Footballers usually make headlines for goals, transfers or controversies. Gustavo Scarpa has made them for a book. The Atlético-MG midfielder recently talked about Tolstói’s A Morte de Ivan Ilitch (The Death of Ivan Ilyich) in a social media video. That was all it took to send the Russian classic to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list in Brazil. The story has since turned a footballer’s reading habit into a small cultural moment.
Credit-X/@mcanziani_1
Scarpa couldn’t have imagined that his recommendation would push the book to the top spot among Amazon’s best-sellers. This happened 140 years after the novella was first published, which matches its 1886 release. The book’s rise came from a single recommendation.
Gustavo Scarpa, 32, plays as a midfielder for Atlético-MG, which he joined in January 2024 after a short spell at Nottingham Forest. He moved to Forest from Palmeiras on a free transfer in January 2023, fulfilling his dream of playing in the Premier League, and spent time on loan at Greek club Olympiacos before leaving.
He has been known for recommending books since his Palmeiras days, and has shared his reading impressions on Instagram since 2018, with the longer YouTube reviews the newest part.
Canal do Scarpinha is Scarpa’s own YouTube channel, and it has more than 250,000 subscribers. He says he wants people to give the books he posts a chance, or any other book, because reading is a great habit. He also says that as a public figure, a player has to be responsible about what he shares. He has said he is a “Potterhead” and a fan of Dostoiévski and Tolstói. He has also said he doesn’t like Shakespeare much.
Scarpa posted his review of the Tolstói book on his YouTube channel on 2 September. The video runs about 10 minutes. The novella follows an imperial Russian judge who falls seriously ill and re-evaluates his superficial life on his deathbed. At his wake, his colleagues are more worried about their own promotions than about his death. Scarpa focused on what that says about success, status and priorities.
Credit- Google/Bookbot
The book is not new to Brazilian readers, and it has been popular in the country for decades. Google Trends, however, showed searches for the title rising from the day the video was shared. People searching for it were also searching for Scarpa’s name. Soon after, it was sitting at number one on Amazon Brazil. Few footballers can say a single video did that to a classic.
Ivan Ilitch is not the only review on his channel. He has also reviewed O Senhor das Moscas (Lord of the Flies) by William Golding, a classic novel about human nature and civilization, told through a group of schoolboys stranded on an island without adults, who try to govern themselves and slide into fear and violence. He said the book is far better than the 1990 film adaptation.
Credit-Google/kindle babel
He has also reviewed Elie Wiesel’s A Noite (Night), a harrowing memoir of the author’s time in Nazi concentration camps. He called it a very impactful read. It is quick to get through, but he described the content as visceral. He reflected on how the evil described is almost unbelievable. He also said he understands why the victims themselves struggled to believe what was about to happen.
Credit-Google/Amazon.com
Another review on his channel is Daniel Keyes’s Flores para Algernon (Flowers for Algernon). The science fiction story follows Charlie Gordon, a man with an intellectual disability who undergoes experimental surgery to increase his intelligence. As his intelligence grows, he leaves the innocence of his own world behind and faces a harsher reality. Scarpa summed it up in a short reaction as a great book, but a very sad one. Together with Tolstói, Golding and Wiesel, it shows a taste for heavy, thought-provoking stories.
Credit-Google/Biblioteca José de Alencar UFRJ
Scarpa has also reviewed Zora Neale Hurston’s Seus Olhos Viam Deus (Their Eyes Were Watching God), reportedly his first longer video on the channel. The 1937 novel follows Janie Crawford, a Black woman in early 20th-century Florida, through three marriages as she searches for her own voice and independence. It is a landmark of the Harlem Renaissance and of American literature. The book has little in common with the Russian classics on the surface. Yet, like his other picks, it presses on big questions about how people live and how they treat each other.
Credit-Google/Mercado Livre
There is more to come, because Scarpa has said he will review other classics in the coming weeks. The list includes Tolstói’s Guerra e Paz (War and Peace), Gógol’s O Capote e Outras Histórias (The Overcoat and Other Stories), Camus’s O Mito de Sísifo (The Myth of Sisyphus) and Stendhal’s O Vermelho e o Negro (The Red and the Black), and he plans to return to Dostoiévski. Guerra e Paz is Tolstói’s epic of the Napoleonic wars, following several Russian families through war and peace, with Pierre Bezukhov on a long search for meaning. In Gógol’s title story, a poor clerk saves for a new overcoat and has it stolen, in a dark comedy about bureaucracy and status. Camus’s essay uses Sisyphus, condemned to push a boulder up a hill forever, to ask whether life is worth living without ultimate meaning, while Stendhal follows the ambitious young Julien Sorel as he tries to rise in a hypocritical French society.
Credit-Google
What ties Scarpa’s picks together is that each one pushes readers to ask hard questions about life and about people. Tolstói’s A Morte de Ivan Ilitch follows a successful judge who, facing serious illness and approaching death, begins to question the choices he made and the true meaning of his life. Golding’s O Senhor das Moscas shows how a group of boys, isolated on an island without adults, slide from organization into power struggles, fear and violence, letting their worst instincts out. Wiesel’s A Noite goes beyond recording the horrors, prompting reflection on faith, humanity, memory and the dangers of indifference to suffering. Keyes’s Flores para Algernon follows Charlie Gordon, whose surgery to expand his intelligence changes how he sees people and his own past, and Scarpa called it the best book he has read this year.
Fan reaction has gone beyond the book itself. Some fans said they would like to see more players and influencers promote books and culture instead of betting. One comment suggested that if that became normal, there might be hope for a better country.
Another fan argued that if all Brazilian players had Scarpa’s mentality, football in the country wouldn’t be in such decline. That comment said today’s stars think only about money and image, though these are opinions from social media users, not verified claims.
Scarpa didn’t set out to top the Amazon charts. He reviewed a book he liked and people listened. A best-seller is not the same as a book that gets read. Still, a star pointing supporters toward Tolstói, Wiesel and Golding is a rare kind of viral moment in football. For now, a midfielder has thousands of fans talking about literature.
