The Umbrian Thursday Night Supper Club


Marlena de Blasi - 2012
    Every month on a Thursday evening, a group of four Italian rural women gather in a derelict stone house in the hills above Italy’s Orvieto. There - along with their friend, Marlena - they cook, sit down to a beautiful supper, drink their beloved local wines, and talk.Here, surrounded by candle light, good food and friendship, they tell their life stories of loves lost and found, of aging and abandonment, of mafia grudges and family feuds, and of ingredients and recipes whose secrets have been passed down through the generations. Around this table, these five friends share their food and all that life has offered them - the good and the bad.For fans of all things Italian, and the thousands of readers who loved Deborah Rodriquez's The Kabul Beauty School; Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and Deborah Moggach's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel;

A Zany Slice of Italy


Ivanka Di Felice - 2014
     Although initially drawn to Italy for its art, architecture, and Vogue, often described in other books, it is evident that still lifes and stilettos do not hold this author’s attention as much as living people do. The author’s open, sympathetic viewpoint captures the characters’ quirky charm and the local color. Although you wouldn’t call this a philosophical book, how the author observes and deals with individuals and situations in her life shows that she follows her own philosophy, one that is worth looking into. While the author is not so naïve as to think that all Italians’ lives flow as smoothly as their olive oil, she has not met anyone in Italy who is bitterly disappointed with life. So pour yourself a glass of Italian wine, add a dose of accordion music, and spend some time in Ivanka Di Felice’s Italy. This book can be read as a stand-alone or feel free to tag along for more laugh out loud adventures in Italy by reading A Zany Slice of Tuscany and Zany Renovations. THIS IS NOW ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS. Italy without FAMIGLIA isn't really Italy! - Whistlers Mom TOP 500 REVIEWER If you enjoy ex-pat stories, you've probably read a pile of books by people who've moved to Italy. They marvel at the ancient wonders. They do battle with horrendously complicated Italian bureaucracy. They agonize over tardy repairmen. They spend most of their time with other ex-pats, but have cute stories to tell about the natives and they ALL consider themselves experts on Italian life. These people know NOTHING! Italian life is about family and this author knows all about Italian families because she married into one. Her handsome husband was born in Canada to Italian parents. Then he married a woman who was in love with him and with the idea of living in Italy and slowly she chipped away at his resistance until he agreed to move to his ancestral village. And there she meets the FAMIGLIA - an assortment of grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins who believe that Italy is the ONLY place to live and that there can never be too much food or wine or too many loud, crowded family gatherings. Eventually the young couple relocates to Tuscany and their adventures continue as they locate a house, buy a car, get to know the neighbours, seek work, and (of course) entertain visiting relatives. This is the true Italy.No matter how much you've read about Italy and Italians, this will be a real eye-opener and you'll have to stop so often to laugh that it will take you much longer to read than you anticipate.

The Villa in Sicily


Elise Darcy - 2020
    Her mother, who never travelled abroad, was going to Sicily without telling a soul. Why was she keeping her trip to Sicily a secret and who is the mysterious woman who wrote the journal? Josie travels to Sicily and follows in the footsteps of two young women in the journal, sisters who visited the Italian island in the nineteen sixties. What secrets will Josie uncover and why does she feel she is being followed at every turn?Josie soon discovers there was more to their trip than a just a holiday. Amongst the stunning sites and scenery of Sicily, an unimaginable tale of love, loss and tragedy unfolds. The tentacles of their story reach down the generations.Josie and Michael, a young American on the tour, soon realise their part in this story is only just beginning…Can they right the wrongs of the past before

To Tuscany With Love


Gail Mencini - 2013
    Shipped off to Tuscany by her mother, Bella is suddenly thrust into living with seven strangers during one life-altering summer. Meet Hope, the sturdy and practical girl, steadfast in her loyalty to her boyfriend; Meghan and Karen, identical twins with an eye for fashion and beauty to match; Stillman, haunted by his hard past, and Phillip, an athlete, both fueled by competition; Lee, by family mandate in pre-med; and Rune, the Hollywood-bound wild child. All add sizzling chemistry and rebellious humor to the mix. In one whirlwind summer, while uncovering the charms of Italy, they discover both friendship and love.After their summer together, life – and loss – happens. Returning to Tuscany 30 years later, their dreams, anger, secrets and disappointments create an emotional kaleidoscope. Their reunion sends them on a startling collision course that none of them could have predicted.Set against the allure of Tuscany, with an irresistible fusion of heartbreak and humor, this debut novel, “To Tuscany with Love,” explores the fear of letting the past determine the future and the power of friendship.

