The City of the Living

The City of the Living: The True Story of Modern Rome’s Most Shocking Murder Book Review

ByLiteraria Luminaria

Nicola Lagioia’s The City of the Living is a literary true crime novel based on a 2016 murder with seemingly no motivation. An interesting story, I appreciated the lens that this case, and Rome, was viewed and analyzed through. This book is unique in the way the author interprets the concrete and the abstract—a tough thing to approach and balance, even more so given the context of real, and horrifying, events such as true crime . . . most especially a reprehensible murder.

Syndrome K: The Fake Disease that Saved Italian Jews from the Nazi Regime

Syndrome K: The Fake Disease that Saved Italian Jews from the Nazi Regime

ByLiteraria Luminaria

Syndrome K was a neurological illness “that began with convulsions and dementia and led to paralysis and death from asphyxia.” This ailment, which terrified the Nazi soldiers occupying the city, reportedly saved anywhere from 20 to over 100 Jews who were destined for the Auschwitz concentration camp. But how was this possible during an epidemic of such a lethal sickness?