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Italy

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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Item EXITL501. Buy these 5 items as a set for $83 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
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Eyewitness Guide Italy

by Eyewitness Guides

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2011
• FLEXI-BOUND
• 720 PAGES

This superb guide features color photography, dozens of excellent local maps and a region-by-region synopsis of the country's attractions. (ITL32, $30.00)

Italian Days

by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 1998
• PAPER
• 479 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Grizzuti Harrison writes with warmth and depth of her journey from Milan south to Calabria in this sprightly account of Italy and the Italians. (ITL02, $15.00)

La Bella Figura, A Field Guide to the Italian Mind

by Beppe Severgnini

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2007
• PAPER
• 288 PAGES

Italians themselves love this guide to the Italian character, which addresses the apparently never-ending passion for beauty, disorder and high emotion. Severgnini opens the book with a snapshot of the hubbub at Malpensa Airport, then moves on to Tuscany, Rome, Naples and Sardinia. (ITL718, $14.00)

Italy in Mind

by Alice Powers

• LITERATURE
• 1997
• PAPER
• 349 PAGES

A terrific collection of some of the best literary writing on Italy, including pieces by Melville, Lawrence, Henry James, Mary McCarthy and many others. (ITL39, $17.95)

Italy Map

by Borch Maps

• 2011
• MAP

A handy, laminated map. (ITL19, $11.95)

 

Also Recommended

Blue Guide Concise Italy

by Paul Blanchard

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2009
• PAPER
• 400 PAGES

The first ever guide to all of Italy by the venerable Blue Guides (which publishes individual guides to Northern, Southern, Central, Rome, Tuscany, Sicily et al), this lavishly illustrated, handy and compact guide covers key sights, museums, churches, art, dining and accommodations throughout Italy. (ITL984, $24.95)

Culture Smart! Italy

by Charles Abbott

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2008
• PAPER
• 168 PAGES

A concise, no-nonsense guide to Italian customs, etiquette and culture along with helpful travel advice. (ITL877, $9.95)

Fodor's Florence's 25 Best

by Fodor's

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2011
• PAPER
• 128 PAGES

This shirt-pocket guide includes an excellent map and essential information on the city's highlights, including sightseeing, restaurants and shopping. (ITL140, $11.99)

Fodor's Rome's 25 Best

by Fodor's

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2009
• PAPER
• 128 PAGES

This shirt-pocket guide includes a map of the city and essential information on its highlights. (ITL112, $11.99)

Fodor's Venice's 25 Best

by Citypack

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2012
• PAPER
• 176 PAGES
• COMING IN MARCH

This shirt-pocket guide includes an excellent map of the city center and essential information. (ITL106, $12.99)

Lonely Planet Italian Phrasebook

by Lonely Planet

• LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS
• 2011
• PAPER
• 260 PAGES

A handy palm-size phrasebook for the traveler. (ITL531, $8.99)

Made in Italy, A Shopper's Guide

by Laura Morelli

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2008
• PAPER
• 208 PAGES

The second edition of Morelli's expert survey of handcrafted Italian shops and products from Murano glass to ceramics, jewelry and leather. (ITL473, $24.95)

One-Hundred & One Beautiful Small Towns in Italy

by Paolo Lazzarin

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2004
• HARD COVER
• 276 PAGES

Each charming town gets an appreciative essay and evocative color photographs in this handsome tribute and excellent guide. (ITL546, $45.00)

Where to Go When: Italy

by DK Publishing

• GUIDEBOOK
• 2010
• HARD COVER
• 336 PAGES

This helpful vacation planner describes the best of every region of Italy month-by-month and features beautiful full-color photographs. With a foreword by Frances Mayes. (ITA168, $40.00)

Biba's Italy

by Biba Caggiano

• FOOD
• 2006
• HARD COVER
• 320 PAGES

Caggiano focuses on regional, seasonal food in this omnibus cookbook (featuring 100 recipes), menu planner and travel guide to Rome, Florence, Bologna, Milan and Venice. Nicely produced, this handsome sepia-toned book includes recommended restaurants, cafes and markets in each city. (ITL777, $29.95)

Italy for the Gourmet Traveler

by Fred Plotkin

• FOOD
• 2010
• PAPER
• 736 PAGES

Organized geographically, this encyclopedic guide features eating establishments, cooking schools, markets, shops and other gastronomic treasures in 500 cities and villages, perfect for the food-addled who can't be in the company of the irrepressible master himself. (ITL268, $24.95)

