So, I have this newsletter that I'm sending out. It fills me with shame, but what are you going to do? Here is the latest utterance. If you want to get them fresh out of the hopper, just let me know by emailing me at AskTheArmadillo@ proton.me

Hi, everybody –

How are you all holding up? It seems like a lot of us are trying to balance being at least minimally well-informed about the horrors that our governments are committing in our names and not becoming so overwhelmed by our grief and our rage that we can’t function. It’s a hard tightrope to walk sometimes.

And escaping into a good book for a while can provide much needed rest and reinvigoration. Literature can change us as we read it and can become a part of who we are. So when The Guardian published a list of “The 100 Best Novels of All Time” two weeks ago, it is not surprising that it became a viral hit, with people flooding the electronic waves to agree, disagree, discuss, poke fun at, and in general do all the entertaining things that people do from the quiet and anonymity of their own couch. The link to the list is here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time?lid=9v1n4cszeo8g

But for me, the question of “best book” is like the question of favorite color or favorite song. Favorite for what purpose? The song that I want to hear when it’s 2 a.m. and I’m missing people long gone is very different from the song that I want to hear when I’m cooking dinner (if we do, in fact, want to be able to eat the dinner at some point) or when I’m out dancing.*

So the idea of “best,” for me at least, begs the question “best for what?”

It seems to me that in these days of grief and rage, we have certain needs that certain books may address and that others, no matter their individual merit, may not be suited for. The number one book on The Guardian list (spoiler alert!) is George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

I love Middlemarch. It is one of my favorite books and George Eliot is one of my favorite authors. But Middlemarch, which may for all I know indeed be the best novel ever written, is not the book that I myself need in these days.

So I have made my own list:

The Twelve Best Books for 2026 (And May God Have Mercy on Our Souls)

Number 12: The Once and Future King by T.H. White

From the back cover: “The magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlyn and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly; of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad.”

Why I chose it: It’s good to think about leaders who have honor and of ideas of honesty and decency among the powerful. It’s good to think about what really makes a hero.

Important line: “[Arthur] was only a simple and affectionate man, because Merlin had believed that love and simplicity were worth having.”

 

Number 11: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

From the inside flap: “A dark Faustian parable of science misused.”

Why I chose it: The Creature, in all his humanity, reminds us that we are all born with the capacity for great good and that it is circumstances and the cruelty of others that can make us into not what we want to be, but what we ourselves are sorrowful to see.

Important line: “For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing.”

 

Number 10: The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

From the back cover: “In a series of brilliantly plotted episodes, Bertie and Jeeves help Bingo Little with his love life.”

Why I chose it: Technically, this isn’t a novel, but a set of connected short stories. But I don’t care. Sometimes, we just need some joy. As Christopher Buckley said, “It is impossible to be unhappy while readings the adventures of Jeeves and Wooster. And I’ve tried.”

Important line: “‘My God, man!’ I gargled. ‘The cravat! The gent’s neckwear! Why? For what reason?’”

 

Number 9: Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

From the back cover: “The exciting realism of air adventure… combined with lyrical prose and the soaring spirit of a philosopher, makes these memoirs one of the most popular books about flying ever written.”

Why I chose it: Again, not a novel. Again, I don’t care. A memoir about the author’s days as a pilot flying the mails in the earliest days of commercial aviation, this is a book about people who do things well – with bravery and with care. In our world of AI slop and fake-it-til-you-make-it, it is important to celebrate, with gorgeous prose if possible, people who never took a short cut, but did their very best, without fanfare, even when no one was looking.

Important three paragraphs: “I remember, once, a homecoming of Bury, he who was later to die in a spur of the Pyrenees. He came into the restaurant, sat down at the common table, and went stolidly at his food, shoulders still bowed by the fatigue of his recent trial. It was at the end of one of those foul days when from end to end of the line the skies are filled with dirty weather, when the mountains seem to a pilot to be wallowing in slime like exploded cannon on the decks of an antique man-o’-war.

“I stared at Bury, swallowed my saliva, and ventured after a bit to ask if he had had a hard flight. Bury, bent over his plate in frowning absorption, could not hear me. In those days we flew open ships and thrust our heads out round the windshield, in bad weather, to take our bearings: the wind that whistled in our ears was a long time clearing out of our heads. Finally Bury looked up, seemed to understand me, to think back to what I was referring to, and suddenly he gave a bright laugh. This brief burst of laughter, from a man who laughed little, startled me.

