The life of Zeno, a fictional 16th century alchemist, philosopher, physician. The historical backdrop is convincing (and seems accurate) and Zeno has a rich internal life. Beautiful writing. I think of it as a European counterpoint to Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev.

Not quite for beginners. Quickly becomes more difficult than the B2 graded readers I've read. But having English on the side helps, and overall it is a nice collection of stories, some from culturally significant writers.

This is a good entry point for learning the C language, provided that you already have some programming experience. It's terse without sacrificing detail. Supplementary reading is required if you wish to learn more about e.g. C compilers, debugging under Linux, socket programming, including external libraries and how to properly modularise C programs, but it is evident that those subjects simply lie outside of the scope of this work, and that's fine.