The Food of Italy

by Waverly Root

• FOOD
• 1992
• PAPER
• 750 PAGES

Evocative of Italy and its diverse cuisine, this classic book, organized geographically, offers a cook's tour of the country. It's a well-informed and wonderful culinary guide. (ITL75, $22.00)

A Traveller's History of Italy

by Valerio Lintner

• HISTORY
• 2008
• PAPER
• 287 PAGES

A brief history of Italy through the 1990s -- wide-ranging, accessible and necessarily condensed. With a useful chronology and historical gazetteer, this book marches confidently through the centuries. (ITL86, $14.95)

Italianissimo

by Louise Fili | Lise Apatoff

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2008
• HARD COVER
• 111 PAGES

Divertingly illustrated, this A-to-Z guide profiles 50 very Italian customs and concepts from the notion of beauty (bellisimo) to the Italian disregard for lines (Fare La Coda). (ITL983, $19.95)

Italy, A Short History

by Harry Hearder

• HISTORY
• 2001
• PAPER
• 294 PAGES

Elegantly written, generous and informative, this compact book takes in the sweep of Italian history from the Roman Republic through the Renaissance, World War II and up to the present. (ITL56, $29.00)

La Bella Lingua

by Dianne Hales

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2010
• PAPER
• 336 PAGES
• NEW

Inebriated with the sounds of Italian, lovesick for its phrases and enamored of its earthy idioms, Hales, "a sensible woman of sturdy Polish stock," dives into the Italian of the piazza, literature, movies and streets in this charming memoir. (ITA26, $15.00)

On Persephone's Island

by Mary Taylor Simeti

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 1986
• PAPER
• 352 PAGES

Strong on the delights of rural life, Simeti's portrait of Sicily takes the form of a yearlong journal, capturing the spirit of the people, daily life, traditions and the land. (ITL03, $14.95)

Speak the Culture Italy

by Andrew Whittaker

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 2010
• PAPER
• 343 PAGES

Touching on painters, writers, politicians, cultural heroes and sport stars, literature, food, wine and society, this lively all-in-one primer with a sense of humor is an engaging education in Italian culture. The series also includes Spain (SPN391), France (FRN885) and Britain (GBR936), all edited by the enterprising Andrew Whittaker, $24.95 each. (ITA111, $24.95)

The City of Florence, Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings

by R.W.B. Lewis

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 1996
• PAPER
• 350 PAGES
• FAVORITE

A vivid tour of the city and its riches by the fine biographer of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Lewis has written what he calls "a partial biography of Florence," beautifully interweaving the personal and the historical. (ITL47, $21.99)

The Italians

by Luigi Barzini

• CULTURAL PORTRAIT
• 1996
• PAPER
• 352 PAGES

The definitive portrait of the Italian people, this is a classic, scholarly essay on the Italian character. Though first published in 1964, it's still worth reading for its insight, grace and wit. (ITL05, $16.00)

The Pursuit of Italy

by David Gilmour

• HISTORY
• 2011
• HARD COVER
• 480 PAGES

From Cicero to Dante, Giuseppe Verdi and 20th-century Italian politicians, Gilmour traces the history of Italian life and culture. (ITA273, $32.50)

The Renaissance, A Short History

by Paul Johnson

• HISTORY
• 2002
• PAPER
• 196 PAGES

The history, background, literature, sculpture, paintings and architecture of the Renaissance in just over 200 lively, thought-provoking pages. (ITL774, $15.00)

Blessed and Beautiful, Picturing the Saints

by Robert Kiely

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 2010
• HARD COVER
• 344 PAGES

A Yale professor, Kiely took over two decades to write this powerful and engaging meditation on the lives of the saints and the images of them painted by Renaissance artists in Italy. (ITA278, $40.00)

Italy, Monuments Past and Present

by R.A. Staccioli

• ARCHAEOLOGY
• 2003
• FLEXI-BOUND
• 78 PAGES

This informative volume shows Italy's most important monuments as they look today and, via overlaid illustrations, as they were once upon a time. The book surveys the history and archeological highlights of Pompeii, Rome and Sicily. (ITL455, $25.00)

