Books

Color-Pages

Child's Books

Thrillers

Mysteries

Historical

Romances

Personal Experiences

History of Italy

True Crime

Italian Cookbooks

Non-fiction books about Italy are many and varied.  I've stuck to four categories here:

• personal experiences,

• histories of Italy,

• true crime, and

• cookbooks.

Books on other subjects such as the following, you can find on the specific pages on these subjects here on my site:

• majolica,
• decorating,
• fashion,
• children's books,
• games,
• gardens,
• immigrants
• art.

Click on the book covers to link through to Amazon.com's page for the book.  There you can read:

• back cover, flap text
• professional reviews
• prices and formats
• availability of second-hand copies
• but ignore the "reader reviews" which have been largely co-opted by shills for the writer and publisher.

Most are out in paperback, so be sure to check, if you think the price of the hardback is too high.

For Kindle readers, here are dome direct links to the Kindle pages for:

Kindle Italy Travel Books

Kindle History of Italy

  Kindle Italian Cooking

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

How could I not put her books?  From Frances Mayes:  "I thought I was strange to feel this way.  Since I've met so many people who read Under the Tuscan Sun, I've found out that lots of people feel this way.  It's complicated but feels so very easy.  The warmth of the people, the human scale of the towns, the robust food, yes, but I've begun to think, too, that it's the natural connection with art, the natural exposure to beauty on a day-to-day basis."  See her follow-up books:  Bella Tuscany, In Tuscany, Swan, Bringing Tuscany Home, there are also many poetry books by the author.

The Reluctant Tuscan

The anti-Mayes...at first.  Also called Mayes-with-a-sense-of-humor.  From Booklist:  "In funny, breezy, offhand prose, yet one more American discovers the pleasures and pains of restoring a superannuated, bucolic Tuscan dwelling.  A writer-producer of television series, Doran moves from Los Angeles to Tuscany at the behest of his interior-decorator wife and begins to live out his own Italian-inflected version of Green Acres."

Too Much Tuscan Sun

Tuscany from the Tuscan perspective...travel book, memoir, and more.  From the Book Description:  "...But the bulk of the book is devoted, with humor and affection, to the Americans he has met-the vain, the silly, the ignorant, the ambitious, the horny, the condescending, the charming, and the outright pathological.  Some of them have made his life hell and live in his nightmares; others became lifelong friends."  The ultimate guide on how not to be the Ugly-American (Australian/British/...)

Vanilla Beans and Brodo

Two Australians go native, and take us with them.  From a Reader Review:  "This book makes us aware not only of the wonders available to us when we visit Italy but to how much we miss by not being prepared for our visits.  VB&B is a fascinating book about a region and a primer on how to learn to adapt and enjoy another culture than our own."  From Library Journal:  "Culturally sensitive, Dusi avoids the trap of mocking the unfamiliar or seemingly bizarre.  She takes small steps to insinuate herself into social life, always mindful of a history that is not her own."

If you have ever dreamed of having your own winery, this book will either inspire you or dissuade you from following that dream.  His wines, like all the wines in the region, are aged 5 years, and grow on terraces and fields the Romans prized for the wonderful grapes that could grow there.

Here is a very nice interview with Ferenc Mate, in which he talks about his winery and his fictional series about sailing.  He is also a well-known author of books about sailing and sailboats.

Check out Ferenc Mate's website, and his winery website.

More Personal Experience Books

History of Italy

Legends of the Sibilline Mountains was brought to my attention by the translators of the Italian book.  They wrote:  "We have translated Giuseppe Santarelli’s "Legends of the Sibilline Mountains" from the Italian and published it with Staf edizioni of Amandola, Italy. 

"The Sibilline Mountains, dividing Le Marche from Umbria, were "celebrated in the 14th and 15th centuries throughout all Europe for magical fairytales and necromantic intiations," according to the author.

