Book picks similar to
Vita dei campi by Giovanni Verga


short-stories
classics
italian
italian-literature

The Complete Robot


Isaac Asimov - 1982
    Daneel Olivaw] • (1972) • short story by Isaac Asimov 231 • The Tercentenary Incident • (1976) • short story by Isaac Asimov 253 • First Law • [Mike Donovan] • (1956) • short story by Isaac Asimov 257 • Runaround • [Mike Donovan] • (1942) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 280 • Reason • [Mike Donovan] • (1941) • short story by Isaac Asimov 302 • Catch That Rabbit • [Mike Donovan] • (1944) • short story by Isaac Asimov 329 • Liar! • [Susan Calvin] • (1941) • short story by Isaac Asimov 350 • Satisfaction Guaranteed • [Susan Calvin] • (1951) • short story by Isaac Asimov 368 • Lenny • [Susan Calvin] • (1958) • short story by Isaac Asimov 385 • Galley Slave • [Susan Calvin] • (1957) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 427 • Little Lost Robot • [Susan Calvin] • (1947) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 459 • Risk • [Susan Calvin] • (1955) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 490 • Escape! • [Susan Calvin] • (1945) • short story by Isaac Asimov 518 • Evidence • [Susan Calvin] • (1946) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 546 • The Evitable Conflict • [Susan Calvin] • (1950) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 575 • Feminine Intuition • [Susan Calvin] • (1969) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 605 • ... That Thou Art Mindful of Him • (1974) • novelette by Isaac Asimov (variant of —That Thou Art Mindful of Him!) 635 • The Bicentennial Man • (1976) • novelette by Isaac Asimov 683 • A Last Word • (1982) • essay by Isaac Asimov THE COMPLETE ROBOT is the ultimate collection of timeless, amazing and amusing robot stories from the greatest science fiction writer of all time, offering golden insights into robot thought processes. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics were programmed into real computers thirty years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - with surprising results. Readers of today still have many surprises in store...

In the Sea There are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari


Fabio Geda - 2010
    Thus begins Enaiat's remarkable and often punishing five-year ordeal.When ten-year-old Enaiatollah Akbari's small village in Afghanistan falls prey to Taliban rule in early 2000, his mother shepherds the boy across the border into Pakistan but has to leave him there all alone to fend for himself. Thus begins Enaiat's remarkable and often punish­ing five-year ordeal, which takes him through Iran, Turkey, and Greece before he seeks political asylum in Italy at the age of fifteen. Along the way, Enaiat endures the crippling physical and emotional agony of dangerous border crossings, trekking across bitterly cold mountain pathways for days on end or being stuffed into the false bottom of a truck. But not every­one is as resourceful, resilient, or lucky as Enaiat, and there are many heart-wrenching casualties along the way. Based on Enaiat's close collaboration with Italian novelist Fabio Geda and expertly rendered in English by an award-winning translator, this novel reconstructs the young boy's memories, perfectly preserving the childlike perspective and rhythms of an intimate oral history. Told with humor and humanity, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles brilliantly captures Enaiat's moving and engaging voice and lends urgency to an epic story of hope and survival.

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?


Raymond Carver - 1976
    In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life.

The Country of the Blind


H.G. Wells - 1904
    G. Wells' acclaimed tale, a stranded mountaineer encounters an isolated society in which his apparent advantage, sight, since all the people are blind, proves less than valuable.

You're an Animal, Viskovitz!


Alessandro Boffa - 1998
    . . Viskovitz is each of these animals and many more, possessed by their behaviors, their neuroses, their vanities. And the gorgeous and impossible Ljuba, the object of Viskovitz’s desire, is in turn a sow, a bitch, a gazelle. There is an animal passion between them that lasts from story to story, but it is the fullness of the human condition that is portrayed most vividly in these hilarious metamorphoses. Dazzling beginnings lead into plots full of surprises, ranging from slapstick to Western, from cautionary tale to thriller. Scientific jargon is turned into wordplay and witty aphorism; theatrical reversals and philosophical insights abound. You’re an Animal, Viskovitz! is a triumph of comic inventiveness and intelligence unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Vita Nuova


Dante Alighieri
    The thirty-one poems in the first of his major writings are linked by a lyrical prose narrative celebrating and debating the subject of love. Composed upon Dante's meeting with Beatrice and the "Lord of Love," it is a love story set to the task of confirming the "new life" inspired by this meeting. With a critical introduction and explanatory notes, this is a new translation of a supreme work which has been read variously as biography, religious allegory, and a meditation on poetry itself.

Bartleby the Scrivener


Herman Melville - 1853
    Set in the mid-19th century on New York City's Wall Street, it was also, perhaps, Herman Melville's most prescient story: what if a young man caught up in the rat race of commerce finally just said, "I would prefer not to"?The tale is one of the final works of fiction published by Melville before, slipping into despair over the continuing critical dismissal of his work after Moby-Dick, he abandoned publishing fiction. The work is presented here exactly as it was originally published in Putnam's magazine—to, sadly, critical disdain.

