Stefano Bartezzaghi Books

The summer holidays are dragging on and Harry Potter can't wait for the start of the school year. It is his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and there are spells to be learnt and (unluckily) Potions and Divination lessons to be attended. But Harry can't know that the atmosphere is darkening around him, and his worst enemy is preparing a fate that it seems will be inescapable . . . With characteristic wit, fast-paced humour and marvellous emotional depth, J.K. Rowling has proved herself yet again to be a master story-teller.

When Harry and his best friends go back for their third year at Hogwarts, the atmosphere is tense. There's an escaped mass-murderer on the loose and the sinister prison guards of Azkaban have been called in to guard the school. Lessons, however, must go on and there are lots of new subjects in third year - Care of Magical Creatures and Divination among others - to take Harry's mind off things!

Six murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations... but only one is correct. Can you solve Torquemada's murder mystery? In 1934, the Observer's cryptic crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and the most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle ever written. The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard order, but it is possible - through logic and intelligent reading - to sort the pages into the only correct order, revealing six murder victims and their respective murderers. Only three puzzlers have ever solved the mystery of Cain's Jawbone: do you have what it takes to join their ranks? Please note: this puzzle is extremely difficult and not for the faint-hearted.

Questo è un libro serissimo, anche se si ride dalla prima pagina all’ultima. Anche se è pieno di ambulanze che viaggiano a sirene spietate, anelli impestati di diamanti e automobili fuorisede con il salvasterzo. L’autore, d’altra parte si sa, è uno studioso. Esperto di enigmistica e linguaggio, studia l’”allegria” delle parole e in queste pagine ha raccolto le “frasi matte” inviate dai lettori di “Lessico e Nuvole”, la rubrica che tiene sul «Venerdì di Repubblica»: un libro per farsi trascinare con coscienza e leggerezza nel paese dei balocchi delle frasi impazzite, dare nobiltà agli inciampi e alle smagliature del linguaggio, ridere senza riguardi delle bucce di banana del parlato.