Italy Books

Tim Jepson has put together a little gem in this guide to Tuscany. I soloed there for two weeks in 2004 using the 2002 version plus Lonely Planet "Tuscany," and other than an adding an Italian phrase book I can't imagine the casual tourist needing to lug around anything else. The articles are very insightful and the driving tour suggestions extremely helpful. The only quibble I might have with the author is his "must see" rating for San Gimignano -- way too touristy and expensive! I'd send you to Cortona, Arezzo, Montelpulciano or Montalcino instead (all of which he also recommends). Great job Tim Jepson! Keep up the good work!

My fiance and I are getting married in Italy this fall and decided to send a guide book to our guests (get them excited about the event, help them plan, etc.). We went to a local travel shop and thumbed through EVERY Tuscany guide they had on the shelves (and they had many). I'm generally a devout user of the DK guides (love the pictures) and Lonely Planet (great detail) and Rick Steves (cuts to critical stuff)- but found the AAA to be the best of all we saw (particurlaly if you are going with just one).

PROS
- Well organized (nice "tabs" to thumb through)
- Great pictures (generates 'excitement' about your holiday)
- Appropriate level of detail
- Helpful maps
- Spiral bound means it's easy to have open w/o bending book
- Small/ lightweight enough to carry around
- At this writing, it's very current edition (March '05)

CONS
- Well, since we were sending as gifts, the cover isn't as "aesthetically pleasing" as some of the others out there! ;)

We used Access Rome and Rick Steve's books on our trip to Rome in 2003. Access Rome's organization by neighborhood with restaurants, siteseeing and parks listed how you see them is great. Restaurants were reliably excellent when you use their combination of low cost and high quality. Allows you to wander through the city and then find something good to eat or a spot to relax in whereever and whenever the spirit moves you. I recommend it to my friends and family all the time.

I used this book when I visited Rome a few years ago. I loved it. In several places I visited I had actually had other tourists reading over my shoulder and asking to borrow my book for a few minutes. When I visited other Italian cities that didn't have an Access book, I found myself very frustrated with the guidebooks I had. None were as good as Access.

This book is excellent - stunning amount of detail, from specific locations of accessible bathrooms around Florence (and details about them) to dimensions of hotel rooms to accessibility of museums, restaurants, transportation... Quite comprehensive and readable, and it includes some resource information for other parts of Italy. I would suggest supplementing with a non-disability-specific guidebook, like Lonely Planet. My only improvement would be to reorganize a bit - for example, the attractions and restaurants are grouped by area of the city, but hotel descriptions are grouped by price. But that's pretty nitpicky - Ms. Danielson has obviously gone to a lot of effort and gathered information that will make my trip to Florence much more enjoyable. I wish there were similar books for other cities!

Ms. Danielson's book is an invaluable resource to the traveler with special needs. Florence is a challenging city to navigate with a wheelchair, and there is so much to see, that the book will provide a wonderful resource to help you plan your trip.

ADVENTURE GUIDE TO NAPLES, SORRENTO, AMALFI COAST BY MARINA CARTER is another of Hunter Publishing Company's excellent travel guides. This one has a fascinating introduction which gives not only the history, but also breaks down and explains the art and architecture into specific periods of history, which gives you a thorough appreciation for what you will see and experience on your trip. There is a section of where to go, what to see, places to eat and shop, and sporting activities and entertainment in each area, including phone numbers and websites to contact for each. The book explores Naples with its history and art, then the 60 mile Sorrento Peninsula as a base for exploring other areas and famous for luring sirens to the treacherous rocks, and finally the less accessible Amalfi Coast with its gorgeous scenery one of the most beautiful in all of Europe. Reading this guide will tempt travelers to Italy to venture South of Rome.

Naples and nearby coastal areas offer much in the way of different travel experiences, from fine resorts to street theatre and fishing villages - and Naples, Sorrento & the Amalfi Coast makes the most of the entire region, offering plenty of unforgettable adventures and covering not only walks and places to stay, but night life and historic sights. An excellent travel planner, it can't be beat.