“For a moment his weary being was bright with it. But he spoke no word, lowered his head, and went on chewing in silence. And in that dismal restaurant, surrounded by the simple government clerks who sat there repairing the wear and tear of their humble daily tasks, my broad-shouldered messmate seemed to me strangely noble; beneath his rough hide I could discern the angel who had vanquished the dragon.”

 

Number 8: Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood (usually published these days along with The Last of Mr. Norris in one volume under the combined title of The Berlin Stories)

From the back cover: “A charming city of avenues and cafes, a grotesque city of night-people and fantasts, a dangerous city of vice and intrigue, a powerful city of millionaires and mobs – all this was Berlin in 1931, the period when Hitler was beginning his move to power. … It is art alone, the art of an extremely gifted writer like Isherwood, which makes these often comic episodes tell us truth about the tragedy of Germany which cannot be found in any history book.”

Why I chose it: It is good to remember that we have been here before.

Important line: “Eventually, we’re all queer.”

 

Number 7: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus

From the back cover: “With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.”

Why I chose it: I swear that most of these books are, in fact, novels. But not this one. Again. But the six pages of Camus’s short essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” can save us from our own despair.

Important line: “There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.”

 

Number 6: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

From the back cover: “Their Eyes Were Watching God is a celebration of black folk culture, of love between equals, of a woman’s self-discovery.”

Why a chose it: It’s important to remember the small victories of our lives – victories of managing, in spite of everything thrown at us by the world at large, to find ourselves and to know ourselves.

Important paragraph: “Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”

 

Number 5: The Animal Family by Randall Jarrell

From the back cover: “This is the story of how, one by one, a man found himself a family. Almost nowhere in fiction is there a stranger, dearer, or funnier family – and the life that the member of The Animal Family live together, there in the wilderness beside the sea, is as extraordinary and as enchanting as the family itself.”

Why I chose it: For all of us strange outcasts out there, alone and different, it is good to know that love can make a family, and that we can always be our true, wild selves with people who love us.

Important line: “The hunter and the mermaid were so different from each other that it seemed to them, finally, that they were exactly alike; and they lived together and were happy.”

 

Number 4: The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

From the inside flap: “In Spain lives a big and strong bull whose name is Ferdinand. Unlike the other young bulls, Ferdinand does not like to fight. He would rather sit in the shade of his favorite cork tree and smell the flowers.”

Why I chose it: Is it a children’s book or a metaphor for the power of peaceful passive resistance and the story of a very effective sit-in? Maybe we should all be like Ferdinand and refuse to comply with cruelty and violence and warfare.

Important line: “His mother saw that he was not lonesome, and because she was an understanding mother, even though she was a cow, she let him just sit the and be happy.”

 

Number 3: The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

From the  inside flap: “Hawthorne’s great Puritan novel of sin and regeneration observes the consequences of adultery for three people of superior consciences: a passionate young woman, Hester Prynne; the father of her child, Arthur Dimmesdale; and her aging husband, Roger Chillingworth. Each has been marked by sin in a different way. Hester, publicly confessed and shamed, is spiritually ennobled. Dimmesdale, too weak to reveal himself, is ravaged with self-torment. And Chillingworth, wronged and secretly dedicated to vengeance, is transformed into a monstrous being.””

Why I chose it: Although being force-marched through this book in high school English classes (when, frankly, none of us has had enough life experience to even begin to understand what this book is about), nearly ruined this book for me, now that I’m older and have more life behind me, I understand Hester Prynne as one of the most powerful female figures in American literature. In these days of attacks on female bodily autonomy, it’s good to remember that Hester, not the feckless Dimmesdale or the malevolent Chillingworth, is the one who ultimately triumphs.

Important line: “And, once, Hester was seen embroidering a baby-garment, with such lavish richness of golden fancy as would have raised a public tumult, had any infant, thus apparelled, have been shown to our sober-hued community.”

 

Number 2: Silas Marner by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

From the inside flap: “When his precious money is stolen and, shortly after, seemingly and mysteriously replaced by the child Eppie, Silas is awakened to life by the redemptive power of love.”

