Books & Other Media in P.O.I.N.T. #10 Library



A Day In The Life Of Italy

Photographs by 100 of the world's leading photojournalists on one day, April 27, 1990


A Genealogist's Guide toDiscovering Your Italian Ancestors: how to find and record your unique heritage.
Cincinnati, OH, Betterway Books, 1997


A House In Sicily.
By Daphne Phelps.
1999

At the end of World War II, the author, an Englishwoman, inherited a house in Sicily and thus began 50 years of experiences learning to love the Island and its people. She describes with humor and understanding her life in a hospitable but often baffling and sometimes frightening part of the world.


A Mortal Sin.
By Giovanni Verga.
Quartet books, ltd, 1995. First published in 1866; translated by Iain Halliday in 1995.

Story of a man - poor and insignificant - who recreates himself to become worthy of a countess with whom he has fallen in love. The book is described as "an elegant novel, tragic, yet illuminated by the overwhelming passion of the lovers."


An Italian Education. By Tim Parks. Avon books, 1995.

Continuing his personal narrative, ITALIAN NEIGHBORS, an American transplanted to Italy enters into its society and cultural life. He further describes the Italian way of life at home, at school (his children were born and bred in Italy) in church and in the countryside.

Written fondly, it is witty, but sometimes critical.


Elegant Italy.
JDB Associates, Ltd.

A collection of fine hotels and resorts, with information on Italy's regions, emphasizing what to see and do, as well as the food and wine of each.


Foreign and Female; Immigrant Women in America, 1840-1930.
By Doris Weatherford.
Rev, & expanded. Facts on file, 1995.

Quite detailed, extensive research, conditions leading to emigration, their relocation and living conditions, customs carried over. Thousands of interviews recorded in those early years of immigration.  Italians are well covered but you may not like what you read.


Great Cities of Art: Rome, Florence, Venice, Palermo, Naples.
A videocassette produced by ENIT (Italian State Tourist Board).


Honor Thy Father: the Rise and Fall of the Bonnano crime family.
Platinum Disc Corp. 2001.
Videocassette.


Italian Days.
By Barbara Grizzuti Harrison.

A mixture of travel, history, politics, folklore, food, architecture, arts, and literature, with local anecdotes and personal reflections.


Italian Neighbors, or A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona.
By Tim Parks.

Amusing and loving tribute to the country the British author has embraced. He shares his secrets of survival, tales of the unexpected, and treasured friendships.


Italianissimo 1.
By Denise DeRome.

A multimedia course for learning Italian. NTC pub. Group, 1992.

4 cassettes, 1 full color text


Italy, A Difficult Democracy.
By Frederic Spotts and Theodor Wieser.

Up-to-date survey of the Italian political scene during the forty years since WWII. It describes the inner dynamics, the day-to-day functioning of the governing institutiions, and the interactgion of the country's economic, social, and political life.


Italy: A small hotel guide.
Ed. by Andrew Duncan, 1999.

Description and full information about 350 captivating small hotels, pensioni and bed-and-breakfast stops.


Italy: The Places in Between.
By Kate Simon.

A guide book but much more. The author visits the smaller places “around and between the major urban centers”.


La Storia; Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience.
By Jerre Mangione & Ben Morreale.
HarperCollins, 1992.

This tremendous work beginning with Columbus centers around the mass migration from 1880-1924 and continues to the present (1990).  Every aspect of the Italian American experience is revealed in great detail.  A must read!


Made in Italy.
By Annie Brady & Patricia Schultz.
Workman pub. Co. 1988.

A shopper's guide to Florence, Milan, Rome & Venice. (Though dated, contains lots of good reading.)


My Silent Partner.
By Ben A. Savelli.
San Francisco, CA, Savelli, 1996. Paper.

The author tells the story of his immigrant family from the Great Depression through World War II - with laughter and tears. The author was given a second chance in life, so he and the Lord (his silent partner) are partners in this book.


Old Calabria.
By Norman Douglas.

First published in 1915, Old Calabria is a comprehensive and exciting account of adventure travel.


Papa, My Father; A Celebration of Dads.
By Leo Buscaglia.
Slack, 1989.

Buscaglia here extols his father in the many roles he played in Leo's lifetime - husband, educator, philanthropist, philosopher, patriot and nurturer.  Buscaglia writes in a warm and loving manner.


That Lucky Old Son.
By Frankie Laine.


The Immigrants Speak.
By Salvatore J. LaGumina.

The Italy Fever. By Darlene Marwitz.

The author’s love affair with Italy began while a graduate student in architecture visiting Roman ruins and Renaissance buildings. Ten years later, she returns to Italy and shares with the reader 14 ways to satisify your love affair with Italy.


The Italians.
By Luigi Barzini.
Atheneum, 1964.

This is a full length portrait, featuring their manners and morals. The author portrays his country through the eyes of its people, touching on their vices and virtues, their hopes and failures, their past, present and future.


The Leopard.
By Giuseppe Di Lampedusa.
Pantheon books, 1960

A novel set during the Risorgimento - a time in history between the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and, eventually, the unification of Italy.  All the action centers around the powerful figure of Don Fabrizio, "a Sicilian prince of immense sensual appetites, enormous wealth and great personal magnetism."  He and a glittering array of characters nervously await the affect on their lives of the hero Garibaldi, the prime mover in the Risorgimento.


The Miracle Of Castel di Sangro.
By Joe McGinniss.

An account of the year the author spent in Castel di Sangro in the Abruzzo, to follow the village soccer team. A drama of hope, fear, love, loss and suspense.


The Proud Italians.
By Carl A. Pescosolido and Pamela Gleason.
1995.

The authors “document what we owe the Romans and their Italian descendents...from the mysterious Etruscans through The Renaissance and to the scientists, architects and designers of today”. We learn why the Italians are considered “Our Great Civilizers”.


Unto the Sons.
By Gay Talese.
Ballantine Pub Co., 1992.

Non-fiction that reads like a novel. The story of the Talese family in America from before World War II but going back in ancestry and intertwined with Italian history.  Includes a great bibliography.

Vendetta: The true story of the largest lynching in U.S. history. By Richard Gambino. 2d ed. Toronto, Guernica, 2000.

A mob of upward of 20,000 people lynched 11 Italian Americans, on march 14, 1891, in protest against the acquittal of 6 Italian Americans who had been charged with the murder of the New Orleans police chief.  No one was ever prosecuted for this lynching.

The book lays bare the interplay of political, economic, social motives in the U.S. - an attempt to limit Italian American participation in the American community of the time and gave rise to the stereotypical depiction of the Italian American culture as criminal.