Telling the lives of Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti in one biography makes a great deal of sense. Rarely do a father and son of similar genius appear in history. Roberto Pagano does a very fine job of telling us about the context of their lives, what the documentary evidence tells us, what the conjectures are, and a great deal about their royal patrons. We also get into some of the intimate details of the Scarlatti family and its messy behaviors. I also appreciated how Pagano talks about the Kirkpatrick biography of Domenico. He tells us where Kirkpatrick got some evidence wrong, where he speculated maybe a bit too much, and where he disagrees with Kirkpatrick's interpretations and findings. Of course, he is also unstinting in his praise of all Kirkpatrick achieved.

What I found somewhat disappointing was the lack of discussion of the music. Oh, various works are mentioned, how they were received, where and when they were performed, and so forth. However, there is no listing of their works, or even the least musicological consideration of style, development, or resources. But maybe that is because I am used to the British and American style of biographies of composers that almost focus more on the music than the life of the person that created the music. Of course this book is tremendously valuable, and it is always unfair to judge a book because the author didn't write the book you wanted. So, I will chastise myself on my disappointment. However, I do want to prevent you from being disappointed if you are looking for a journey through the music of these two brilliant musicians. It isn't that there is no talk of music here, it just isn't talked about in depth, in a systematic way, or in a way that a musician wanting to dig into the music would prefer.

While some see his using Alessandro's life as a way of explaining Domenico (because there is so little documentary evidence of Domenico's life) as fantasy rather than scholarship, I do think Pagano's putting their lives in social context valuable. If you want to know about their life, times, and the scholarship about the Scarlattis, this is a terrific resource.

Ably translated into English by Frederick Hammond, "Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti: Two Lives In One" is an inherently fascinating and impressively informative biography of Alessandro Scarlatti, one of the most celebrated and least performed composers of the Baroque, and his son Domenico. Biographer Roberto Pagano examines their lives within the context of seventeenth-century Sicilian culture and in doing so, draws upon new documentation concerning their lives and careers. A masterpiece of original bibliographic scholarship, there is clear distinction between authenticated sources and Pagano's own insightful speculation. "Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti" is a seminal work and enthusiastically recommended for academic library European Music History and Biography collections.

Yes, Samper is back, cooking up delectable dishes that tend to explode delightfully in his own face. This book is just as funny as "Cooking With Fernet," though if anything the satire is angrier, more focused. We meet Millie Cleat, the "one-armed old sea bitch" whose megalomania is a wondrous match for Samper's, and who (like Samper) has a gift for hoisting herself with her own petard. There are times when Samper comes dangerously close to being a three-dimensional character, but fortunately his penchant for awful puns, double entendres, and lewd anagrams saves him from this unwelcome fate. He remains a rootless hedonist who makes a crust by writing celebrity biographies and who even convinces himself that "in default of any serious alternative ... lotus eating is definitely the way forward." Ever the survivor, he moves from one disgraceful episode to the next, his adventures all alike in being completely devoid of significance. And in his wake you can hear the grateful laughter of his readers.

and he gets into the most ridiculous situations. It is still laugh out loud and read out loud funny. Less cooking than in "Cooking with Fernet Branca" - perhaps there are a limited number of gut wrenching culinary combinations even the fertile imagination of Hamilton-Paterson can dream up? I have to say, I did miss Marta. Sometimes the solid pages of Samper reflection got to be too rich, like gorging on hunting dog pate.

I got the feeling at the end that perhaps Samper still has some legs for further books, and if that happens I'll make some time and space, pretend that I've flown to a safe distance from "TV Cheffies" and all things mundane, and savor the further adventures of this most unusual character.

