The latest addition to my website is Luigi Malerba‘s Il pianeta azzurro [The Blue Planet]. One of the joys of reading novels, particularly those from other countries, is getting different perspectives on the world. With Malerba, you certainly always get a different perspective – sometimes absurd, often fantasy, often paranoid, and always the view of a lone man who does not quite get the world. In this novel, we read about a man who may or may not be going to kill a man whom he calls only The Professor but who is clearly based on Licio Gelli. The possible killer fantasises, observes, is paranoid and is clearly obsessed with Gelli and with freemasonry, while the narrator reads his diary of the planned killing. Does he intend to do it or is just imagining it? And is the narrator telling the truth any more than the potential killer? It is a wonderful novel, with twists and turns and Malerba’s trademarks ramblings. Sadly, it has not been translated into any other language.