Pompeii, The Day a City Died

by Robert Etienne

• ARCHAEOLOGY
• 1992
• PAPER
• 215 PAGES
• CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE
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This indispensable pocket guide illustrates daily life in the city as told by its evocative frescoes, mosaics and treasures. (ITL01, $15.95)

Rome is Love Spelled Backward, Enjoying Art and Architecture in the Eternal City

by Judith Testa

• ART & ARCHITECTURE
• 1998
• PAPER
• 280 PAGES

Edith Wharton's witty, astute essays on the history and pleasures of Italy's famous villas, published in 1904, is out in a facsimile edition with the original, full-page illustrations by Maxfield Parrish. The book, a classic, covers Boboli Garden, Villa Corsini, Villa Borghese and some 80 other villas and gardens throughout Italy. (ITL81, $24.95)

D.H. Lawrence and Italy

by D.H. Lawrence

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 2008
• PAPER
• 495 PAGES

This omnibus Penguin Classics edition includes Lawrence's three travel tales, each very different in tone and all wonderful: Sea and Sardinia is a nostalgic look at traditional ways of life; Twilight in Italy, an evocation of Lawrence's memorable stay on Lake Garda; and Etruscan Places his musings on ancient sites, including the painted tombs of Tarquinia. (ITL62, $18.00)

Midnight in Sicily, On Art, Food, History, Travel and La Cosa Nostra

by Peter Robb

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 2007
• PAPER
• 400 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Combining interviews, research and essays on Sicilian history and culture, this vivid report by journalist Peter Robb is a superb introduction to Italy's glorious, corrupt and troubled south. (ITL74, $18.00)

On The Road with Francis of Assisi

by Linda Bird Francke

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 2006
• PAPER
• 256 PAGES

Assisi wandered for 20 years, affording Newsweek editor Francke and her patient husband plenty to see and do in the piazzas, sanctuaries and chapels of Assisi, Siena, Bologna, Venice, Gubbio, Rome and other choice spots. (ITL647, $15.95)

The World of Venice

by Jan Morris

• TRAVEL NARRATIVE
• 1995
• PAPER
• 315 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Morris displays her talent for research, anecdote and well-wrought prose in this spirited history of a beloved city. (ITL12, $18.95)

Canti

by Giacomo Leopardi

• LITERATURE
• 2011
• PAPER
• 528 PAGES

An acclaimed new translation of Italy's greatest modern poet's work. Born in the Italian Marches in 1798, Leopardi lived in Rome, Central Italy, and Naples, where he died in 1837. (ITA285, $25.00)

Death at La Fenice

by Donna Leon

• MYSTERY
• 2004
• PAPER
• 270 PAGES

The first of the tremendously good Guido Brunetti mysteries, all set in the author's beloved Venice, in which a famous conductor is found dead at the celebrated theater of the title. (ITL555, $13.99)

Desiring Italy

by Susan Cahill

• ANTHOLOGY
• 1997
• PAPER
• 384 PAGES

Italy as seen through the fiction, poetry and prose of stellar 19th and 20th-century women. (ITL732, $16.00)

Italy, A Traveler's Literary Companion

by Lawrence Venuti

• ANTHOLOGY
• 2003
• PAPER
• 256 PAGES

Not just a literary companion, this anthology is also a who's who of contemporary Italian writers that captures the spirit, history and allure of the country. (ITL466, $14.95)

Ratking

by Michael Dibdin

• MYSTERY
• 1997
• PAPER

Venetian crime investigator Aurelio Zen goes after the kidnappers of a Perugian industrialist in this enjoyable thriller, winner of the Gold Dagger Award (and first book in the series). (ITL622, $13.95)

The Leopard

by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa

• LITERATURE
• 2007
• PAPER
• 384 PAGES
• FAVORITE

Evoking a lost world of privilege and tradition, Giuseppe Di Lampedusa's memorable tale, set on a rural Sicilian estate during the days of independence, follows the world-weary Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina. A classic, now in a 50th anniversary edition. (ITL11, $16.00)

The Shape of Water

by Andrea Camilleri

• MYSTERY
• 2005
• PAPER
• 224 PAGES

The first of Camilleri's wildly popular Inspector Montalbano mysteries, nicely translated and shot through (pun intended) with not just memorable characters but also with Sicilian lore and politics. If you like the series, it continues in 12 more installments -- and counting. (ITL528, $14.00)

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