Five Great Reads: living the Italian dream; the mushroom murders verdict; and Demon Copperhead’s legacy
Guardian Australia’s weekend wrap of essential reads from the past seven days, selected by Claire Keenan
Happy Saturday! It turns out time might actually be moving faster – and not just because we are all having so much fun. Scientists have observed Earth is spinning slightly faster, “truncating the days by a millisecond or more”. With no time to waste, let’s get into it.
1. Casa dolce casa for just €1?
If you’ve seen the film Under the Tuscan Sun and pictured your life following the same script (hopefully without the messy divorce), this week’s long read is for you.
Frustrated with her life in the US, Lauren Markham was drawn to the romantic – and surprisingly real – prospect of buying a home in Italy for just €1. With a baby, a husband (whose non-negotiable was a home near the beach), she set out to uncover whether the idea was too good to be true.
Is buying a house for €1 really possible? Yes! Markham travels to Italy to talk to locals and mayors in both Sardinia and Tuscany, to better understand how the program works.
Is it a dream life swap or just clever marketing? You’ll have to read on to find out if she takes the plunge.
How long will it take to read: Eleven minutes.
2. The guilty verdict
Reflecting on the trial that gripped a nation and the world, Nino Bucci begins his read about Erin Patterson’s guilty verdict at the point it turned very bad: “Several hours after a person eats death cap mushrooms and becomes violently unwell, there is a period of relief. They feel as if they are improving. They are not.”
It’s a reminder that the victims of this captivating case “died terrible deaths”. And while the verdict supposedly ends weeks of laborious detail and ghoulish fascination … is it really over?
How long will it take to read: Six minutes.
Further reading: Erin Patterson’s hospital visit – and what the beef wellingtons really looked like: the mushroom murder exhibits revealed.
3. ‘I didn’t have any idea Demon would bring home so much bacon’
I only just finished Barbara Kingslover’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel Demon Copperhead – a brilliant book reimagining Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield during Virginia’s opioid crisis. Like many readers (just a bit later), I prayed Copperhead got his happy ending. Then, by pure coincidence (or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon) I stumbled across this incredible interview.
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When “that first royalty cheque came in and our eyes all popped wide open, I thought: ‘I could do something significant with this’” – Barbara Kingslover.
When fiction changes real lives: And she did. Using the success of Demon Copperhead, Kingslover helped fund an addiction recovery residence in rural Southwest Virginia.
The real-life ending I’d hoped for: “My life has changed. My mentality has changed. I am truly sober,” says Syara Parsell, 35, a resident of the home.
How long will it take to read: Six minutes.
4. Fact or fiction
To the world, Michael Briggs was a well-known scientist – and a bit of a fantasist. To Joanne, his daughter, he was not well known at all. At a young age, when he left the family, she told herself he “wasn’t really gone – he was just somewhere else”, doing important things. But exactly what he was doing, would remain a mystery.
Was Joanne’s father a spy? Anita Chaudhuri asks the now 61-year-old, who has written a memoir digging into her father’s past and disappearance. “I think of all the theories, it’s the one that hangs together most coherently,” Joanne Briggs says.
How long will it take to read: Five minutes.
5. Being taught the wrong alphabet
And now, I leave you with the most unbelievable story I read this week: Emma Loffhagen discovered that her mother was taught the wrong alphabet as a child – and no, that’s not a typo.
Initial Teaching Alphabet, or ITA, was “a radical, little-known educational experiment trialled in British schools” developed by the grandson of the inventor of shorthand, during the 1960s and 70s, to help children learn to read faster. Instead, it left thousands of children unable to spell.
‘My spelling is still appalling’: People affected by ITA have spoken to Loffhagen about the long-term impact the program had on them. Even the article’s comment section is a surprising archive of memories from former students.
Curious? If you can read the image in the article, you might have been part of this ill-fated literacy experiment. (Although I wasn’t even a thought when this happened – and I can still read it!)
How long will it take to read: Six minutes.
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