With books at least, the best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for, but when something quite different finds you, takes you by surprise, shifts your tastes to new territory.

Italy is not a country for beginners.

More and more the writer is aware of an international community of readers for whom dense language use and frequent local references are a hindrance. This seems obvious. I don't decry it or criticize it - it's just a fact.

With books at least, the best experiences are not when you find what you were looking for, but when something quite different finds you, takes you by surprise, shifts your tastes to new territory.

Any time one seeks to produce for a larger public one inevitably has to drop material that would only be understood by a particular group.

If you want to appeal to people of different languages and cultures, you have to move toward tropes that are universally recognized. Games, references, subtleties that only work in your language are hardly useful.

Always read with a pen in your hands, not beside you on the table, but actually in your hand, ready, armed ... Put a question mark by everything you find suspect. Underline anything you really appreciate. Feel free to write 'splendid,' but also, 'I don't believe a word of it.' And even 'bullshit.'