“To follow the dream and again to follow the dream and so forever until the end” : Lord Jim's motto by Conrad, one of the guiding spirits of my youth, has been – and still is – one of my inspiring mottos. I dreamed of doing any job that would allow me to be among books and within books. The only one that had never crossed my mind was that of a publisher. Life is always surprising, or is it following dreams that leads us down unexpected paths and beyond expectations?
I did not know that Pippi Longstocking, the Moomins, Bibi, the fairy tales of Andersen, Asbjørnsen and Moe and Afanasiev, the entire fairy-tale and adventurous world of my childhood, would lead me to Tolkien, to the Edda, to the Sagas, to Ibsen, to Karen Blixen: to the North, to the North! to the mythical lands of the Hyperboreans and their heirs.
I did not know that reading is like eating: we forget what we eat and, alas, also what we read, but that food nourishes us within and does not leave us unscathed. Is reading an aesthetic or existential experience? Is it because for forty years I’ve been reading “to the North” that I tend to think that books change our lives?
Or is it so anyway? Happy to discuss it with you at the Nursery, a beautiful day in May, nourishing body, mind, soul, and friendship. Emilia Lodigiani
We will be wisely welcomed by Chiara Alpago Novello at 9:30 for breakfast with coffee, tea, all the good things to start the day well: cookies made with organic flours baked in a wood oven, local yogurt and cheeses, fruit jams from the garden, and whatever the awakening and the season inspire (for example, chiffon). At 12:30 light lunch, greetings, and a toast. In between, chats, questions, beautiful ideas. As much as you want.