The Red Horse


Eugenio Corti - 1983
    Its success had gone far beyond Italy, as the book has been translated into Spanish, French, Japanese and three other languages. This epic historical novel about World War II and after, written from the author's own personal experiences as an Italian Freedom Fighter, is a profoundly moving account of the war, those who fought in it on both sides, and the effects the war had on families in the author's hometown in Italy. On a wider scale, it is a faithful witness to the actual events of the war - including the role of historical personages who appear, the Russian campaign, the Nazi barbarism, the Communist gulag, the North Italian resistance, and political life in the two decades following the war. This world, filled with powerful personalities, drama and clashing armies, bathes in the light of the truth. What makes this truly historical novel, with its epic scope, a masterpiece is the underlying spiritual dimensions of the protagonist, his family and friends, which illuminates the ongoing tragedy of the war and its aftermath. In the end, it is a story of faith and hope in a world reduced to barbarism and cruelty. Born in 1921 in Lombardy, Eugenio Corti joined the Italian Freedom Fighters. From his experiences of the tragic retreat from Russia, Corti wrote a fascinating chronicle, Most Did Not Return, and a book about the Italian Freedom Fighters, The Last Soldiers of the King.

Three O'Clock in the Morning


Gianrico Carofiglio - 2017
    His father, a brilliant mathematician, hasn’t played a large part in his life since divorcing Antonio’s mother but when Antonio is diagnosed with epilepsy, they travel to Marseille to visit a doctor who may hold the hope for an effective treatment. It is there, in a foreign city, under strained circumstances, that they will get to know each other and connect for the first time.A beautiful, gritty, and charming port city where French old-world charm meets modern bohemia, father and son stroll the streets sharing strained small talk. But as the hours pass and day gives way to night, the two find themselves caught in a series of caffeine-imbued adventures involving unexpected people (and unforeseen trysts) that connect father and son for the first time. As the two discuss poetry, family, sex, math, death, and dreams, their experience becomes a mesmerizing 48-hour microcosm of a lifetime relationship. Both learn much about illusions and regret, about talent and redemption, and, most of all, about love. Elegant, warm, and tender, set against the vivid backdrop of 1980s Marseille and its beautiful calanques—a series of cliffs and bays on the city’s outskirts—Three O’Clock in the Morning is a bewitching coming-of-age story imbued with nostalgia and a revelatory exploration of time and fate, youth and adulthood.

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone


Tennessee Williams - 1950
    Stone tries to adjust to her aimless new life in Rome. She is adjusting, too, to aging ("The knowledge that her beauty was lost had come upon her recently and it was still occasionally forgotten.") With poignant wit and his own particular brand of relish, Williams charts her drift into an affair with a cruel young gigolo: "As compelling, as fascinating, and as technically skilled as his plays." (Publishers Weekly)

The Overcoat


Nikolai Gogol - 1842
    The Overcoat which is generally acknowledged as the finest of Gogol's memorable Saint Petersburg stories, is a tale of the absurd and misplaced obsessions.

Orphic Songs


Dino Campana - 1914
    Charles Wright’s translation, Jonathan Galassi’s introduction, and, as afterword, Montale’s thoughtful essay on Campana, identify the heart of this poet’s achievement.

The Fatal Eggs


Mikhail Bulgakov - 1923
    At the same time, a mysterious plague wipes out all the chickens in the Soviet republics. The government expropriates Persikov's untested invention in order to rebuild the poultry industry, but a horrible mix-up quickly leads to a disaster that could threaten the entire world.This H. G. Wells-inspired novel by the legendary Mikhail Bulgakov is the only one of his larger works to have been published in its entirety during the author's lifetime. A poignant work of social science fiction and a brilliant satire on the Soviet revolution, it can now be enjoyed by English-speaking audiences through this accurate new translation.Includes annotations and afterword.

Someone to Run With


David Grossman - 2000
    The story of a lost dog, and the discovery of first love on the streets of Jerusalem are portrayed here with a gritty realism that is as fresh as it is compelling.When awkward and painfully shy sixteen-year-old Assaf is asked to find the owner of a stray yellow lab, he begins a quest that will bring him into contact with street kids and criminals, and a talented young singer, Tamar, engaged on her own mission: to rescue a teenage drug addict.A runaway bestseller in Israel, in the words of the Christian Science Monitor: "It's time for Americans to fall in love with Someone to Run With."

The Company She Keeps


Mary McCarthy - 1942
    Based loosely on the author's own life, the book follows a young bohemian woman, Margaret Sargent, through her experiences and lost loves in a time of coming war.