I´ve read most of the books written by Jonathan Carroll and I like them all. This one feels a bit disappointing. A breakfast dish of Jewish Babylonian descent called Kahi is another favorite in Iraq. A relative of baklava, kahi consists of very thin folded layers of filo-style dough that is baked and then drenched with honey or a flavored sugar syrup called sheera (not to be confused with the breakfast porridge from India of the same name). Kahi is sometimes eaten with the above mentioned gaymer cream. Carroll] gives readers so much to consider about love, art, disappointment, loss, the wondrous possibilities of life, and the vast unknowables of the universe… This really interesting and weird novel challenges and delights.” — Bookreporter

Il finale non poteva che lasciarmi senza fiato, e io che mi emoziono quasi sempre, devo ammettere che è scesa l'inevitabile lacrimuccia. I think most of us ask ourselves a universal question: what if? What if I got married earlier/later/never at all? What if I had rejected that job and gone after another? What if I moved there instead of here? What if...?Iraqi cuisine is strongly influenced by neighboring countries, Turkey and Iran. One food writer generalized Iraqi meals as "a blend of standard Arabic cuisine with Persian influences and Turkish influence in the north." Shortly after Graham’s first encounter with his alternate life, Anna Mae Collins, the mysterious tattooist, shows up to explain the rules: Anyone who receives the “breakfast tattoo” can move at will between three distinct lives by tapping their tattoo and saying a code word. In Graham’s case, this codeword is “Pinecone,” the name of his childhood dog. There are only a limited number of switches that a person can make, and when they at last decide which life they’d like to live, their tattoo will vanish and they will forget about the tattoo and the magic. Anna Mae leaves Graham, who immediately begins his quest. Unfortunately the story despite its brilliant beginning, gets tangled to a point when it feels like the author himself got lost and wasn't sure anymore what is it that he wants to say. Twists and turns are interesting but other characters' explanations as to what is going on and why aren't convincing. Così inizia la sinossi di un libro appena terminato e amato, scritto da Jonathan Carroll, un autore americano che se ancora non conoscete, vi consiglio vivamente di scoprire! Like Murakami, Brian Eno, or David Lynch, Jonathan Carroll is entirely sui generis, someone whose work is so fresh, weird, and original, it stands in a class of its own. Maybe the most striking thing about this lean, remarkable novel is Carroll’s caffeinated curiosity about everything, his roving eye for everyday wonders, for the effervescent in the banal. Mr. Breakfast is a small book of big ideas, a set of Russian nesting dolls with an entire universe glowing at the center.” —Joe Hill, bestselling author of Heart- Shaped Box

Tutti noi abbiamo il desiderio di tornare indietro nel tempo e cambiare anche solo una piccola parte della nostra vita, riparando ad esempio un errore commesso. Sfortunatamente nessuno di noi possiede la bacchetta magica. Carroll works comfortably and confidently within his fantasy and simply tells a good story.” — Complete Review The Iraqi people may not like us too much sometimes. They may see American men as gluttons and American women as sluts. But you know what? When I'm in a bad mood, sometimes I see the world that way too. A lot of Westerners generalize the Iraqi people as the enemy. That's what you do when you're dragged into war. But we have to remember that in the end, we're all just people... we all go to sleep at night and we all get up in the morning. And through it all, when we wake, the first thing our bodies crave is not democracy, religious solidarity or blood... it's breakfast... one meal... one important way that we might find that it's better to learn about cultures and possibly even respect them, before we blindly consider them weird or immoral and denounce them. May breakfast bring our nations closer together as it does our families. Amen. (The same closing for both Christian and Muslim prayer, although in Iraq it is often spelled "Aameen" and spoken with rolling gargle sound after the first syllable.) Il protagonista di questo originale romanzo è Graham Patterson, comico non esattamente riuscito, (ex) marito e celebre fotografo, che dopo il divorzio decide di partire per la costa opposta degli USA e andare a far visita a suo fratello. Durante il tragitto, precisamente nella Carolina del Nord, l'auto di Patterson ha un guasto e lui è costretto a fermarsi, arrivando per caso ad essere accolto dalla tatuatrice Anna Mae. Incuriosito dalla strabiliante arte dei disegni di quest'ultima, Patterson decide di farsene uno, quello della colazione. Un semplice tatuaggio all'apparenza, ma che al tocco, pronunciando la parola "Pigna", il nome del suo cane, e "uno", "due" o "tre" a seconda della vita che voleva visionare, lo avrebbe come proiettato nella vita giusta. Patterson poteva scegliere quale delle tre vite voleva vivere. Ma qual era il prezzo da pagare?

Jonathan Carroll is too good to ever stop being a writer’s writer, but I hope that Mr. Breakfast will make him a reader’s writer too. There are thousands of people who would love this book. I hope they all find it. Graham Patterson is a stand-up comedian, but his career never seems to have gotten the traction he’d hoped for. He needs to figure out what his next steps are, so he buys a car and plans to drive cross-country, and hopes that inspiration will strike and lead him to success. Like many countries, Iraq's primary breakfast staple is bread. A flat bread known as khubz and an oval-shaped bread loaf called samoon are found individually or in tandem at most meals. At breakfast, bread is enjoyed with butter, jam, honey, cheese, Libna (yogurt with olive oil), date molasses, sesame paste and pretty much everything else available that you can put on bread or dip bread in. Bread also acts as key component in most breakfast recipes that are considered uniquely Iraqi. Descrizione di eventi, luoghi e personaggi praticamente perfetta, così come i dialoghi, strutturati e chiari. Along the way, he stops in North Carolina and gets a tattoo. Shortly thereafter, he starts seeing things that don’t make sense. It turns out that the tattoo is tremendously unique, and it will give him the ability to see his parallel lives. He can choose the life he is living, or see two other possible paths he could take, and he can stay in the life he chooses. But once he makes a choice there’s no telling what will happen.