Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Stars & Stones

I’ve just enrolled in an Archaeoastronomy MOOC for the late-winter/early spring term.
I have a number of other MOOCs coming (the first starts tomorrow), but these are strictly professionally-oriented courses1.
The Archaeoastronomy thing is purely leisure oriented – but with an eye to my writing, and one to future Karavansara posts.

The fun thing is, the course is based in Milan, 80 kms from where I am sitting, and I am accessing its contents in English, through an international platform, from my home2.

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Archaeoastronomy, for the uninitiated, is that branch of archaeology that studies the astronomical relations of ancient structures, like Stonehenge, Cheops’ Pyramid or the Nazca lines. Continue reading →


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Translating The Builders

Daniel Polansky’s The Builders has been one of the best fantasy stories I read in the last two years.
It was only natural that when Acheron Books gave me a gig as editor for Zenobia, their new line of science fiction and fantasy stories in translation, The Builders was one of the first three titles I put on my list.

I am now happy to share with you this press release

We are excited to announce the Italian publication of the fantasy novel THE BUILDERS, by Daniel Polansky, Hugo Award 2016 finalist. Coming soon for Acheron Books (Zenobia series, translated by Davide Mana – cover in progress by Alberto Besi)

While we wait for the Italian cover, here is the original…

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… and now, back to translating.


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Forgotten explorer: Giacomo Bove

Paolo Conte, a jazzman from the hills of Astigianistan and therefore a neighbor of mine, in a way, wrote a song about the lure of the sea on the staid Piedmontese farmers that live in these lands. A sea that speaks of distant places that are at the same time scary and exciting. It’s called Genova per noi, and it’s not the subject of this post.
The subject of this post is a typical example of the lure of the sea on the Piedmontese peasantry in years past and, maybe, also today.

Fact is, you see, I’ve got a job, part-time and occasional: I write articles about little-known Piedmontese historical characters. Unsung heroes, adventurers, artists and explorers, people that contradicted with their example the cliché that wants the Piedmontese to be cheerless, stubborn peasants too busy working on their land to lift their gaze and watch the stars.
Here’s the story of one of my first subjects… Continue reading →


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Occult Detective Quarterly #1

… and talking about reading matter, I just got my copy of Occult Detective Quarterly, Issue #1, edited by Sam Gafford and John Linwood Grant and all I can say is, what a wonder.

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I backed the Kickstarter, and got my copy, and there’s my name in it. Great!

As you can imagine, the mag deals with occult detectives – and contrary to what some might expect, there are ample variety and diversity in the category: occult detectives come in all shapes and sizes, and Occult Detective Quarterly seems to be set to give its readers a fine sample. Continue reading →


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Clark & Carole

1070857Yesterday I gave myself a little gift – my new Italian indie ebook is doing decently, so why not? – and so I bought me a copy of the classic 1974 double biography by Warren G. Harris Gable & Lombard.
It was the proper thing to do, considering yesterday was the 75th anniversary of Lombard’s death, and the ebook edition is very cheap at 2.99.

I was initially skeptical about this book, being under the (wrong, it turned out) impression this biography was the basis for the unspeakably bad 1976 movie “Gable and Lombard”, by Sidney J. Furie.
51tjcsh9j0lApparently, the Furie movie had nothing to do with Harris’ book – not only in the sense that it had very little to do with Gable and Lombard in the first place but really, apart from the title, Furie and his team never even touched the biography. The movie is notoriously full of factual errors and gives a very poor image of the two stars, and it was savaged by, among others, Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael.

This biography will go back-to-back with the Thin Man collection of essays as my nightstand book: it’s gonna be a black & white, Old Hollywood sort of January.