Why I chose it: Another book foist upon unprepared high school students that rings much deeper when you’re a bit older. The greedy, deceitful, and cowardly Cass family don’t get what they want in the end. They find out, indeed, that you can’t buy real love, no matter how much money you have. A truth that lives through the centuries.

Important line: “‘I can’t feel as I’ve got any father but one,’ said Eppie, impetuously, while the tears gathered. ‘I’ve always thought of a little home where he’d sit i’ the corner, and I should fend and do everything for him: I can’t think o’ no other home.’”

 

Number 1: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

From the back cover: “There are a few stories that in some way, in some degree, change the world forever for their readers. This is one.”

Why I chose it: It is an antidote for everything wrong with this moment in time. That’s all.

Important line: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

 

So that’s it – my own little list of books that might help in this moment. You probably have others. Send along suggestions for additions to the list to AskTheArmadillo@proton.me and I will include them in future newsletters as a way of helping each other make it through these rough times. They won’t last forever. And the first person to send me a suggested book to add to the list will get a lovely Ask The Armadillo t-shirt. Suzanne already got hers and sent a picture of herself wearing it. She looked beautiful – but that might be more about her soul than her clothing, as is often the case.

Take care everyone.

Love, Kathy

 

* There was a place on the road in Rarotonga where, driving along in our car twenty-five years ago now, we would come out of a patch of cool seashore forest and the wide sweep of the bay would open out in front of us, a thousand shades of fractured blues and greens, like the pieces of a constantly shifting kaleidoscope, appearing and disappearing endlessly into pure light, while my sons, aged seven and four then, chatted to me and to each other in the back seat, and the road unspooled in front of us going nowhere, and at night we all slept in our one airy room in Emily’s house and the boys held hands in their sleep and the palm trees made their curious rattling sound and the ghosts of Emily’s ancestors watched over us and kept us safe. So I guess that is my favorite color. But whenever I’m buying shoes, I always find myself drawn to red.

 

The Giro d'Italia bicycle race came through Pietrasanta on Wednesday. There was much pre-race excitement -- headlines in the newspapers and discussions in the pub, streets closed, signs everywhere -- and everyone told us we should be sure to go see it. 

So we did. We parked the car in town and walked over to the edge of town near the big supermarket to be right on the Via Aurelia when the bicycles went by. We got there a bit early in case there were crowds.

It lasted literally less than a minute.

Luciana reports that someone else is living in our old house now and, although she has seen them at a distance once or twice, she has not actually met them. I thought I would be sadder about leaving that house than it turns out that I am. My boys never lived there with me, so it is just a house, no matter how beautiful.

The other house was dominated by the woods and the gardens and terraces and by the house itself with its secrets and its magic. Here, the new house is dominated by the enveloping view of the sea and, most of all, by the sky. Jonathan and I call out to each other, again and again, from wherever we are in the house, "Look at the sky! Look at the sky!"

I am spending my days doing little things to prepare for my book launch -- trying to lay the groundwork for getting some publicity, building my "brand," which is what everyone must have these days, they say. Up until now, my brand has been "old lady farting around in Italy while eating too much and drinking wine," but that won't cut it anymore, they say. I have to actively engage with an enthusiastic reader base, they say. I must flog the merch, they say.

William Faulkner never had to prostrate himself to the malevolent gods of social media, I say.

You're no William Faulkner, they say.

 

If there is a person who holds our fragile world here together, it is Alice. She organizes people to go see Nonno in the nursing home. She gives us rides in her car. She introduces strangers to each other. She sets up people with jobs, functioning as an employment agency, and finds houses for them to rent, an  informal real estate agency. When Mattia shows up later today to mow our lawn, it will be because Alice set it up. She is kind and smart and funny. The single funniest line in my new manuscript wasn't invented by me, but was said by her (called Celeste in the book): 

Two days ago at The Lark, I was talking to Celeste about my new book that will be coming out this summer. We will have a reading there in June to celebrate its appearance. I said that Trespolo is a wonderful place to write – always tranquil, always calm.

            “Yes,” Celeste said, deadpan. “Just like in The Shining.”

 We usually end up stopping by our old house for some reason or other every day -- today it was to pick flowers and put out the paper recycling. But it is very quiet and still there now and the rooms echo when we walk through them. We live among our half-unpacked boxes at the casa campanile now.

