Bruno Arpaia Book order (chronological)

"In May 1980, 15-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts ... His story begins in the heart of old Barcelona, when he meets Marina and her father German Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Oscar to a cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m. precisely a coach pulled by black horses appears. From it descends a woman dressed in black, her face shrouded, wearing gloves, holding a single rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the mysterious emblem of a black butterfly with open wings. When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her they begin a journey that will take them to the heights of a forgotten, post-war Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets"--Publisher's website.

The Prisoner of Heaven returns to the world of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons bookshop, where Daniel, and his old friend Fermín Romero de Torres, are tending shop. Daniel is now married with a son, and Fermín is soon to follow. Both men lead relatively happy and quiet lives. Enter an enigmatic visitor--a grim old man with a piercing gaze--who inquires about Fermín’s whereabouts. When told he is not in, the old man proceeds to buy the most expensive item in the store, a first edition of The Count of Monte Cristo, adds a dedication and leaves it as a present for Fermín. When Daniel reveals the details of this unsettling encounter to his friend, Fermín reads the dedication, turns pale, and at Daniel’s insistence, decides to open up about a past that has come back to haunt him…a story that will leave Daniel questioning his very existence. --harpercollins.ca

Max Carver's father, a watchmaker & inventor, decides to move his family to a small town on the coast, to an old house that once belonged to a prestigious surgeon, Dr Richard Fleischmann. But the house holds many secrets & stories of its own.

L'energia del vuoto, finalista al Premio Strega 2011. E' notte, su un'autostrada svizzera. Una macchina procede a velocità sostenuta, diretta a Marsiglia. A bordo un uomo, Pietro Leone, funzionario dell'Onu a Ginevra. Accanto a lui dorme il figlio Pietro, una console stretta tra le mani, i jeans a vita bassissima come ogni adolescente che si rispetti. I due sono in fuga, da non si sa bene cosa. La sola cosa che Pietro sa è che da giorni qualcuno sta tenendo sotto controllo i movimenti suoi e della sua famiglia e che la moglie Emilia, ricercatore al Cern, è scomparsa da casa da qualche giorno. La donna stava lavorando, con un gruppo di fisici spagnoli, a un rivoluzionario calorimetro per decifrare le energie di fotoni ed elettroni...

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man - David Martin - makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books, and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city's underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Then David receives the offer of a lifetime: he is to write a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realises that there is a connection between this haunting book and the shadows that surround his home...

Le passioni di un'epoca possono sembrare inafferrabili, ma la voce che racconta questa storia di ragazzi e ragazze degli anni Settanta in un paesino del Sud è forte e consapevole, pronta a non tacere. Questo romanzo esplora il "buco nero" di quel decennio, senza celebrarlo né rinnegarlo, offrendo uno sguardo diretto su una generazione e un pezzo di storia, in un corpo a corpo con la memoria. Alberto Malinconico, Angelo Malecore e i loro amici vivono un punto di svolta il 11 settembre 1973, quando le immagini del golpe in Cile diventano un'ossessione. In un contesto di lotte operaie, austerità e battaglie per la legge sul divorzio, matura in loro la coscienza politica e la voglia di cambiamento. Tra volantini, cortei, discussioni e concerti, si intrecciano esperienze di liberazione sessuale e femminismo. Tuttavia, la lotta armata e la repressione statale chiudono bruscamente le loro aspirazioni. In un paese della provincia di Napoli, quegli anni sono anche segnati dalla camorra e dai primi omicidi politici. Alberto e gli amici, inizialmente distratti, si trovano a fare i conti con il rimorso di non aver compreso la violenza che li circonda. La sconfitta politica si accompagna a una riflessione profonda: il passato non è mai davvero alle spalle e il tempo non lo cancella.

A Port Bou, near the Franco-Spanish border, the fates of Laureano Mahojo and Walter Benjamin intertwine one September night in 1940. Despite their differences—Laureano, the idealistic fighter, and Benjamin, the refined essayist—they represent two sides of the same coin, embodying the Europe that Nazism and war will soon obliterate. Both have faced defeat and exile, ultimately falling into one of history's most tragic traps. In 1939, Laureano sought refuge in France with half a million compatriots but was interned in a brutal camp and later sent to fight on the Maginot Line. Arriving in Port Bou, he became a smuggler out of love. Benjamin, having left Berlin in 1933, endured hardship in Paris until the war led to his internment in a concentration camp, from which he barely escaped. Now, in the mountains, Laureano is pursued by Franco's forces and on the brink of exile, while Benjamin, desperate and plagued by misfortune, is fixated on his precious book as he approaches his tragic end. Through the dark events of Europe’s history, this narrative blends fiction and reality, revealing the profound humanity of one of the most enigmatic and pivotal thinkers of the last century.