"In the most famous of these tales a mysterious Sibyl inhabits a grotto devoted to the pleasures of the flesh, luring knights to eternal damnation. The Lago di Pilato, a nearby mountaintop lake where Pontius Pilate’s body was said to have been cast, became a destination for demonic rituals. 

"In a witty and personal tone, Santarelli, director of the Sanctuary of Loreto, discusses the origins of the myths in folklore, their literary transformations through the centuries, and the archeological traces left behind."

The book is available from Amazon and other Internet sellers, and here is an e-mail for the authors: staf.edizioni@gmail.com.

I enjoyed this book (137 pages long) and the interesting links made between fantasy, history, religion and literature.  I thank the translators for their generosity in letting me read it.  It's a wonderful pre-read for anyone traveling to that area of Italy.

This little book can inspire a reader to turn to the many literary and musical transformations of the legends of the Sibilline Mountains, which can never be a bad thing!  Aretino, Wagner, Ariosto, Andrea da Barberino, even Leopardi was inspired by these mountains as he wrote his beautiful poetry.

The book will be especially interesting to those who have roots in that region, and for anyone interested in evolution of thinking from the superstitious Middle Ages to the humanist Renaissance.  Students of European literature will find it especially interesting.

Main Square of Ascoli Piceno circa 1900

For a free, concise history of Italy, visit my History of Italy pages

If you enjoy folktales, and want to read more Italian ones, I can also recommend Italo Calvino's classic Italian Folktales.

Concise History of Italy by Christopher DugganRave Reader Reviews.  From one:  "The book is, as the title indicates, a "concise" history. Very concise, and incredibly well written!  The author covers a lot of ground, and so few words are devoted to character development or the broader context of historical events that one might expect the book to read like an almanac."

And Christopher Duggan has another wonderful history of Italy book:  The Force of Destiny: The History of Italy Since 1796.

Rough Guide History of Italy

A very thorough and concise history of Italy.  Rough Guides are a series of books that specialize in being practical, concise, accurate, and reasonably priced.

From Amazon.com:

David Gilmour’s wonderfully readable exploration of Italian life over the centuries is filled with provocative anecdotes as well as personal ob­servations, and is peopled by the great figures of the Italian past—from Cicero and Virgil to Dante and the Medicis, from Garibaldi and Cavour to the controversial politicians of the twentieth century. His wise ac­count of the Risorgimento, the pivotal epoch in modern Italian history, debunks the nationalistic myths that surround it, though he paints a sympathetic portrait of Giuseppe Verdi, a beloved hero of the era.

Gilmour shows that the glory of Italy has always lain in its regions, with their distinctive art, civic cultures, identities, and cuisines. Italy’s inhabitants identified themselves not as Italians but as Tuscans and Venetians, Sicilians and Lombards, Neapolitans and Genoese. Italy’s strength and culture still come from its regions rather than from its misconceived, mishandled notion of a unified nation.

Oxford Illustrated History of Italy

For the professional historian's point of view...  Although illustrated, don't make the mistake of thinking this is a simple read.  These are articles by historians analyzing in great depth Italy's history in relation to Europe and the world's history.  For the erudite traveler, or the armchair historian...

Books and films about Italy's unification and the great Giuseppe Garibaldi

Daedalus Books - Remainders On-Line Bookstore - 50%-90% off Titles

Browse the on-line bookstore that specializes in remainder books.  These are books that publishers printed, but did not sell through the regular outlets.  Beautiful books for GREAT prices.

Italy-related titles are in most of their categories, like Cooking, History, Art.  Try the Renaissance Studies category, for example.

True Crime

From Publisher's Weekly: 

"This is not a travel book, but rather a sophisticated attempt to make sense of the on-going prosecution of the 78-year-old seven-time prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, and of the intimate ties between the mafia and postwar Italian politics.

'An Australian by birth, Robb is not just parachuting in to gawk at the corruption that traded in votes, money, government contracts and even assassinations. A longtime resident of Naples, Robb adeptly puts the elusive world of organized crime (both Neapolitan and Sicilian) in a historical context that stretches back to the 19th century."