I am in the throes of doing the advance publicity for Armadillo Massacre Number Three. In furtherance of that, today I was standing at the kitchen stove in full armadillo costume making a blackberry cobbler while Jonathan filmed me. I looked out the open kitchen window and the neighbor's gardener was standing in their yard staring at me.

"Buon gionro, signora," he said and nodded.

"Oh, buno giorno!" I said, all perky. And then we both went back to what we were doing. Tonight he will tell his wife what he saw at work today and she will perhaps accuse him of starting his drinking too early in the day.

The Ikea instructions quite clearly promise that if Jonathan and I put this furniture together as a team, we will be happy and smiling. This is a goddamn lie.

Also, never in the entire history of human migration have two people gone so shambolically two hundred yards down the road. Yesterday, for example, we bought four salted caramel KitKats as a little treat for ourselves as a reward for working so hard. We immediately lost them somewhere in the house and now have no idea where they are. This is also true of our big mixing bowl, but somehow the salted caramel KitKat loss seems more tragic.

Dear everyone --

I'm starting an email mailing list in the lead-up to the release of Armadillo Massacre Number Three. There will be giveaways of books and merch, sneak peaks, videos, recipes, games, trivia contests with prizes, and whatever fun things occur to me in the dark hours of the night. 

If you would like to be on the list, just email me at kathygiuffre62@gmail.com and say "I'm in!" 

This will be fun! Love and kisses, Kathy

Things that I have found to be surprisingly moving while unpacking:

1. The soft feel of our old sheets,

2. How battered and worn and dusty everything is,

3. How it still feels, even after all these years, like Jonathan and I are kids just playing house and hoping that the grown-ups don't come home any time soon.

 

Renata is back for a short visit and we went with her and Alice and Celeste to visit Nonno at his house last Tuesday. He had a hospital bed in the living room and his niece Cristina there taking care of him. But yesterday he was moved to a Casa di Riposo in Lido di Camaiore where he can get professional nursing and physiotherapy. 

Valerio took him and got him all settled in, but half an hour after he left, Valerio's phone rang and it was Nonno saying, "There are only old people here!"

The physiotherapist says that Nonno is very motivated doing his exercises to try to get some mobility back in his legs. He wants to get back to his life and his friends at the pub. Jonathan and I are going to see him again tomorrow and taking Ugo with us.

We are in the final dregs of moving to the new house and may start sleeping there in a week or so. We still haven't found our drinking glasses or our duvet. I suspect we never will. But the boys' baby shoes made it and the Christmas tree ornaments and the drawing of a sunflower that Tris made when he was six and the easel my grandfather made for me when I was a little girl and he believed I would become an artist someday.

The wisteria vines out back all have big buds on them and the cherry tree is looking ready to burst into flower any day now. Jonathan saw a lizard yesterday -- the first so far this year. The fava beans are in season and we sit around in the pub shelling them all together. Summer is coming.

We are still in the process of moving, although this is so embarrassing to admit that whenever anyone asks me if we have finished yet, I say, "Almost!" I have been saying that for a week now.

Putting out the (increasingly copious) trash at the rustic farmhouse a couple of days ago, I saw a young man standing in the middle of the road scrolling his phone while a little white dog on a long leash snifted at Fabio and Luciana's wall. I spoke to the dog, naturally ("Hai trovato qualcosa di interessante?") and then to the young man ("Buona sera. Come si chiama il cane?") The young man looked very startled and said, "Oh! Errr! Ummm... I don't speak Italian." And so I said to him in English, "I asked what your dog is named." And we chatted together for a bit. He is visiting from London and his dog is named Whiskey -- meaning that both of the dogs whose names I know in Capriglia are named Whiskey. At the end of our chat, he complemented me and said that I speak excellent English. I don't want to brag, but this is absolutely true.

I turned to go back in and realized that our electronic security gate had closed behind me while I was talking to dogs in the street and I was now locked out of our property.

"Oh, shit," I said, demonstrating that my mastery of the English vernacular extends even to the most colloquial and profane. "I'm locked out." 

"Ah," said the young man. "You can probably climb over it." And with that, he and Whiskey took off. It's a tall fence and he could see as well as I could that he didn't want to get involved.

But I did manage to climb over it, even though it is much taller than my head and even though I am 63 years old. I tell you this because I am prouder of this achievement than I am even of fooling ungallant English sops into thinking that I am Italian.

