Books

In the 1950s English novelist Elizabeth Bowen announced to her friends that she planned to write a book about Rome.  Concerned about her image as a writer, her friends warned her that better writers than she had attempted and failed …

Monuments are problematic, especially official state or national monuments. They dictate to the viewer what to think.  How do we commemorate without dictating?  Mount Rushmore’s intended message does not stop Douglas Gladstone in Carving a Niche for Himself from problematizing …

“Chi conosce Anna Maria Zampieri Pan sa che è una  brava scrittrice, ora alla sua quarta raccolta di articoli già diffusi in Italia e nel mondo.  Anche questo libro, come il precedente “Personaggi&Persone” pubblicato nel 2008 – ha detto nella …

The two lands designated in the title of Joseph Luzzi’s new non-fiction book My Two Italies (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) are embodied, on the one hand, in the rural southern traditions that his two Calabrian immigrant parents maintained in suburban …

John Keahey is a journalist turned travel writer who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some years ago on a visit to Italy he became enamored with Italian culture: its history and art. His falling for Italy in such a …

The role that immigrant and first generation Italian women played in the workforce before 1960 is not well-documented. Aside from such dramatic and tragic stories such as the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, immigrant women and their daughters have not been given …

Nino De Vita was born in 1950 on the western side of Sicily near the town of Marsala. Among his many books of poetry, he has published three children’s books. Over the last fifteen years, he has won some of …

After eighteen books of poems, two national book awards, and an outstanding Community Service in Literature award, Maria Gillan has reinvented herself as a painter. The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets is a collection of her poems accompanied by her …

Danilo Dolci (1924-1997) was a social activist who dedicated his life to addressing the social injustice suffered by Sicilian peasants and workers after World War II.  He is sometimes called the Sicilian Gandhi. His pacifism was derived from his fundamentalist …

Pompeii Awakened is, indeed, an awakening for the reader and traveler. Judith Harris begins her study by describing first century Roman life in Pompeii’s “flourishing economy” and the life upper-class Romans enjoyed in the nearby fashionable resort town, Herculaneum.   …