I first encountered this book when a dear friend got married and chose a passage for for a reading in the ceremony. ("Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be ...", in case you've read it.) OF COURSE I had to read the book after that. If you look on Goodreads, you can see that readers love this or hate it, and when readers say (as they often do) that it's unlike anything they've ever read, they're not messing around. It's packed with symbolism, depth, and beautiful writing: only you can know if that means you should snatch it up quick or run away. (Psst—the book bears very little resemblance to the movie.)

From the publisher: "An Italian septuagenarian recounts his life before and after World War I. For Alessandro Giullani, the young son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, golden trees shimmer in the sun beneath a sky of perfect blue. At night, the moon is amber and the city of Rome seethes with light. He races horses across the country to the sea, and in the Alps, he practices the precise and sublime art of mountain climbing. At the ancient university in Bologna he is a student of painting and the science of beauty. And he falls in love. His is a world of adventure and dreams, of music, storm, and the spirit. Then the Great War intervenes. Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, still tall and proud, finds himself unexpectedly on the road with an illiterate young factory worker. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers distant, the old man tells the story of his life. How he became a soldier. A hero. A prisoner. A deserter. A wanderer in the hell that claimed Europe. And how he tragically lost one family and gained another."