So goes the Amazon review: "In each of these 22 miniatures, the Italian author focuses on a particular emotion and illustrates it with a short (very short) story. Parise is a master of the luminous detail, whether he's zooming in on a meal, a kiss, or a thunderstorm. Yet the cumulative effect of these details is surprisingly powerful, and an object lesson to Parise's minimalist cousins in this country."
In the spaesamento¹ of my present life, all the collection of my books, circa 40+ cardboard boxes, is stranded in a self-storage ugly box somewhere in Milan, since I don't have and I don't intend to have a place of my own for a while. So this book of mine is there, with all the others, and I cannot check on it for this bookish page. I wish I could quote here some phrases from the stories I loved the most.
Doesn't matter. All Parise's books are fine books, but this one is a masterpiece. If you want to know what Italy was and could be, please read it. You also will have a glimpse of Parise's poetry skills. Of course this stories are not in poetry, but, it's like they were.

_{1. Spaesamento it's the feeling of disorientation that comes from being without oneself homeland, hometown, or just home.}