Italy   |   READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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Essential Books These 4 items are available for $65, including
U.S. shipping, a 15% discount (Item no. EXITL804)		  
La Bella Figura, A Field Guide to the Italian Mind  •  Beppe Severgnini
CULTURAL PORTRAIT •  2007 •  PAPER  • 288 PAGES • BEST SELLER
Hugely popular in Italy, this witty guide to the Italian character addresses the apparently never-ending Italian passion for beauty, disorder and high emotion. An Italian journalist, Severgnini opens with a snapshot of the hubbub at Malpensa Airport, taking the unwary reader firmly by the hand on a journey to Milan,Tuscany, Rome, Naples and Sardinia. He hilariously points out Italian rituals and quirks from the highway to hotels, bedrooms, restaurants, the office and beach. (ITL718, $14.00)		   La Bella Figura, A Field Guide to the Italian Mind
Italy in Mind  •  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. Each piece (they tend to run about 5-7 pages) is introduced thoroughly with a description of its historical, geographical, or literary context. Great reading. (ITL39, $17.95)		   Italy in Mind
Blue Guide Concise Italy  •  Paul Blanchard
GUIDEBOOK •  2009 •  PAPER  • 400 PAGES
The first Blue Guide to cover the entire country of Italy in one volume. The Blue Guides publishing program for Italy is unprecedented in its scope: eight guides to the regions and cities of Italy are currently in print, totaling over 4,000 pages of material. This brand-new guide draws on the unprecedented depth and range of previous Blue Guides to offer the ultimate concise guide to the entire country. This 400-page distillation features the erudition and detailed knowledge that have made Blue Guides the choice of discerning travelers everywhere. Lavishly illustrated, with a focus on covering key sites in sufficient depth, it directs readers to wonderful sights, museums, churches, art, dining and accommodations in classic Blue Guide style. With maps, photographs, architectural details and floor plans. Paul Blanchard has written Blue Guide Northern Italy and Blue Guide Southern Italy. Born in Amsterdam, New York, he has lived in Italy for over 30 years. (ITL984, $24.95)		   Blue Guide Concise Italy
Italy Map  •  Borch Maps
2011 •  MAP
A convenient laminated map of Italy at a scale of 1:800,000 with excellent topographic detail, an index, and large individual maps of Sicily and Sardinia. Two Sides. 27x39 inches. (ITL19, $11.95)		   Italy Map



Also Recommended

City Secrets Florence, Venice  •  Robert Kahn   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Painters, writers, historians and others contributed to this idiosyncratic guide to under-appreciated treasures of both Florence and Venice. Featuring 200 short recommendations. (ITL277, $14.95)
 		  
Culture Smart! Italy  •  Charles Abbott   • GUIDEBOOK  •  A concise, no-nonsense guide to Italian customs, etiquette and culture along with helpful travel advice. (ITL877, $9.95)
 		  
Eyewitness Guide Italy  •  Eyewitness Guides   • GUIDEBOOK  •  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)
 		  
Fodor's Florence's 25 Best  •  Fodor's   • GUIDEBOOK  •  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  •  Fodor's   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This shirt-pocket guide includes a map of the city and essential information on its highlights. (ITL112, $12.99)
 		  
Fodor's Venice's 25 Best  •  Citypack   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This shirt-pocket guide includes an excellent map of the city center and essential information. (ITL106, $12.99)
 		  
Lonely Planet Italian Phrasebook  •  Lonely Planet   • LANGUAGE & PHRASEBOOKS  •  A handy palm-size phrasebook for the traveler. (ITL531, $8.99)
 		  
Made in Italy, A Shopper's Guide  •  Laura Morelli   • GUIDEBOOK  •  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  •  Paolo Lazzarin   • GUIDEBOOK  •  Each charming town gets an appreciative essay and evocative color photographs in this handsome tribute and excellent guide. (ITL546, $45.00)
 		  
Xenophobe's Guide to the Italians  •  Martin Solly   • GUIDEBOOK  •  This irreverent pocket guide to cultural awareness is both insightful -- and entertaining. (ITA304, $9.95)
 		  
Biba's Italy  •  Biba Caggiano   • FOOD  •  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)
 		  
8 1/2  •  Federico Fellini   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  Widely believed to be his finest work, Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical look at a director who's lost his inspiration is a gorgeous and surrealistic masterpiece that dreamily blurs the line between reality and fantasy. (ITA307, $39.95)
 		  
A Traveller's History of Italy  •  Valerio Lintner   • HISTORY  •  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  •  Louise Fili  •  Lise Apatoff   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  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  •  Harry Hearder   • HISTORY  •  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)
 		  
Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence  •  Tim Parks   • HISTORY  •  Parks vividly evokes Renaissance Florence in this lively history of the rich and powerful. (ITL605, $15.95)
 		  
Speak the Culture Italy  •  Andrew Whittaker   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT  •  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  •  R.W.B. Lewis   • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • 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 Italian Renaissance  •  J. H. Plumb   • HISTORY  •  A well-written history of the Renaissance, its artists and thinkers, with chapters on Florence, Milan, Rome and Venice, Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Women of the Renaissance. (ITL562, $16.00)
 		  
The Pursuit of Italy  •  David Gilmour   • HISTORY  •  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  •  Paul Johnson   • HISTORY  •  The history, background, literature, sculpture, paintings and architecture of the Renaissance in just over 200 lively, thought-provoking pages. (ITL774, $15.00)
 		  
Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling  •  Ross King   • ART & ARCHITECTURE  •  Presented with flair and backed by a wealth of research, King's captivating chronicle of Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel tells the story of its conception and creation. (ITL464, $18.00)
 		  
Pompeii, The Day a City Died  •  Robert Etienne   • ARCHAEOLOGY  •  This indispensable pocket guide illustrates daily life in the city as told by its evocative frescoes, mosaics and treasures. (ITL01, $15.95)
 		  
D.H. Lawrence and Italy  •  D.H. Lawrence   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  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)
 		  
Italian Days  •  Barbara Grizzuti Harrison   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 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 Lingua  •  Dianne Hales   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • 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 The Road with Francis of Assisi  •  Linda Bird Francke   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE  •  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  •  Jan Morris   • TRAVEL NARRATIVE • FAVORITE  •  Morris displays her talent for research, anecdote and well-wrought prose in this spirited history of a beloved city. (ITL12, $18.95)
 		  
Death at La Fenice  •  Donna Leon   • MYSTERY  •  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, $14.99)
 		  
Italy, A Traveler's Literary Companion  •  Lawrence Venuti   • ANTHOLOGY  •  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)
 		  
 
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