“Eight Mountains” is an amazing, exciting book about friendship, growing up, finding your place in the world, about fathers and children. Pietro grows up in a big city, but by nature he is a loner and finds it difficult to get along with people. His mother, generously endowed with the talent of caring for others, works in a medical consultation on the outskirts of Milan. Father Pietro is a chemist, an extraordinary man, responsible, taking everything to heart. The parents are united by a common passion that laid the foundation for their family: the mountains where they met and fell in love with each other, got married, where a terrible tragedy occurred. Cognetti reveals to us unknown Italy: in his novel the Alps are not a beautiful picture, not a mecca for ski lovers, but harsh mountains inhabited by the descendants of those who came to this region many centuries ago and managed to survive here. Cognetti’s novel has been awarded a number of literary awards, including the Strega Prize (2017) and the Medici Prize in the category “Best Foreign Book” (2017). The rights to its publication were purchased in 39 countries.