Napoli is not actually a café was the gateway to learning so much about Naples through the eyes and experiences of the protagonists of a story that reminds us that life takes away, yet despite bitter surprises, it also give in other ways.

The protagonist has Neapolitan origins but lives in Trieste as does the author, Chiara Gily, who writes a column in Il Piccolo: A Neapolitan in Trieste.

However, there are no further similarities between Lidia and Chiara; this is not an autobiography.

Wait for me at Caffè Napoli tells a story of sisterhood and friendship,  emphasising second chances.

Has life ever given you a second chance?

Or perhaps you have given one to someone else?

Wait for me at Caffè Napoli also tells of second chances in relation to objects.

Wait for me at Caffè Napoli talks about second chances, even when it comes to objects.

Since we last chatted about reuse, a lot has changed, and unfortunately many more shops disappeared. Is there a particular shop you’d like to tell me about?

Chiara takes readers to Via Caravita to enjoy coffee in a second-hand shop. Don’t you think that’s fantastic?

#pausaca by Paola Iezzi

#pausaca by Paola Iezzi

Aug 17, 2025 | A COFFEE WITH, MUSIC, WOMEN

#pausaca is Paola Iezzi‘s coffee break hashtag.

#pausaca is pausa = break and ca = coffee without the last three letters, but it lacks nothing, quite the contrary!

It’s the kind of coffee break long-awaited, when you are deeply in need to stop, the kind of break representing a well-deserved reward.

Coffee that is desired, necessary, therapeutic.

With this in mind, it all happened one day a year ago or perhaps more, when Paola decided to share a photo of a coffee she drank with the mood “ah! Finally!”.

What word do you usually use to express the concept “ah! Finally” with the maximum reinforcing sense?

The expression used by Paola is now well known and has climbed the rankings of examples where the use of a comma makes a definite difference.

She wrote pausa cazzo and cazzo is the corresponding of dick.

But since then, Paola’s coffee breaks have become an unmissable and impertinent moment: they are pauseca.

Here she herself cites the origin…

#pausaca di Paola Iezzi#pausaca di Paola Iezzi

Do you always put commas in the right place?

How do you behave in the event of a gaffe?

Do you play it cool and “play dead”, or do you make light of it because laughing is always better?

Paola created a trend without a comma: it’s a short step from pausaca to pausaqueen.

MY LOVE DOES NOT DIE

MY LOVE DOES NOT DIE

Aug 10, 2025 | BOOKS, PENDING COFFEE FOR, WOMEN

My love does not die is a book written by Roberto Saviano about the story of Rossella Casini, which I read thanks to Monica.

The origin of the title My love does not die is explained in the book, but it is surely the story of a love that is both disruptive and unavoidable.

Rossella Casini is a name that in itself inspires sympathy. Rossella is Tuscan, from Florence, a city of art where the struggles between the Guelphs and Ghibellines belong to ancient history.

It is the end of the 1970s, when heroin begins to take the lives of young people. Years of political struggles and cultural ferment.

1977: the year the first Star Wars is released, the Pompidou Centre is inaugurated in Paris, Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland form The Police, and David Bowie records Heroes in Berlin.

Rossella and Francesco are university students but do not attend the same faculty: fate brings Francesco right in front of Rossella’s house.

As in fairy tales, everything seems perfect, and at this point it remains to understand whether love really makes you blind and deaf, but love surely makes you strong.

With this strength, but alone against a sick world, Rossella follows Francesco to Calabria, despite his family turning out to be a ‘ndrina.

With this strength, Rossella even manages to convince Francesco to collaborate with the justice system, together with her.

But Francesco ends up in prison and his imprisonment somehow breaks their union, allowing the affiliation to prevail.

On 22 February 1981, Rossella is in Palmi, planning to return to Florence, but she disappears into thin air.

A nothingness that lasted 13 years. A nothingness during which her mother dies. A nothingness that swallows everything about her, literally.

Look closely at the photo on the cover of the book: that is the only image of Rossella.

The only image.

In an age when we fill our mobile phones with photographs, it took the intuition of a group of journalists to find Rossella’s face, which they recovered through her enrolment in the faculty of psychology.

I am grateful to them, to the Libera association, which works to keep Rossella’s voice alive, and I am grateful to everything that honours her memory, such as the school: Istituto Comprensivo Rossella Casini. 

Rossella’s love does not die, and neither should her legacy.

 

THE FORGOTTEN ON SUNDAY

THE FORGOTTEN ON SUNDAY

Jul 26, 2025 | BOOKS

The forgotten on Sunday in Italy is publised as The notebook of lost love and is the first book written by Valérie Perrin. 

I read it last, and I thank Valérie and her Mum.

After the other three:

Fresh water for flowers 

Three 

Tatà 

I was really curious to discover the debut that has received so much acclaim.

Have you ever done anything the other way round?

It was a bit like closing the circle, but at the same time it was also the discovery of the origin, of how and where the other books were born.

The forgotten on Sundays contains topics that Valérie Perrin holds particularly close to her heart.

Abandoned animals.

Letters. 

Retirement homes and the elderly.

I have often found myself counting the damage from translating film titles, with outrageously disastrous examples such as “if you leave me I’ll delete you” instead of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, would you like to go on with more examples yourself?

It happened less with books, but maybe you will prove me wrong about that, right?

Valérie Perrin told in an interview that Mal di pietre Sick of stones by Milena Agus was essential reading for her: if she had not read it, she would not have written The forgotten on Sunday.

A very intense inspiration indeed.

What sparked such inspiration in you?

THREE SOULS

THREE SOULS

Jul 19, 2025 | A COFFEE WITH, WOMEN, MUSIC, MUSIC, ROCK, ROCK, A COFFEE WITH, WOMEN

Tre Anime Three souls is Carmen Consoli‘s new artistic project. 

The Cantantessa described the genesis and concept of these Three Souls on Instagram

One of the things around which I find myself reflecting more and more often is time. 

Many times we have found ourselves exchanging our reflections on time even here over our virtual cafés.

I continue to believe in and practise slowness and following the rhythms set by Nature to choose and be happy. 

Slowness. A luxury even.

If you can, do you practise slowness?
Do you like to slow down?

Or perhaps you like to organise a thousand things on the wave of ‘he who has time, waits for no time?’

Carmen also emphasises the use of Artificial Intelligence: why delegate our lives to machines?

What do we do with all this time gained because it is not lived?

In fact, very often we fall into the paradox: the acceleration of processes thanks to technology generally does not lead us to have more time for ourselves, but to find ourselves with more things to do. Do you agree?

Beyond speeches or declarations, to be fair, Carmen Consoli seems to live out of time.

Her bio boasts a very long list of awards, accolades, collaborations, yet she always manages to appear measured, always in the right place, with refined musical taste and more.

Elegant? No: True artist.

Artist who found inspiration in Quintus Ennius who spoke and wrote in three languages saying he had three hearts.

From three hearts to three souls:

Sicilian culture soul
Rock soul
Songwriting soul narrative

Sicilian as Nina: first woman poet in Italian literary history.

As you well know I always value the use of dialects. 

Rock like experimenting with his father’s Gibson, in the years of radiant Catania when R.E.M. opened the world tour in Catania with openings by the very young Radiohead.

Rock! Ça va sans dire …

Songwriter like La Cantantessa who gave us precious songs like Contessa Miseria from Mediamente Isterica.

Not surprisingly, time also appears in one of its facets in the lyrics of this song.

Confused and Happy, Butter Words, Orange Blossoms, The Last Kiss, In Black and White, do you continue with your favorite?

And what Souls are you?

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