From Bartoletti to Cardini, new releases in bookstores

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

Between the summer of 1870 and the spring of 1871—"the terrible year," as Victor Hugo famously called it—Paris faced two political and military disasters: first the siege by Prussian forces, then the experience of the Commune, repressed by the French army with bloody clashes in the streets of the city center. In the pages of "The Ruins of Paris," in bookstores with Rizzoli starting July 8, Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee reveals how the birth of the Impressionist movement was not a world of placid gardens and elegant water lilies, but those very tumultuous days.

Smee recounts the dramatic months of 1870-71 through the eyes of the leading figures of Impressionism: Manet, Morisot, and Degas, trapped in Paris during the siege; Renoir and Bazille, enlisted in regiments outside the capital; Monet and Pissarro, who fled the country just in time. And also Hugo, Gambetta, Baudelaire, Nadar, Zola—figures who intertwine politics, art, literature, and journalism in the dense intellectual landscape of a city in transformation—among bourgeois salons and barricades, hot air balloons, and works of art packed away to escape the Louvre.

And, at the heart of the story, a love story portrayed with touching precision: that of two artists—Édouard Manet, a militant republican and central figure of the avant-garde, and Berthe Morisot, the only woman to play a central role in the Impressionist group from the beginning—who choose to respond to the chaos with a silent revolution: reinventing painting to shape a new perspective on the world. Impressionism, in fact, preferring light, the present, and the transitory to the representation of the violence and ruins of its time, absorbs and sublimates the precariousness of the human condition. And it is precisely that sense of transience, reflected in the changing seasons and the impermanence of all things, that will become the movement's greatest contribution to the history of art.

What if today, instead of attempting to rebuild Europe, we were forced to reinvent it? To do so, it is important to know how many times, throughout history, this project has been imagined and reshaped. To know where and when the idea of a continent united by a common destiny was born. Europe, one of the richest and most culturally vibrant regions in the world, struggles to speak with one voice, to act as an autonomous entity in a global and competitive world. Yet, the idea of European unity has a long, complex history, marked by attempts, dreams, and failures. Franco Cardini and Sergio Valzania, in their essay "The Invention of a Continent," published by Mondadori in the Le Scie series, rigorously and clearly retrace the crucial moments in which attempts were made to achieve political and cultural cohesion on the continent. It begins with the Delian League and the legacy of classical Greece, tracing the golden age of the Roman Empire, Charlemagne's renovatio imperii, and the universalistic vision of Charles V, all the way to the Napoleonic project and the German unification led by Bismarck. Each attempt reveals tensions, potential, but also limitations and contradictions: linguistic, religious, and geopolitical differences that have made unity an ever-elusive goal.

This book doesn't simply recount what has been, but interrogates the present through the past. The paths begun and interrupted, the unfulfilled ambitions, the visions faded over time: all contribute to delineating the contours of a still-living possibility, of a Europe that must be reinvented as a homeland of free citizens, and not just a shared space. A lucid investigation that, driven by a strong civic passion, allows us to understand how the European dream was formed, and why today more than ever it is worth revisiting.

"Dog Is Love: Why Your Dog Can't Help But Love You" by Clive D.L. Wynne is now available in bookstores with Feltrinelli. What makes dogs unique in the non-human animal kingdom? How do we explain the special bond that unites us to our four-legged friends? And what aspects of our relationship with them do we misunderstand? Every dog lover knows these sensations: the touch of their moist noses, their warmth when they lie down next to us, the whines when they want to climb into bed. It truly seems as if our dogs love us. For years, scientists have resisted this conclusion, warning against attributing typically human relational characteristics to pets.

But now Clive Wynne, a pioneer in the study of canine behavior, has helped usher in a new era with his research: one in which the core of the dog-human relationship is no longer intelligence, perceptive abilities, or submission, but love. Drawing on cutting-edge studies conducted in his laboratory and others around the world, Wynne demonstrates that, from the muzzle and tail to the brain, hormones, and even DNA, affection is the quality that most defines dogs as a species and constitutes their very essence.

This scientific revolution is revealing far more than we ever imagined about the origins, behavior, needs, and hidden peculiarities of dogs. Intense and enlightening, "Dog Is Love" is essential reading for anyone who loves or has loved a dog, experiencing the wonder of being loved in return. Clive Wynne leads us to rethink the evolution and psychology of dogs and offers valuable new insights into how to best care for them.

Scottish author Alan Parks's "Gunner" arrives in bookstores from Bompiani. Former policeman Joseph Gunner returns from the French front to bomb-ravaged Glasgow with a leg and an eye that are no longer what they once were. His old boss, Drummond, convinces him to investigate a body found under the rubble. The victim turns out to be a German, mutilated to conceal his identity and bearing a curious resemblance to a high-ranking Nazi leader.

Between British secret service agents, old flames, hardened adversaries and new enemies, a morphine-addicted Gunner, faithful to his old, unyielding self, finds himself entangled in a far-reaching conspiracy involving actors near and far: among them his brother Victor, a conscientious objector and fervent communist, and Rudolph Hess, expected in Scotland for a meeting with British government emissaries that could change the course of the war.