Blood on the Altar: In Search of a Serial Killer


Tobias Jones - 2012
    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 are 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. Years went by and Elisa's family could find only false leads. 2002, and Restivo is now living in Bournemouth. In November that year, his neighbour is found murdered, with strands of her own hair in her hands. Once again the police are at a loss to pin anything on him. It's not until 2010, when Elisa's decomposed body is found in the church where she went missing, that the two cases are linked and Restivo is finally dealt with. Blood on the Altar combines a gripping true crime case with an analysis of Italian culture and the impunity it offers to the powerful.

A Rose for Winter


Laurie Lee - 1955
    He found a country broken by the Civil War, but the totems of indestructible Spain survive; the Christ in agony, the thrilling flamenco cry, the gypsy intensity in vivid whitewashed slums, the cult of the bullfight, the exultation in death, the humour of hopelessness and the paradoxes deep in the fiery bones of Spain. Rich with kaleidoscopic images, A Rose for Winter is as evocative as the sun-scorched landscape of Andalusia itself.Cover Photograph: Irene Lamprakou

Beyond the Pasta; Recipes, Language and Life with an Italian Family


Mark Donovan Leslie - 2010
    Armed with just enough courage, minimal Italian language skills, and a certain proficiency in the kitchen, he enrolled in a full-immersion cooking and language program. He would travel to Viterbo, Italy and live with an Italian family. His teachers were beyond his wildest dreams-he learned to cook from the grandmother, or Nonna, of the family, who prepared every meal in a bustling, busy household, as women in her family have done for generations. Her daughter, Alessandra, taught him the language with patience and precision. Besides culinary secrets and prepositions, they opened their lives to him, and made him a real part of their extensive family. Though the book contains authentic, delicious family recipes Nonna shared with Mark, Beyond the Pasta delves into food memoir subject matter not found in a typical cookbook. It was the day-to-day shopping with Nonna, exploring the countryside and le gelaterie, where he truly developed his language skills, and a new, more joyful and uniquely Italian way of looking at the world.

Italian Life: A Modern Fable of Loyalty and Betrayal


Tim Parks - 2020
    In all areas of public life – community, education, employment – your connections are everything. From the bestselling author of Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education and Italian Ways, Italian Life is a particular reckoning with a beloved adopted country. It takes place in a university in the north. Valeria, a talented young woman from hot, dusty Basilicata, enrols together with thousands of others for a degree course that could take anything between three and ten years to complete, given the vagaries of the system. She has sacrificed a great deal to get here. However, as both Valeria and her rich supporting cast of students and professors will soon discover, there are dark and capricious forces at the institution’s heart.Unfolding into a story of power and corruption, influence and exclusion, Tim Parks’ compelling new book shows that an education is about understanding the workings of a society – in this case one where family, culture and innovation are shadowed by nepotism, bureaucracy and intrigue. Thought-provoking, surprising and always entertaining, Italian Life is a behind-the-scenes look at a paradoxical country: a gripping account of how Italy actually happens.

baguettes and bicycles: a cycling adventure across France


Steven Herrick - 2012
    Beginning on the Atlantic coast of Brittany, the author follows the Loire Valley, the Saone River and numerous canal paths through vineyards, quiet forests and small villages, accompanied by his slow red bicycle, christened Craig after a well-known weight-loss guru. But does the author listen to slimming advice? Non! Adopting the intriguing mantra that 'cycling is just an interlude between meals,' Steven Herrick indulges in three courses for lunch and four courses for dinner, straining the bounds of lycra-clad good taste while testing the frame strength of his bicycle. Not content with crossing France from west to east and cycling over 1,200 kilometres, the author also decides to tackle the iconic mountains of the Tour de France. Mont Ventoux, Alpe d'Huez, Col du Galibier and more... in search of cycling nirvana and the perfect boulangerie.'baguettes and bicycles' is a travel adventure, a restaurant safari and a guidebook for those who enjoy slow food, easy cycling... and fast descents!

