Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life
Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life (2009) by Ulli Lust
Welcome to the 2019 edition of the European Book Club! We would like to invite you to join us on a reading road trip as we meet to discuss novels that travel around and highlight Europe's diversity!
In the next meeting of the European Book Club in Toronto, we will be discussing Ulli Lust’s
Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life (2009).
A copy of the book can be ordered online or at your local bookstore. Our library also carries an English and German copy of the book.
The autobiographical comic epic is about the two-month journey of the seventeen-year-old Ulli and her nymphomaniac friend Edi: They travel without money, without papers, with only one sleeping bag between the two of them and a spare T-shirt for each to change into. Their trip takes them from Vienna via the Alps to Verona, Rome and Naples to Sicily. After an incident, the girls lose each other, meet junkies, street painters, and encounter Italian machismo, young mafiosi who act like full-grown Capos. Ulli soon realizes that her simple insistence on the most elementary of personal rights, in the face of archaic values as well as untamable rudeness, resembles a trench warfare under constant fire. The book deals with some heavy issues including sexual assault, misogyny and drug use. It is an honest look at Lust’s life and all that happened in Italy.
Content Warning: Please note this novel features graphic, sexual and violent information, which may be triggering for some readers.
The European Book Club meets periodically to discuss European literature that has been translated into English. This year the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) will discuss European authors that have written about another country that is not their homeland. Each institute will be hosting two book clubs including one meeting at a guest cultural institute location (based on the country the book takes place in).
EUNIC the network of the European cultural relations institutes in Toronto is formed by Alliance Française, British Council, Camões Toronto, Italian Cultural Institute and Goethe-Institut Toronto and exists since 2010.
May 23
The Papal Decree by Luis Miguel Rocha, presented by Camões Toronto at the Alliance Française Toronto (24 Spadina Road)
June 6
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal, presented by the French Embassy at the Alliance Française Toronto (24 Spadina Rd.)
September 19
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto at the Goethe-Institut Toronto (100 University Ave, 2nd floor)
October 29
Sostiene Pereira by Antonio Tabucchi, presented by Camões Toronto at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura (496 Huron St.)
November 28
Codex 632 by José Rodrigues dos Santos, presented by Camões Toronto at Centro de Lingua Portuguesa at Victoria College (91 Charles St. W, Room VC204)
December 5
Portugal by Cyril Pedrosa, presented by the French Embassy at the Camões Toronto at Centro de Lingua Portuguesa at Victoria College (91 Charles St. W, Room VC204)
All discussions are at 6:30pm. Please note that the locations will rotate.
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