Cleto Munari
Cleto Munari’s Book List
In thinking about some of my favorite books I cannot avoid dreaming about my own desires for adventure and imaginary worlds. Dumas and Salgari are part of those childhood fantasies whereas my early adulthood found me leaning toward the aristocratic world described by authors like Tomasi di Lampedusa. Other books on this list are associated with my friendships and interactions with fiction writers such as Mahfouz and Saramago, or poets met through a friend of mine who translates and works with poets, including Wole Soyinka, Mark Strand, and Manuel Alegre. Still other books are those that I enjoy rereading every now and then.
Fiction
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In this novel Saramago imagines a near-total breakdown of society following an outbreak of mass blindness in which systems of law and order, social services, government, and schools no longer function. Families have been separated and roving bands of people squat in abandoned buildings. Violence, disease, and despair threaten to overwhelm humans’ ability to cope. They attempt to create homes and establish a new order. We all hope that blindness disappears from our society.
Demons combines two separate novels that Dostoyevsky was working on. One was a commentary on the real-life murder in 1869 by the socialist revolutionary group “People’s Vengeance” of one of its own members (Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov). The other novel eventually merged into Demons was originally a religious work. Through Dostoyevsky’s imagination I’m able to plunge into a totally new atmosphere to take a stand against any form of dictatorship that threatens personal freedom. My wife has written a book on this incomparable writer and I am particularly grateful to her for helping me get into some of his memorable characters.
Herzog’s ideas, as expressed in his letters, are brilliant and seductive. The beauty of the novel lies in this dissection of Herzog’s mind and in the descriptions of the characters’ emotions, and also in his examination of society in general. When I got to know Bellow during his involvement in the production of one of my fountain pens, I understood something of his character through the light in his eyes.
The richness of the Sicilian aristocratic world was fascinating to me growing up, mirroring my own ambitions, which were not based in reality but were part of a dream world. I really admired that proudness of the Sicilians who had to suffer more than one invasion and political regime. Yet, that form of resistance to innovation appears to be quite dangerous if we think about the great cancer in southern Italy: the Mafia.
This is the only book by the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz not set in Cairo. The Egyptian background and the amazing list of characters who live and pass through the Miramar pension form a succession of longings and desires, while reflecting the ambitions of the young girl at the center of the novel. I felt myself sharing the author’s passion for beauty and ambition. My meeting with Mahfouz was one of the most moving and memorable events in my life, and Miramar was there, stuck in my head like a flickering diamond.
When Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers he also was a practicing fencer, like many other French gentlemen. The three musketeers’ gestures were part of my dreams and desires for an adventurous life, full of noble values so important after the terrible devastion of World War II, which I lived through as a boy.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman
Love Letter to a Garden
By Debbie Millman
Contributions by Roxane Gay
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: April 15, 2025
From the award-winning artist, designer, and the host of the podcast Design Matters, Debbie Millman, this book tells the visual story of falling in love with gardening—and the philosophies that work conjures. Spread throughout are simple recipes using the garden’s ingredients from Millman’s wife, best-selling author Roxane Gay.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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