Last year was an excellent year for reading. I’ve read 31 books, totaling almost 10,000 pages: 17 fiction books (way more than last year), 13 non-fiction (as a surprise, because I usually read non-fiction faster), and one graphic novel. Some books were unbelievable literary mistakes. Others were absolute gems that I’ll keep in my mind and heart (it is wise for the Chinese to have a single word for both: 心).

With this new year, let’s try a new format. Marginalia will be a series in which I’ll share notes and comments on interesting books I read. The name is directly inspired by the old word indicating the small notes on the margins of books.

It will be a chance to discuss my readings without the need to write a full-fledged article. I hope it will be interesting as a review of the book or as a discussion starter. So, let’s start.

The new edition of Unity Game Optimization is finally out! I already announced that in my December monthly update, but I think it is worth to spend a bit more words on it.

Some time ago I found on my grandma’s house an old Italian book on cryptography from 1897. Why a 120 years old book on cryptography was on my grandma house, is a mystery. I’d like to think that some grand-grand-parent was a late 19th century hacker. Anyway.

The book title is “Crittografia ossia l’arte di cifrare e decifrare le corrispondenze segrete” of Count Luigi Gioppi of Turkheim.

Well, I don’t know if this book is hard to find. In any way, I decided to take a photo of every page to share and preserve this book. The book is very old and some page is ruined, sorry if the quality of the photo is not optimal. I’ve done my best for not destroying the book in the process. :) I will release the photo one chapter at the time. Keep this page in the bookmark.