Partly inspired by the true story of Hess's secret mission in England, Gunner is a novel centered on a character full of light and shadow, tired yet never defeated, and on a beloved old city, the Glasgow that Alan Parks also portrays (in a 1970s version) in the series dedicated to another policeman, Harry McCoy, awarded the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year, the Prix Mystère de la Critique and an Edgar Award.

Barbara Cagni's "The Dawn of Our Freedom," a novel inspired by true stories about the women of the Resistance, is now available from Fazi. Milan, September 8, 1943: the town comes to a halt as the armistice is announced. Even in the brothel run by Marilù, where there's never a day off, the girls emerge from their rooms and gather in silence in front of the radio, only to exclaim: "The war is over!" In reality, the most difficult phase of the conflict is about to begin, and it will be difficult to know who to truly trust. After years as a prostitute and little hope of escaping her condition, Marilù's goal has become to save her daughter Cecilia, whom she manages to have taken in to the countryside thanks to the connections of Venera, an art history student who lives alone and is slowly gaining self-awareness thanks to a love story as passionate as it is forbidden.

While Marilù resists, trying to keep the girls who work for her safe and helping the neighborhood partisans as best she can, Venera decides to join the Resistance to oppose the general situation alongside the women left behind in the city, tired of never having a voice. In a Milan exhausted by hunger and bombings, it is precisely these women, left alone, who band together and find strength among themselves. From factory workers to students, from the working classes to the bourgeoisie, they all have a common goal: to finally be free again.

A novel that refocuses attention on the female partisans who fought for freedom, reconstructing the years of the Resistance with precise and moving writing. "Each of them," the book reads, "had sought a space to think and reason for themselves. But it was a great effort, a battle without a rifle. Their only weapons, more or less, were silence, stubbornness, and a soul thirsting for freedom."

Laterza Publishing House is bringing to bookstores "The Great Nile" (Laterza) by Lorenzo Braccesi, former professor of Greek History at the Universities of Turin, Venice, and Padua. The Nile's allure is age-old. The mystery of this river, capable of crossing the desert and bringing life and fertility with its floods to a hostile environment, has fueled the myths and imagination of the ancient Egyptian civilization. With the decline of Pharaonic Egypt, successive foreign conquerors began searching for the source of this immense river, motivated by a desire for discovery and conquest.

First the Persians, two centuries later the Macedonians, then the Romans, and finally, briefly, the Palmyrenes: all the rulers of the day, or those who aspired to be, embarked on expeditions to the deserts of Nubia and the oases of the Upper Nile. The names of the protagonists of these adventures are absolutely prominent: from Cambyses to Alexander, from Ptolemy Philadelphus to Caesar, from Augustus to Germanicus, and finally, to Nero. A passion that would only be rekindled many centuries later, following Napoleon's expedition and the opening of the Suez Canal.

Behind these voyages and expeditions lay very real interests: the desire to control lucrative caravan routes, the intention to exploit the fantastic gold and precious stone deposits of the Nubian regions. But above all, a necessary accessory to their glory, the desire to reach destinations never before reached by anyone in a river exploration of the southern ecumene.

Guillaume Musso's "Central Park" will be on shelves starting July 15th. New York, Central Park. Alice, a Parisian police officer, wakes up on a bench, handcuffed to a stranger. Gabriel, a jazz musician from Boston, is as confused as she is. Neither of them knows how they ended up there. Alice remembers going out with friends on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Gabriel, however, claims to have played at a club in Dublin. No cell phone, no identification, just a bloody gun in Alice's jacket, inexplicably eight thousand kilometers from home. Thus begins a race against time amid hidden truths, forgotten secrets, and a web of deception that will take Gabriel and Alice far further than they ever imagined. Guillaume Musso leads the reader into a labyrinth of suspense and emotion, keeping us on the edge of our seats until the last page. A psychological thriller full of twists and turns, where nothing is as it seems and every single detail can become the key to solving the mystery.

Novel after novel, Musso has built a unique bond with his readers. Born in Antibes in 1974, he began writing after his studies and never stopped, even when he became an economics professor. His books, translated into 40 languages and adapted several times for film, have established him as one of the most important noir writers.

The epic tale of an almost otherworldly place, where the sun stays high in the sky for six months of the year and disappears into the icy expanse for another six. This is "The North Pole: The Story of an Obsession," the book by Norwegian explorer, mountaineer, and writer Erling Kagge, which Einaudi will release in bookstores starting July 15th.

Few places on Earth have always aroused the awe and fascination of 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 20th 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 captures the evocative silence, the glow, and the enchantment of a mythical place.

'North Pole: Story of an Obsession' is a book about a handful of visionaries who chased a magnificent dream, and about a magical yet fragile universe that is changing, perhaps forever.

The country's greatest sporting passion at its peak: the Italian national team. Journalist and writer Marino Bartoletti recounts it in "The History of Italian Football in 50 Portraits," published by Gallucci Editore on July 18. The book brings together unforgettable protagonists from all eras to celebrate the boundless allure of football.

Beloved sports journalist Marino Bartoletti, with his exceptional ability to translate passions and dreams into words, recounts the 50 Azzurri players who shaped the history of Italian and world football: an adventure filled with determination, elegance, tactics, strength, precision, and tenacity, from their pioneering beginnings in the early 20th century to their four sensational World Cup victories. A spectacular Italian epic enriched by the inspired illustrations of Mauro Mazzara.