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10 items

• My Brilliant Friend. Book One

  Childhood, Adolescence

  Ferrante, Elena

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  Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante's four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Leopard

  Di Lampedusa, Giuseppe,

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  Set in 1860s Sicily, The Leopard follows the aristocratic Salina family during the Italian unification known as the Risorgimento. As Giuseppe Garibaldi's forces advance through Sicily, Prince Fabrizio Salina grapples with the changing political…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Bottom of Your Heart

  Inferno for Commissario Ricciardi

  De Giovanni, Maurizio, 1958-

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  In this seventh entry (after By My Hand), de Giovanni riffs with poetic intensity on the vagaries of love, a seed that sprouts at the bottom of the hearts of several characters and that leads to murder. In 1932, ten years into Mussolini's fascist…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Betrothed

  a Seventeenth-century Milanese Story Discovered and Rewritten

  Manzoni, Alessandro, 1785-1873,

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  In the fall of 1628, two young lovers are forced to flee their village on the shores of Lake Como after a powerful lord prevents their marriage, plunging them into the maelstrom of history. Manzoni draws on actual people and events to create an…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Empire of Dirt

  a Novel

  Manfredi, Francesca, 1988-

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  In this captivating English-language debut, three generations of women must face their secrets and regrets when an old family curse awakens. There has always been tension in "the blind house," where Valentina lives with her mother and grandmother in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Not All Bastards Are From Vienna

  Molesini, Andrea

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  Andrea Molesini's exquisite debut novel--winner of the prestigious Campiello Prize--portrays the depths of heroism and horror within a Northern Italian village toward the end of the Great War. While a family's villa is requisitioned by enemy troops,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Death in Sicily

  the First Three Novels in the Inspector Montalbano Series : The Shape of Water, The Terra-cotta Dog, The Snack Thief

  Camilleri, Andrea

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  American readers were first introduced to Sicily's inimitable Inspector Salvo Montalbano more than ten years ago. Since then, the detective--and his characteristic mix of humor, cynicism, compassion, and love of good food--has won the affection of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Girl Returned

  Di Pietrantonio, Donatella

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  "I was the Arminuta , the girl returned. I spoke another language, I no longer knew who I belonged to. The word 'mama' stuck in my throat like a toad. And, nowadays, I really have no idea what kind of place mother is. It is not mine in the way one…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler

  Calvino, Italo

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  Italo Calvino's masterpiece combines a love story and a detective story into an exhilarating allegory of reading, in which the reader of the book becomes the book's central character.

• Lies and Sorcery

  Morante, Elsa, 1912-1985,

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  The story is set in Sicily and told by Elisa, orphaned young and raised by a "fallen woman." For years Elisa has lived in an imaginary world of her own; now, however, her guardian has died, and the young woman feels that she must abandon her fantasy…Read moreRead more of this annotation