From the Book's Description:

"A groundbreaking, unprecedented bestseller in Italy, Roberto Saviano's insider account traces the decline of the city of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network more powerful and violent than the Mafia.  The Camorra is an elaborate, international system dealing in drugs, high fashion, construction, and toxic waste, and its influence has entirely transformed life in Campania, the province surrounding Naples. 

'Since seeing his first murder victim, at thirteen, Roberto Saviano has watched the changes in his home city.  For Gomorrah, he disappeared into the Camorra and witnessed at close range its audacious, sophisticated, and far-reaching corruption that has paralyzed his home city and introduced the world to a new breed of organized crime."

From the Book Description: 

"Blood on the Altar combines a gripping true crime case with Jones' deep understanding of Italian culture - the impunity it offers to the powerful - he so expertly demonstrated in his bestseller:  The Dark Heart of Italy."

Blood on the Altar: 

"One Sunday morning in 1993, a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy.  Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo Restivo, a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting women's hair on the back of buses.  Elisa's family is convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughter's disappearance, but he is protected by local big-wigs: by his Sicilian father, by a doctor with links to organised crime, by a priest who had vices of his own." 

The author speaks with the family and those involved, and follows the story to the sad, sad resolution.

The Dark Heart of Italy: 

"The Italy that emerges from Jones's travels is a country scarred by civil wars and "illustrious corpses"; a country that is proudly visual rather than verbal, based on aesthetics rather than ethics; a country where crime is hardly ever followed by punishment; a place of incredible illusionism, where it is impossible to distinguish fantasy from reality and fact from fiction."

From the Book's Description:

"In an extraordinary tale of detective versus spy, Italian investigators under the leadership of prosecutor Armando Spataro unraveled in embarrassing detail the “covert” action in which Abu Omar had been kidnapped and sent to be tortured in Egypt. Spataro—seasoned in prosecutions of the Mafia and the Red Brigades and a passionate believer in the rule of law—sought to try the kidnappers in absentia: the first-ever trial of CIA officers by a U.S. ally.

An exemplary achievement in narrative nonfiction writing, A Kidnapping in Milan is at once a detective story, a history of the terrorist menace, and an indictment of the belief that man’s savagery against man can be stilled with more savagery yet."

From the Book's Description:

"Against the sweeping backdrop of western Sicily, in a riveting seven-year quest, Frank Viviano pieces together his own harrowing ancestral history of betrayal and redemption. His take is haunted, from its violent opening to its stunning climax, by an ancient Sicilian proverb, Lu sangu lava lu sangu, "Blood washes blood": the torrent of unforgiving vengeance that flows from an unforgivable offense.

'Viviano's great-great grandfather was a legendary bandit who traveled the countryside of Sicily by night in the robes of a friar and was known as "the Monk." His brutal murder has remained shrouded in mystery for four generations. Until now.

'Populated by an extraordinary cast of nineteenth-century Robin Hood brigands and twentieth-century underworld bosses, here is a true-life Godfather, in which past and present finally merge into a single story with a shattering climax that ultimately changes the way the author views his immigrant family's complex legacy -- and himself."

Italian Cookbooks

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazen

From Amazon.com:  "Perhaps more than any other person, Marcella Hazan is responsible for bringing Italian cuisine into the homes of American cooks.  We're not talking spaghetti and meatballs here--Hazan's cuisine consists of polenta, risotto, squid braised with tomatoes and white wine, sautéed Swiss chard with olive oil and garlic...  Now a new generation is ready to be introduced to Marcella Hazan's way with food, and in Essentials of Italian Cooking Hazan combines her two earlier works into one updated and expanded volume."

Robert Tinnell's Feast of the Seven Fishes

You can purchase the story, together with the fish recipes, courtesy of Robert's wife, Shannon (15 recipes, not all fish recipes), a Foreword by Steve Geppi, and a section by Robert Tinnell discussing his inspirations (92 pages in all).  Besides getting recipes for your own Italian Christmas Eve, you have a fun book for the family to read while digesting.  And you'll have a head start on everyone when the movie finally comes out (perhaps for next Christmas). And be sure to watch the lovely promotional video at the book's website.

