Italy Book Tour

Little Bit of Italy Book List

 By no means a comprehensive list. I've tried to offer variety, but I admit I may favor the south a tiny bit in this list.

Rome scene during Corona virus lock downs in Italy 2020

 

Literature/Classics/Oldies

Ovid- Roman Poet

Dante's Divine Comedy- 1300’s- Long narrative poem, also known as The Inferno

Aeneid by Virgil- Latin poem approx. 20 BC Aeneas the Trojan travels to Italy

Odyssey by Homer-Greek hero Odysseus travels after the fall of Troy (Straits of Messina/Calabria)

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

 Giovanni Verga: (Late 1800's) (Italian realist writer):

The House by the Medlar Tree

Under the Shadow of Etna

Cavalleria Rustica

Little Novels of Sicily

 The Italian by (1797) by Ann Radcliffe

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

 

The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa (Sicily)

 William Shakespeare:

Romeo and Juliet

Two Gentlemen of Verona

 Italian Journey (1786-88) Johann von Goethe

 A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

 Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Memoirs/Cultural Essays/ Travel Writing

Italian Hours (1909)

The Wings of a Dove by Henry James

 Old Calabria (1915) by Norman Douglas

 By the Ionian Sea (1901) by George Gissing

 Extra Virgin (1983) by Annie Haws

 La Bella Figura, Ciao America (2002) both by Beppe Severgnini

 

Ancient Greek temple in Agrigento, Sicily

Mary Taylor Simeti:

On Persephone's Island: A Sicilian Journal by

Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food

Bitter Almonds: Recollections and Recipes of a Sicilian Girlhood

Travels with a Medieval Queen. The Journey of a Sicilian Princess to Reclaim Her Father's Crown

Sicilian Summer: An Adventure in Cooking with My Grandsons

 

The Italians (1964) by Luigi Barzini

 A Tuscan Childhood by Kinta Beever

 Pasta, Pane, Vino by Matt Goulding

Actress Sophia Loren's
 memoir book

 

Recipes and Memories by Sophia Loren

 

Dolce e Salata

A Taste of Southern Italy

Regional Foods of Northern Italy

Regional Foods of Southern Italy

Antonia and Her Daughter

Lady in the Palazzo

A Thousand Days in Tuscany

A Thousand Days in Venice

That Summer in Sicily

The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club by Maria Di Blasi

 

 

Scilla, Reggio Calabria

Ann Cornelisen:

Women of the Shadows

Where it All Began

Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy

Torregreca: Life, Death, and Miracles in a Southern Italian Town all by

Strangers and Pilgrims- The Last Italian migration

Vendetta of Silence

 

The Reverse Immigrant

Gaetano's Trunk

Figghu Beddu all by Alfred M. Zappala

 Seeking Sicily

Hidden Tuscany

A Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea

Venice Against the Sea all by John Keahey

 Stolen Figs by Mark Rotella

 Dreaming of Sicily by Betsy Vincent Hoffman

 Nonna's House: Cooking and Reminiscing with the Italian Grandmas of Enoteca Maria by Scaravella and Petrini

 Italian Neighbors by Tim Parks

 

Author Frances Mayes

Under the Tuscan Sun

In Tuscany

Bella Tuscany by Francis Mayes      

 Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

 The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

 Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb

 My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

 The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

 

Salerno, Italy

Historical/Non Fiction

Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture (Florence Italy)

Leonardo and the Last Supper

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling all by Ross King

 Garibaldi's Ghosts; Essays on the Mezzogiorno and the Risorgimento by Thomas De Angelo

 Christ Stopped at Eboli (time between WW1 and WW2) by Carlo Levi

 Calabria: The Other Italy by Karen Haid

 Letters from Calabria by Marty Sturino

 The Borgia's and Their Enemies

Rome: Biography of a City

Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of il Duce

The House of Medici all by Christopher Hibbert

 

Florence, Italy (Pepperdine University)

A Small Place in Italy

Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby

 Naples 44 by Norman Lewis

 Rome by Robert Hughes

The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance by Peter Murray

The Life and Times of Lucrezia Borgia by Maria Bellonci

 The Medici: Godfather's of the Renaissance by Paul Strathem

 Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzi de Medici by Miles J. Unger

 Catherine de Medici by Leonnie Frieda

 The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli

 SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

 The New History of the Italian South by Lumley and Morris

 Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures From the Nazi's by Robert Edsel

 Italian Witchcraft by Raven Grimmasi

 The Peoples of Sicily: A Multicultural Legacy by Mendola and Alio

The Kingdom of Sicily by Louis Mendola

Women of Sicily: Saints, Queens, Rebels by Jaqueline Alio

 The Stones of Florence by Mary McCarthy

 Venice by James Morris

 A Concise History of Italy by Christopher Duggan

 A History of Venice

The Normans in the South (The Normans in Sicily)

Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History by John Julius Norwich

 A Reed in the Wind: Joanna Plantagenet Queen of Sicily by Rachel Bard

 The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius IX/ Rise of Fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer

 City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas by Roger Crowley

 Italy's Many Diasporas by Donna R. Gabaccia

 

 

Novels and Historical Fiction

A Room with a View

Where Angels Fear to Tread both by E.M. Forster

 The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone

 The Tigress of Fiorli by Elizabeth Lev

 The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

Chasing the Rose by Andrea di Robelant

 Only Salt Remains (Sicily) by Meryl Mc Queen

 Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant

 Tomorrow or Never by Maria Martin

 Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan

 From Sand and Ash by Ann Harmon

 The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella

 Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch

 Beautiful Ruins: A Novel by Jess Walter

 A Pillar of Iron (Ancient Rome) by Taylor Caldwell

 The Godfather

The Fortunate Pilgrim

The Sicilian

The Family

The Last Don

Omerta all by Mario Puzo

 City of Falling Angels (Venice) by John Berendt

 

Commissario Guido Brunetti Mysteries (a good dose of culture and a detective story in each/many titles/usually centered around Venice) by Donna Leon

 Madame Serpent

The Italian Woman

Queen Jezebel

The Borgias

Historical Fiction all by Jean Plaidy

 Assassin's Creed: Renaissance

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

(set in Florence)  by Oliver Bowden

 The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian

 The Path to the Spider's Nests by Italo Calvino

 The Wine Dark Sea

To Each His Own

Sicilian Uncles

The Day of the Owl all by by Leonardo Sciascia (1959-1972)

 Leonardo's Swans by Karen Essex

 Juliet by Ann Fortier

 I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis

 The Book of Unholy Mischief  by Elle Newmark

 

True Crime

The Monster of Florence

Trial by Fury (Amanda Knox) both by Douglas Preston

 King of the Mountains: The Remarkable Story of Giuseppe Musolino Italy's Most Famous Outlaw by Dan Possumato

 Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano

 

Folk Tales/Youth

Catarina the Wise (Sicilian Folk Tales) by Pitre and Zipes

 Italian Folk Tales by Italo Calvino

 

Strega Nona books by Tomie de Paola

 The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

 Italian Ancestry

They Came by Ship by Mario Toglia

 Finding Italian Roots

They Came in Ships both by John P. Coletta

 

Discovering Your Italian Ancestors by Lynn Nelson

 Sicilian Genealogy and Heraldry by Louis Mendola

 Forging the Chain: Italian Migration to North America, 1880-1930  il Circolo Calabrese

 Were You Always an Italian? by Maria Laurino

 Blood of My Blood by Richard Gambino

 Chiaroscuro: Essays of Identity by Helen Barolini

 Are Italians White? by Salvatore Salerno

 The Italian American Reader by Bill Tonelli

 
 

Assissi, Italy