This week’s book recommendation includes a book of essays that promises to be a real intellectual adventure, a twisty Balaton crime story, a French novel expected to hit the hit list, and the memoir of the former president and CEO of Vodafone Hungary Zrt.
Zsófia Szilágyi: School bag – Teachers and schools in the 20-21st century. in century literature
Literary historian and critic Zsófia Szilágyi’s previous works are now without exception considered fundamental works, just her book on the life of György Ferdinandy, The immature Kosztolányi we should think of his book and his Móricz monograph, which without exaggeration fills in the gaps. This time, the author, who is also highly influential as a university lecturer, does not place a single author’s oeuvre at the center of his new volume of essays, but examines the world of the school through literary and cultural examples. “This is how Professor Kőnig and Severus Snape end up on the same bench, The Hunger Games and the captive lion, Lolita and Britney Spears”, promises the book’s blurb. It is School bag this is how he makes reading and teaching fun at the same time, when he looks for the 20th and 21st century in mandatory readings, and in well-known film series and crime novels. pictures of teachers and schools of the 20th century. It is particularly interesting that the book will be presented at Apáczai Csere János Gimnázium on May 8, where the author himself was once a student, and Szilágyi’s interlocutor will be his former teacher, János Szabolcsi. (Kalligram, 2026)
György Beck: Sum
György Beck’s memoir offers a glimpse into an extremely colorful and diverse life path. The author graduated as a mathematician and obtained a PhD degree, then became a top IT and telecommunications manager, the president and CEO of Vodafone Magyarország Zrt., and later its president. In the meantime, water polo remained decisive for him: the former rural polo player is still the co-president of the Hungarian Water Polo Association. “If you like, this memoir is also a survival manual: for the Carpathian basin, the eternal transit zone of the West and the East, for the thousand-year-old characteristics of a small people with an eccentric language, and within these also for the specific microclimate of companies, for talent, patience, work – for responsible decisions about what is possible and what is impossible,” the publisher writes about the volume, written by the three-time Olympic champion water polo player Tamás Kásás Katalin Karikó recommends reading. “I recommend this book to all those who are interested in the history of the development of information technology and communication in Hungary. György Beck recalls his memories as the leader of innovative companies engaged in decisive activities in these fields, shares his experiences, presenting the transformations of the market, which are full of twists and turns in the past 50 years, and also provides the reader with useful management advice,” the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist wrote about the memoir. (Sárközy and Partners, HUF 5,990)
Zoltán D. Zajácz: Misty Balaton
After the weekend’s running race around the lake, the Ultrabalaton, in which, as usual, the 13-person relay team of Telex also competed, there is nothing better to save the Balaton atmosphere than a Balaton crime drama rich in twists and turns. Zoltán Zajácz D. certainly promises to be such a reading Bloody Balaton the fifth volume of his series, a Foggy Lake Balaton. This time, the starting location is Balatonfüred, the Tagore promenade to be exact, where the high school graduate Petra Lovász starts running, but never reaches home. The police search the lakeshore for him, but they only find half a pair of shoes. In addition to the kidnapping, there is also the possibility that the girl left voluntarily, but when it turns out that her father is one of the researchers of the Soviet space program, this case lands at the National Police Headquarters. Where could she have gone? Is he even still alive? And if so, will the police manage to track him down in time? So many questions that will only be answered after reading the 263-page book. (General Press, HUF 4990)
Mélissa Da Costa: Return
We already presented one over the weekend short detail From Mélissa Da Costa’s new novel, which will surely soon find its way to the top of the bestseller lists. The author was named France’s most read author in 2024 by Le Figaro, overtaking Guillaume Musso, who held this prestigious position for twelve years. The author’s most recent book, All the blue of the sky and last year it was the best-selling foreign book in Hungary. According to the short description provided by the publisher, a Return its main character is twenty-year-old Ambre, who completely subordinates herself to her lover, forty-year-old, married, with two children, Philippe. When despair overwhelms him and he collapses, Philippe sends him to a mountain hotel to recover away from him. Ambre spends six months there among seasonal workers and slowly learns to get out of addiction, to find herself again, to open up to others – and to believe in love again. THE Return “it’s about loss, starting over and finding yourself, how healing often begins when we finally let others into our world”. (Europe, HUF 5999)
