Here are a number of books about Italian cuisine, travel or culture, or fiction books set in Italy for you to enjoy
this winter.
I have read a number of them myself, and have included some of my favorites. If you can't travel to Italy this year,
this is
one way to feel like you have! If any of the books interest you, just click on the links below. Click HERE for cookbook reviews!
If you have any recommendations for your own favorite books, please EMAIL US!
I read this book sitting by the sea in Positano this summer. It has a good mix of humor, history and the reality of travel in Italy all written in short story form. Very enjoyable!
Book Description: This newly designed collection of adventures in Italy takes the reader to a land of
magical extremes -- of ancient verities and modern vitality. Sculptors, olive harvesters, art historians, and
cooks people these tales, and their stories are as evocative as opera. The book simmers with romance, culture --
and the best food on earth. Authors include Tim Parks, Patricia Hampl, Mary Taylor Simeti, Luigi Barzini, Gary
Paul Nabhan, and many others. Travel writing at its glorious best.
You can't help but want to own your own farmhouse in Tuscany after reading these two book. I have already read them both twice
and and know I'll read them again!
Book Description: In this memoir of her buying, renovating, and living in an abandoned villa in Tuscany,
Frances Mayes reveals the sensual pleasure she found living in rural Italy, and the generous spirit she brought
with her. She revels in the sunlight and the color, the long view of her valley, the warm homey architecture,
the languor of the slow paced days, the vigor of working her garden, and the intimacy of her dealings with the
locals. Cooking, gardening, tiling and painting are never chores, but skills to be learned, arts to be practiced,
and above all to be enjoyed. At the same time Mayes brings a literary and intellectual mind to bear on the experience,
adding depth to this account of her enticing rural idyll.
Book Description: For centuries Italy has been many things to many people. In this brilliant anthology and
traveler's companion, twenty-eight first-rate women writers reveal why the land that is the heart and soul of European
civilization is so seductive to women.
Kate Simon walks us through a Siena filled with surprises and luminous beauty. Elizabeth Spencer writes of first
coming to Italy and finding "home." Shirley Hazzard explores the mysteries of Naples. Muriel Spark writes on Venice,
Edith Wharton on Rome, George Eliot on Florence, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on San Gimignano, Patricia Hampl on Assisi.
Other wonderful writers contemplate the idiosyncratic glories of Italy's architecture, cooking, art, and landscape; its
culture; its places and people.
As these writers tell their stories--in fiction, memoir, and essay--of coming to understand Italy, they explore
the complexity of their passions for it, mingling affection and ecstasy with intellectual curiosity. Organized
geographically--from northern Italy to Rome and on to the south, Desiring Italy offers an enchanting journey for
readers and travelers.
A very lusty book of fiction set in Italy where Sicilian food plays an integral part in the plot. I found this
book fun, light, and just a bit raunchy!
Book Description: Food and Italy are certainly popular subjects for novels and memoirs these days.
Prior jumps on the "Tuscan Sun" bandwagon with her own contribution, this one about Sicily. Rosa grew up the only
girl in a peasant family in rural Sicily. When the Mafia murders her first and only love, she turns to cooking for
solace. Eventually, she leaves rural existence for good and begins a new life as a librarian in Palermo, Sicily's capital. Her life there is staid, but she continues to cook,
with a reputation to boot. When she meets a mysterious Englishman, a chef and a writer, in the library one day,
she knows she is about to fall madly in love. Her premonitions are correct, and the Englishman shows Rosa that
food is only one of many sensual delights. Librarian readers will probably tire of the cliched description of Rosa:
an overweight, undersexed spinster, chided by her staff and revolting to her patrons. However, the food she cooks
is fabulous.
Book Description: In La Bella Cucina, Viana La Place instructs us to look to Italy to discover how to live
the good life--la bella vita. She paints a picture of generations gathered together around a table abundant with bowls
of pasta, bright platters of vegetables, glistening olives, ripe fruit, and crusty peasant bread. The image poses a
sharp contrast to American society, where most of us rush along spending many hours at work and the rest isolated in
suburban homes or city apartments. La Bella Cucina is not just a cookbook, but a guide on how to live la bella vita
no matter where you call home.
Do you want to bring the feel of Italy into your home? Here are some ideas to get you started!
Book Description: A former associate publisher at Hearst magazines shows how to incorporate the very
best of another country's decorating, entertaining, and kitchen secrets into American homes. The book guides
the reader room by room in the house, then out into the marketplace and the garden to cover a country's full
range of life and style.
Description: Look ma, no textbooks! The Learn in Your Car series treats you like a child--in the best
possible way--starting with one-word phrases ("please," "good-by"), counting exercises, and simple nouns
("bus," "train") designed to imitate a child's learning process. First you hear the words in English, then
they are repeated slowly in clear, unaccented pronunciations. The method is extremely effective for those who
don't know a thing, or for those who want to brush up by testing themselves when the English words are spoken.
The tapes emphasize the building blocks of communicating in a foreign country rather than rote phrases that only
apply on the tape and not in real-life exchanges. Level 1 painlessly covers basic verb forms, essential prepositions,
near future and past tenses, as well as shopping, hotel reservations, and other travel-related situations.
Want to order off an Italian menu like an expert? This book is the answer!
Book Description: You`re in Italy and you think you know Italian food. Would you eat `stinco`? Menus in a foreign
language are confusing and filled with slang and idioms. This guide will help you find your way around a menu written
in Italian. It gives you the freedom to enter places you might never have before and order dinner without shouting,
pointing or hand waving. This guide was created for the traveler who wants to enjoy, appreciate and experience
authentic cuisine and know what he or she is ordering. More than a mere dictionary, this pocket-sized book contains
and an up-to-date list of restaurants, gelateria, food and wine stores and food markets; advice on tipping and
restaurant etiquette; tips on budget dining; and, the heart of the book, translation of more than 2,500 menu
items in an annotated, easy-to-use format.
I just bought this book but haven't had a chance to read it yet. It looks like a great book for reading on summer vacation!
Book Description: Fed up with cold, foggy London and the high cost of real estate, Annie Hawes is persuaded by her sister Lucy to
travel to Italy and graft roses for the winter. The sisters arrive in rural Liguria with some formal Italian, no
knowledge of rose grafting, and visions of Mediterranean men and sun. What they find is a town full of hard-working,
wary olive growers smack in the middle of an olive oil depression who think these two young Englishwomen are nuts.
Extra Virgin tells the story of the sisters' acclimation--theirs to Liguria and Liguria to them--and how they fell in
love with a crumbling farmhouse in the hills.
Book Description: When her husband of one year left her for an old girlfriend, Fraser
(Losing It: False Hopes and Fat Profits in the Diet Industry), in her mid-30s and suddenly alone, was devastated.
In a state of shock, she decided to take a trip to Italy. Finding no solace with friends in Florence, she traveled
to the island of Ischia, where she met M., a married university professor from France with whom she began a casual
affair that continued on and off for the next two years. In this gentle memoir, she tells of her rendezvous with her
lover in Milan, Lago Maggiore, London, the Aeolian Islands, Morocco and her own city, San Francisco all the places
where they carried on their fairy-tale romance, enjoying beautiful scenery, languorous days in the sun, fabulous
meals and good sex.
Canadian readers click 
