Mouth to ear – summer 2025
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
Reader, stay with us!
Maryanne Wolf
This book is a real plea for “deep reading” on paper. Without castigating technology, the author warns against its ease, its illusions and its impact on brain construction.
Let’s read! Let’s keep reading, to ensure critical thinking, to ensure the empathy we need and to keep populism at bay. Our brains literally need it.
It’s time to light a fire, a real one or the ones on YouTube, have your best coffee, your “beautiful” blanket from Grandma… and a good book.
Christophe, Riponne site
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
Recognizing fascism
Umberto Eco
Reprinted many times over, this little book is frighteningly relevant today, especially today.
Born in 1932, Umberto Eco grew up under Mussolini’s dictatorship. This text, adapted from a speech he gave at Columbia University, looks back on his personal experience, and lists, in fourteen points, the warning signs that herald a state’s slide towards fascist dictatorship. According to Eco, all these signs together cannot be organized into a system, as many of them contradict each other. But it only takes one for fascism to materialize. Democratic societies are not immune to the return of fascism,” he says, warning us against the innocent mask that fascism will use to return to power. An imperative rereading, a civic exercise.
Patricia, Riponne site
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
Winter warriors
Olivier Norek
Olivier Norek’s razor-sharp pen tells the story of modern-day Goliath versus David, of little Finland versus giant Russia. A conflict born of a megalomaniac dictator’s desire for conquest, set against the backdrop of the snowy forests and unforgiving temperatures of the north. It’s against this backdrop that the author takes the reader right up close to the main players in the story, from the war general to the Finnish volunteer nurses, and in particular to the heart of the 6th Company, which operated under the orders of the “Terror of Morocco”.
It was under this atypical captain that Simo Häyhä, whose destiny could have been ordinary, distinguished himself and became one of the best snipers known today. A moving novel in its cruelty and humanity, whose events echo frighteningly with the current Russo-Ukrainian war. A perfect example of Karl Marx’s quote: “He who does not know his history is condemned to relive it”.
Maëlle, Riponne site
Borrow paper books / large-print books / audio books / digital audio books
To cross the mountains and be born here
Marie Pavlenko
From one day to the next, her husband and sons are gone. Faced with this brutal tragedy, Astrid was devastated and left everything behind. She took refuge in the Mercantour mountains, in a house she had bought without even visiting it.
Soraya has also lost everything. She had to flee Syria after a long and dangerous journey. Along the way, she met some unfortunate people, but now a life is growing inside her. After crossing the highest peaks, she finally arrives in the country that could perhaps offer her a future: France.
These two women, each trapped in their own pain, meet, gradually tame and help each other.
Marie Pavlenko brings us a magnificent story of mourning and exile. With subjects like these, she skilfully avoids the trap of emotional overload and delivers a delicate, beautiful novel.
Marie, HEP site
Borrow paper books / digital books / digital audio books
The children of Sainte Marguerite
Ante Tomić
A happy reunion with Ante Tomić. Where we are once again taken in by his talents as a witty and mischievous storyteller. Where we are taken to a Dalmatian island under the patronage of Saint Marguerite, patron saint of infertile couples, about to be celebrated with procession and fanfare.
In this crazy island chronicle, we meet a gallery of funny, colorful characters, full of humanity. You’ll meet a couple in search of children, a ruined businessman, a jealous husband, an eternally seductive philosophy teacher, a policeman who rents out his cells to passing tourists, a young illegal Syrian immigrant and his ćevapčićis, of which even Jesus ate ten with onions during the Last Supper and …a bawdy donkey.
If you enjoyed this read, you’re sure to like Miracle à la Combe aux aspics by the same author. This is not algorithmic advice!
Patricia, Riponne site
Borrowing paper / digitalbooks
Manabé Shima
Florent Chavouet
Discover Manabé Shima, a small Japanese island as modest as it is fascinating, through the curious and mischievous eyes of Florent Chavouet. With his unique style of richly illustrated illustrations and humor, the author immerses us in the island’s daily life of funny encounters, chatty fishermen and singular traditions.
Every page is packed with delightful details, somewhere between real-life poetry and an atypical travel diary. An exotic, funny and touching comic strip that makes you want to slow down, observe and fall in love with Japan in a different way. A true graphic jewel to be savored slowly.
Etienne, Riponne site
Youth
Le Phare
Sophie Blackall
This book introduces us to the rare profession of lighthouse keeper (especially in Switzerland!)… and also addresses, with a great deal of empathy and kindness, the replacement of certain professions by machines.
The pictures have been a big hit with my little guys (and I’m with them), and we’ve traveled dozens of times in just a few weeks thanks to this book. Are you ready for adventure? Will it appeal to your children?
Charlotte, Riponne site
The koala that said swear words
Christine Beigel
Can you hear the crystalline laughter of a three-year-old? The one that starts spontaneously, either with an attack of guilis, or by saying swear words… well, I reassure you, not real swear words, “mouflonneries”, as they say: bababouin buttocks, stinking petelican, … and on every page it’s the same burst of laughter that catches him. My six-year-old smiles. They’re not big enough words to make him laugh. But it’s already a smile for a moment’s reading. A sure-fire diction exercise for the storyteller!
Charlotte, Riponne site