The author has a strong presence on YouTube.com, so be sure to search for him there, to see his real family members cooking fish.  And he hosts a blog, too, celebrating things Italian, especially Italian cooking (not just fish).  Here are two excerpts from the book.  And visit my page about La Vigilia for more about Robert's book.

Jacqueline Miconi is an Italian-American cook and author.  Her book shares not just her family's and friends' time-honored recipes, but her lovingly remembered stories from her rich life in an extended Italian-American family.  If you're not of Italian origin, after reading her engaging stories, you may wish you were!  But at least you can eat like an Italian-American using the 100 recipes as guides. 

I've read Jacqueline's book, and found myself thinking of those wonderful old Women's Guild books from days gone by, that collected together contributed recipes and stories from their members.  The printed collection, while at times in need of a strong-armed editor, was full of warmth and heart, just like Jacqueline Miconi's book.  The book is especially entertaining if you grew up near the author's hometown of East Haven, Connecticut.  The recipes are directed to a U.S. audience.

Here's a description from her website, where you can find recipes, excerpts and ordering information.  From her website:

"This cookbook includes over 100 traditional recipes using readily available ingredients for dishes that are not only easy to create, but even more enjoyable to indulge in. It is divided into 10 different chapters, covering the many celebrations that make up our lives. Through chapters like Sunday Dinner, La Pasqua (Easter Sunday), A Feast with your Paisani and An Italian Christmas, this cookbook reads like a continuous feast of memories and wonderful Italian dishes, all while showing readers how to prepare authentic Italian meals, even for the most amateur of cooks."

While the previous book celebrates Italian-American festivals and life, this book celebrates Italian festivals and holidays, in Italy.  Here's a rave review from an Amazon visitor:

"I highly recommend all Carol Field books, even if you don't cook. She TAKES you to Italy and FEEDS you. She writes engrossing and vividly descriptive literature which also happens to contain really great, authentic Italian recipes. Celebrating Italy will make you want to move to Italy and eat all day and night."

This book was also recommended by a site visitor.  He and his family use it to keep their Italian culture alive after several generations removed from Italy.  Italian food is the most enduring aspect of Italian culture, and the most popular!

"You know it's a different kind of grilling book when it includes a recipe for homemade ricotta. The grill recipes are unusual, relatively easy, and the ones I have tried so far have been delicious--from the ribs to the chicken legs with fennel and blue cheese sauce to zucchini with the aforementioned ricotta. And yes, that is Mario's kickass barbecue sauce dripped on one of the pages of my copy!"

"Containing more than three hundred recipes, Claudia Roden’s timeless and enchanting book (CR's The Food of Italy) is set against a backdrop of the story of Italy and its people and is the most authoritative and approachable guide to one of the world’s best-loved cuisines by one of the great food writers of our time."  You can't get any better than that!

They go on to explain:  "For an entire year Roden traveled up and down Italy, through every region, taking in city and countryside, to discover the local specialties on their home ground."  One Reader's Review says she and her daughter used the book as a culinary guide to order at restaurants while travelling Italy.

Italian Immigrant Cooking

From a Reader Review:  "Mrs. Rigante and my husband's grandmother were acquaintances in her Brooklyn neighborhood; they lived just a few blocks from one another.  Grandma didn't write down a lot of her recipes, so Mrs. Rigante's cookbook is a lifesaver.  Their recipes are so similar it's like having a bit of home every time you open up the book.  We can't look through it without getting hungry!  Every recipe we've tried is excellent, and I love the family anecdotes and pictures.  This is a staple for every cookbook collection."  Rave Reader Reviews.

Some Italian Sweets Cookbooks

More Cookbooks

Also see my pages:

Mysteries set in Italy

Mysteries set in Ancient Rome