Flying the Knife Edge: New Guinea Bush Pilot


Matt McLaughlin - 2015
    ‘Flying the Knife Edge’ is the story of an ordinary man experiencing extraordinary things as a pilot in Papua New Guinea in the 1990s. After an untimely exit from the Royal New Zealand Air Force, New Zealander Matt McLaughlin took a leap into the unknown, travelling to Papua New Guinea to work as a missionary pilot. He soon switched from missionary to mercenary, and over the next three and a half years, as he built up the necessary experience to chase his goal of becoming an airline captain, his life was a rollercoaster ride of adventure, risk, near-misses, and tragedy. Matt lived on the knife edge of bush pilot ops in one of the world’s most dangerous flying environments. Along the way he soaked up some fascinating local history: the country's vital role in WWII’s Pacific Theatre; the disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart; the chaos of the Bougainville civil war; the Morobe gold rush of the 1930s... “The gap in the cloud became smaller and smaller as I descended, a shrinking tunnel twisting down the gorge. In a matter of seconds I was so low my wheels barely cleared the trees on the valley floor as I passed, and jungle-clad walls closed in on me until I was a mere wingspan from both sides of the valley. And then, in an instant, the gap was gone and I was flying blind. In cloud. In the bottom of a gorge. With terrain on both sides rising thousands of feet above me. Time stopped. The passengers started screaming, anticipating the aircraft impacting the side of the mountain. And their deaths. I had the capacity for just one other thought: Will I hear the sound of the airframe smashing into the trees as we crash, or will I be dead before it registers?”

The Loneliest Hobo: The Longest Road


Geoffrey Peyton - 2015
    I was in no real rush to get back home immediately and I fancied a bit of a stroll anyway. This stroll took me over a month to complete, and as the chilly autumn became a very cold winter I realised that living the life of a hobo wasn't as easy as one may think. The only only items on my person that kept me going through the seven weeks or so was a hot water bottle, a single calor gas stove and my radio. But there were times when even those life savers ran out of their respective fuels, and soon depression, hunger and eventual thieving, took priority for my needs.      This is the story of my 250 mile walk home to Birmingham from St. Ives, Cornwall, in the autumn of 1990.

Travelling in a Box


Mike Wood - 2015
    Parched, tinder-dry fields. There are alien invasions, military maneuvers and toxic waste, and all before the Wood family even start their Alpine caravan adventure. Why? Because it is fun. It is holidays. Travelling in a Box is about a family and their passion for all things camping and caravanning. As they embark upon a pan-European adventure with their thirty-year-old caravan in tow, will their unbreakable tolerance for ‘fun’ be pushed to new limits?

The Crinkle Crankle Wall: Our First Year in Andalusia


Sabina Ostrowska - 2020
    As soon as they drive across Andalusia, they fall in love with its rugged beauty, whitewashed villages, red geraniums, giant aloes, and endless olive trees. After weeks of visiting ruins and dilapidated sheds advertised as homes, they find a little stone cottage in a mountain valley in the middle of nowhere. Equipped with everything that a romantic soul desires: a patio shaded by grape vines, an ancient bay leaf tree, and a formidable oak in front of a long driveway, they fall in love with this property and decide to reform it into a guest house. With little foresight or planning, they exchange cushy expats lives for a life in the sun.Quite quickly, however, they find themselves battling cowboy builders, no electricity, a dry well, torrential rain storms, and a freezing cold winter without a roof over their heads. Through all these adventures, they develop relations with their neighbours who had lived in the valley for many generations. Puzzled by the strangers’ behaviour, the neighbours teach them about olive picking, and the cultivation of local vegetables. But primarily, they offer their endless generosity and insight into life in rural Andalusia.As they begin to settle in, financial problems confront our somewhat naïve couple. Without steady pay checks and construction bills piling up, their idea of the good life starts to fall apart. Written with a wry sense of honest humour, this story is filled with twists and turns that take the reader on a journey from a life where every day was monotonously repetitive to a place where every day presents a new challenge.

Bookburners: The Complete Season 1


Max Gladstone - 2016
    It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad—Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum—and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label.Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel (previously published serially at SerialBox.com/Serials/Bookburners) chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy.

The White Island


Stephen Armstrong - 2004
    Its history reads like a history of pleasure itself. It is also a story of invasions and migrations, of artists and conmen, of drop-outs and love-ins. The Carthaginians established a cult to their goddess of sex there, and named the island after Bez, their god of dance. Roman centurions in need of a bit of down time between campaigns would go to Ibiza to get their kicks. And over the centuries, cultures around the Med have used the island either as a playground or a dump for the kind of people who didn't quite fit in back home, but who you'd probably quite like to meet at a party...This is the history of Ibiza, the fantasy island, framed by one long, golden summer where anything can happen - and it usually does.