Mouth to ear – Spring 2022
When a document challenges, amuses, transports or transforms, our librarians like to share it with you. This sharing is done through “word-of-mouth” bookmarks placed in the documents available on our different sites.
We’ve selected a few below to whet your appetite.
Books
The corpse of the 25th
Laurence Burger
Strange things are sometimes found in Monegasque bank vaults, but a corpse is rare! An investigation full of twists and turns begins between Monaco, Geneva, London and Miami to discover the identity of the unfortunate man and, above all, who could have given him a bank as a burial plot. Between high-flying schemes, corruption, shell companies and breathless chases, Laurence Burger takes us from hushed offices to bachelor pads, including the driving of all kinds of racing cars.
With her sharp, biting pen, she paints a cruel yet hilarious picture of Geneva’s high society… and a chilling picture of high finance. An addictive thriller, to be devoured like a packet of potato chips: without being able to let go of it until the last crumb.
Emmanuelle, Unithèque website
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
The factory of the gifted: dangers and deceptions of the intelligence market
Jérôme Pellissier
For all those who are fed up with IQ tests at the click of a button, and are reminded of the “high intellectual potential” behind all maladaptive behavior, this book takes a good look at the (in)validity of these 2-franc IQ tests.
Jeannette, Unithèque website
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
The border star
Alfred de Montesquiou
We all have our own ideas about war, and this book takes us, almost in spite of ourselves, to the heart of the Syrian conflict, in a photographer’s quest for identity. With him, we cross the border of our world to plunge into a universe where life paths are intimately linked to the history of each individual, to their inner flaws. There, differences are not always differences: alliances can be unnatural, and a sense of humanity can emerge where it is least expected. Reading this novel brings us intimately close to this reality, but the intensity of the experience can only be imagined.
When war becomes too dangerous, it becomes a spectacle: we observe it “outside ourselves”, our minds hovering a few centimetres above our bodies.
Carole, Unithèque website
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
Jim’s novel
Pierric Bailly
Magnificent and moving. Pierric Bailly’s sixth book takes us once again to the Jura, her region, both beautiful and rugged.
Aymeric lives on temporary jobs, always preferring a fixed-term contract to a permanent position. His real passion is photography, especially film. He meets Florence, pregnant by another man. Aymeric raises Jim, regarding him as his son. This child will become the meaning of his life, but one morning, the biological father reappears. One child, two fathers. A painful situation for everyone. This dazzling novel raises the question of filiation. How do we measure parenthood? Is a surrogate father a father?
Through its story and its style, Jim’s novel takes us on a journey through multiple emotions that question our very humanity.
Patricia, Riponne site
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
No sleep
Marie Darrieussecq
Marie Darrieussecq has been an insomniac for over twenty years, ever since the birth of her first child. She takes us on a journey into the depths of her nocturnal abysses, not without a healthy dose of self-mockery, and invites the famous insomniacs of literary history (Kafka, Perec, Duras, Proust, Woolf…) to join her in declaring her passionate love for them. Sleep amputees for whom the interminable awakenings of the night were a source of infinite inspiration.
A “collage” book, neither novel, nor autobiography, nor essay, nor travelogue, but all at once and much more. An intimate and disturbing investigation into the disappearance of sleep and the ghosts that sometimes take its place. A book that made me want to continue not sleeping.
Caroline, Riponne site
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
To date
Yves Rosset
“Another intimate, messy book that almost no one will read” (p.142).
I immersed myself in this outpouring of notes, quotations and analysis of images seen in newspapers or noticed on the internet, and strangely enough I couldn’t resist the fascination that quickly seized me. An inhabited text! You might think you’ve lost your way, but a common thread runs through these chronicles: Yves Rosset’s observation of the disintegration of our society, enamelled with the very material of his personal life. A back-and-forth between the singular and the general. This seems to me to be a powerful way of being in the world by observing it!
Yves Rosset was born in Lausanne in 1965. He has lived in Berlin since 1990.
Patricia, Riponne site
Malatraix
Emanuelle Robert
The Vaud Pre-Alps have never been as threatening as in Emmanuelle Robert’s first novel. A serial killer, motivated by a desire to cleanse the mountains of the trail runners he considers parasites, brings back wounds from the past.
In the wake of the death of Catherine, one of the serial killer’s trailing victims, a whole cast of characters becomes entangled and entangled in this novel, whose geographical context brings us even closer to the best and worst of human beings. Written in the midst of a health crisis, this novel is as relevant in its topicality as it is original in its treatment of its literary genre.
At the moment, French-speaking thrillers are all the rage, and Malatraix will give you a good reason to immerse yourself in our local landscapes and mysteries…
Myriam, Riponne site
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
Mordicus: let’s not lose our Latin!
Robert Delord
Latin is useless. Its teaching is elitist. Nonsense! Classics teacher Robert Delord (“Arrête Ton Char!”) takes issue with these prejudices. After chapters depicting the situation in France, he vigorously defends the benefits of teaching the language of Ovid and Cicero.
I don’t want to go back over the contribution that teaching Latin has made to our mastery of the French language, but rather the many testimonials to the influence of Latin and Antiquity on our contemporary civilization: the political system, cinema, video games, comic strips…
But more than anything else, I was deeply moved by the argument that Latin is a factor for integration! Here’s a branch where every child starts from scratch and can show off all his or her intellectual abilities, whatever their social background. Vale!
Evelyne, Unithèque website
To the very last
Finbar Hawkins
This story is a plunge into witch-hunting England. The author’s pen takes us on an easy journey through this dark, heavy era, where danger lurks in every breath of wind.
The witches helped overthrow the King. But the men want to hide their contribution from the eyes of the people and the world. It’s time for indiscriminate hunting and slaughter. With or without trial. Just because they’re women. Just because they’re different. Just because men don’t want to admit they used magic to win.
The murder of a mother, the revenge of her descendants. “Soon you’ll be on your knees before me, begging my forgiveness, which you won’t get…”
Elodie, Riponne site
Music
The biggest steps
Gauthier Toux
This album by Franco-Swiss pianist Gauthier Toux is a magnificent discovery! Favoring the trio formula with double bass (Simon Tailleu) and drums (Maxence Sibille), he introduces us to a rich sonic universe far removed from classical forms. The musicians simultaneously alternate melodic and rhythmic sequences, each finding his or her place naturally. The result is a feeling of “near-perfect triangularity”, or at least of a solid, rooted realization.
Suzanne, Riponne site
