Read the World: Italy

Books by authors from Italy or set in/about Italy.

Updated January 10, 2024
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Call me by your name
Aciman, André
Paper Book
Call Me by Your Nameis the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during...
The smell of the night
Camilleri, Andrea.
Paper Book
"You either love Andrea Camilleri or you haven't read him yet. Each novel in this wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction, blasts the brain like a shot of pure oxygen. Aglow with local color, packed with flint-dry wit, as...
The Inferno of Dante a new verse translation
Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321.
Paper Book
An innovative and fascinating new version of Dante Alighieri's Inferno as it has never been rendered Stopped mid-motion in the middle Of what we call a life, I looked up and saw no sky- Only a dense cage of leaf, tree, and twig. I was lost. --from...
Foucault's pendulum
Eco, Umberto.
Ebook
A literary prank leads to deadly danger in this "endlessly diverting" intellectual thriller by the author of The Name of the Rose (Time).   Bored with their work, three Milanese book editors cook up an elaborate hoax that connects the medieval Knights...
The name of the rose
Eco, Umberto.
Paper Book
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME * A spectacular best seller and now a classic, The Name of the Rose catapulted Umberto Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics turned novelist, to international prominence. An erudite murder mystery...
Saving Italy the race to rescue a nation's treasures from the Nazis
Edsel, Robert M.
Paper Book
When Hitler's armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind's greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. On the eve of...
My brilliant friend [electronic resource] Neapolitan Series, Book 1
Ferrante, Elena.
Ebook
Named the #1 Book of the 21st Century by the New York Times: The "enduring classic" about the lifelong friendship of two women from Naples (The Atlantic).   Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante...
Pompeii a novel
Harris, Robert, 1957-
Paper Book
This latest "New York Times" bestseller by the author of "Archangel" chronicles the suspenseful last days of the legendary ancient city nestled below the slopes of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. "[An] intelligent, engaging historical novel."--"The Washington Post Book World."
Alibi a novel
Kanon, Joseph.
Paper Book
From the bestselling author of" Los Alamos" and "The Good German" comes a riveting tale of love, revenge and murder set in postwar Venice It is 1946, and a stunned Europe is beginning its slow recovery from the ravages of World War II. Adam Miller has come to Venice to visit his widowed mother...
Mirror mirror
Maguire, Gregory.
Paper Book
"A brilliant achievement."
A house in the mountains the women who liberated Italy from fascism
Moorehead, Caroline
Paper Book
"Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope." --Wall Street Journal The acclaimed author of A Train in Winter returns with the "moving finale" (The Economist) of her Resistance Quartet--the powerful and inspiring true story of the women of the partisan resistance who fought against...
Death in springtime
Nabb, Magdalen, 1947-2007.
Paper Book
Italian law forbids paying ransom to criminals, and Marshal Guarnaccia must find the missing girl before her kidnappers decide to end her life. Two foreign girls are abducted from a Florence piazza in broad daylight. The unusual March snowfall has distracted everyone, even the...
The volcano lover a romance
Sontag, Susan, 1933-2004.
Paper Book
Set in 18th century Naples, based on the lives of Sir William Hamilton, his celebrated wife Emma, and Lord Nelson, and peopled with many of the great figures of the day, this unconventional, bestselling historical romance from the National Book Award-winning author of In America touches on themes of...
The leopard
Tomasi di Lampedusa, Giuseppe, 1896-1957.
Paper Book
SOON TO BE A NETFLIX SERIES * Set in the 1860s, The Leopard tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public...
Death in August
Vichi, Marco, 1957-
Paper Book
A new crime series full of Italian flavor--the first novel in the Inspector Bordelli series, set in 1960s Florence.   Florence, summer 1963. Inspector Bordelli is one of the few policemen left in the deserted city. He spends his days on routine work and his nights...

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