But really, I am hardened now to these sorts of trials and tribulations by having faced down, just this week alone, both an American insurance company and also my dire mortal enemy -- the Italian Post Office.

The battle with the Post Office involved me spending two entire days (10 hours each) sitting on the belfry house terrace overlooking our mailbox from a hidden position and then suddenly pouncing out on the mailman, taking him by surprise just as he was planning to leave a notice saying that he couldn't make the delivery because no one was at home. I mean, he still sent an email notification later saying that, but at least now he can't look me directly in the eye. And I did get the delivery the next day.

So I won that one. The American insurance company, tragically, is still up in the air. They are so evil, the insurance companies, that -- on the FIFTH international long-distance telephone call -- I did something that I have never done before in my life: I cursed at a service worker. The curse I used was "bullshit."

I'm not saying that I have never cussed anyone out before, but I think (as best I can remember) that that sort of thing has always before been reserved for boyfriends. (As one of my colleagues at Colorado College once said, apropos of a faculty meeting that went especially awry, "'Motherfucker' can actually be a term of endearment.")

So this morning, I went to have blood tests ordered by my doctor, who is upping the strength of my blood pressure medication. I am not joking.

But the big news these days is that Daniele is a finalist in the Tordelli D'oro Competition. Tordelli are a filled pasta, sort of like ravioli, a delicacy of this region, that Daniele serves with a zippy and aromatic meat sauce. He goes next week and all of the finalists will make tordelli for the judges at a public event in Bologna. We would go and cheer him on, but tickets are 60 euros each and it is a school day for Jonathan. But Daniele says if he wins, we will all eat free tordelli that night. "Aw, c'mon," Manuela says to him, "even if you don't win, we will all eat free tordelli that night!"

The movers came a week ago and delivered all of our furniture from the storage unit to the belfry house. Since then, Jonathan and I have been carrying box after box of heavy books every day from the rustic farmhouse to the belfry house. I am too old for this.

How did I end up with so much stuff? We got rid of so many possessions when we left Colorado -- so many trips to the ARC, so many donations to the library, so much furniture put out on the curb marked "free." So much left behind -- we came here with only two suitcases and two carry-on bags. And yet I've spent all week carrying boxes of books around. I don't understand how my stuff has once again metastasized in this unholy way. It's a complete mystery and I said as much to Andrea in the bookstore when I was shopping in there yesterday.

 Just exactly how close is the Belfry House to the belfry, you ask?

This close:

I took this picture earlier today from the window of the room that will be my studio. The little bell that you can see is just one of many that are in there. They ring every day at 8:30 a.m., noon, and 5:45 p.m. People say we will get used to them and pretty soon we won't even hear them anymore.

I hope not. I hope I never stop hearing the bells.

 

At long last, on Saturday we finally signed the lease for the belfry house and paid our rent and got the keys. The movers are scheduled to come on Friday to deliver all of our old furniture and the last of the ghosts from our house in Colorado.

In the meantime, we went on Sunday to see the house for the first time on our own. The owners had warned us on Saturday that the latch to the gate to get in was somewhat broken and quite tricky to open. 

They did not lie. It was so tricky, in fact, that in the end Jonathan had to scale the two-meter-high security fence -- no mean feat -- and drop down on the inside of the yard to let me in from there.

The neighbors presumably watched all this in amazement from behind their curtains while shaking their heads at the inexplicable ways of Americans. We will doubtless provide them with hours and hours of amusement for the next few years.

In the meantime, we are celebrating the "Giorni dei Merli" -- "Days of the Blackbirds" -- here in lovely Capriglia-by-the-Sea. These are called the Days of the Blackbirds because they are supposed to be the coldest days of the winter and Nonno tells us that when it is so cold, the blackbirds fly down into the chimneys to get warm and the soot from the smoke there gets onto their feathers and that is why the birds are colored black.

There have been special celebratory feasts every day at the pub and the big bottle of lottery wine, which was never in the end claimed by its winner, was drunk by all of us.

But the signs of spring are all around. I saw some yellow daffodils blooming on a sunny slope in the olive groves yesterday and the mimosa trees are glowing. The wolves are also flourishing and on the most recent night of the full moon, one sat right outside our dining room windows and howled at it. He was answered by friends on the next hillside. There is nothing like wolves howling literally right outside the door to make a house feel cozy on a winter night.