Reviews

El sistema periódico by Primo Levi

kat2's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.75

This book of essays, each named for an element, tells stories of a at Levi’s life as a chemist. Woven through is the story of WWII, from the rise of fascism in Italy through the war’s long after effects. Funny, evocative and memorable. My favorite, “Chromium,” includes an account of how he started writing after the war—from a chaotic outpouring of storytelling to the lucid building of a book that helped him live again. The book’s epigraph is a a Yiddish proverb: Troubles overcome are good to tell. Yes.

rosiemc's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.75

lean_bean's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

apleiades17's review against another edition

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4.0

“I will understand this, too, I will understand everything, but not the way they want me to. I will find a shortcut, I will make a lock-pick, I will push open the doors.”

carmine1802's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

merchantivory's review against another edition

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4.0

today i know it is a hopeless task to try and dress a man in words, make him live again on the printed page, especially a man like sandro. he was not the sort of person you can tell stories about, nor to whom one erects monuments — he who laughed at all monuments. he lived completely in his deeds, and when they were over nothing of him remains - nothing but words, precisely. 

tchaikovskys_ghost's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

chloeliana's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

clemmyrose's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.75

breadandmushrooms's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

4.25