To those who don't have a chance to go to Siena and visit the historical surroundings of Lorenzetti's world, this beautifully illustrated little book offers the most satisfying compensation any art lover could wish for.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti (or Ambruogio Laurati; c. 1290 - June 9, 1348) was an Italian painter of the Sienese school. He was active between approximately from 1317 to 1348. His brother was the painter Pietro Lorenzetti. His work shows the influence of Simone Martini, although more naturalistic. The earliest dated work of the Sienese painter is a Madonna and Child (1319, Museo Diocesano, San Cascianco). His presence was documented in Florentine up until 1321. He would return there after spending a number of years in Siena. The frescoes on the walls of the Hall of the Nine (Sala dei Nove) or Hall of the Peace (Sala della Pace) in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena are one of the masterworks of early renaissance secular painting. The "nine" was the oligarchal assembly of guild and monetary interests that governed the republic. Three walls are painted with frescoes consisting of a large assembly of allegorical figures of virtues in the Allegory of Good Government. In the other two facing panels, Ambrogio weaves panoramic visions of Effects of Good Government on Town and Country, and Allegory of Bad Government and its Effects on Town and Country (also called "Ill-governed Town and Country"). The better preserved "well-governed town and country" is an unrivaled pictorial encyclopedia of incidents in a peaceful medieval "borgo" and coutryside. The first evidence of the existence of the hourglass can be found in one of his paintings. Like his brother, he is believed to have died of bubonic plague 1348. Giorgio Vasari includes a biography of Lorenzetti in his Lives.

This autobiographical tale told by one of two young American sisters on a year-long vacation in Italy in 1938 was a non-stop read for me. I couldn't put it down. How much of it was written by Becky Landrum, how much by her son Michael, is anybody's guess because the story is seamless, but my estimate is that most of it is Becky's, not only because she is listed as lead author but because it has the quality of a journal--not one of the academic and pretentious travel journals of Henry Adams and his ilk, but the kind you or I might keep: innocent, unafraid to report embarrassing and potentially dangerous situations, eager to take a childlike joy in new sights and new people.

Let's critique it first and get that out of the way. My criticism doesn't amount to much. Perhaps being overly faithful to a girlish diary, the book has a few too many modifiers, many of which could have been deleted, and there are some misspellings and typos--usually duplicated or misplaced commas or periods. But in our age of spell checkers, we're lucky to get as clean a copy as this. I didn't see a single "not" for "now" or vice versa, or any other horror affecting our understanding of the text.

Becky's succinct prose, while not polished and professional, was the perfect way to tell her story. (Here the trip diary worked for the narrative in a positive way.) In 216 pages she offers a travelogue not only of Italy and a corner of Switzerland, but also of the train stops and ship ports between Joplin, Missouri and her dream vacation in Europe. Her description of the peoples and locales were right on the money. Once in Italy, her observations frequently made me laugh, not only her explanation of the meaning of "Americanata" (you should have the amusement of reading that for yourself) but also shrewd comments on society and the differentness of living in a foreign land.

I want to share two of these. The first appears on page 89, observations of a society "high tea" by a no-nonsense young woman from the American Midwest. No one could have better described the harried and underrated servants of prewar Europe:

"We were waited on by a starched, gloved, and uniformed team of servants who whirled silently around us as though on roller skates."

Those not fortunate enough to have traveled in Italy have heard of its wild road traffic, yet the following passage on page 111 took me joyously by surprise and the final sentence must be one of the best one-liners I've ever read:

"[We sat] at a small outdoor café on a busy street. Bicycles made up half the traffic, and many of them were delivering merchandise. The most unusual were two men on bicycles holding an arm chair between them, balancing it like a circus act. It was the most entertaining traffic I had ever seen."

The dark side of this tale is the presence of Mussolini, the rumbling backdrop of Hitler's thrust toward war, and the result it had on several of Becky's friends, including one young Englishman she fell half in love with. But by and large AMERICANATA is book full of joy, beauty, and rollicking good story-telling! Highly recommended.

A trip of a lifetime, a one year sojourn into a world that would soon vanish, is the experience that Becky Landrum relates in this warm, lively memoir.

Two sisters in their early twenties travel from their home in America's heartland--Joplin, Missouri--to pre-WWII Italy, where their elder sister lives with her husband and children. But travel in 1938 is not a matter of several hours in the air over the Atlantic. The trip itself is exciting and glamorous, first by train to New York, then by ocean liner to the Mediterranean and exotic ports before reaching Genoa. Once at their sister's home in Milan, the American "girls" (as Ms. Landrum refers to herself and her sister, Blossom) become part of the social whirl for foreigners there.

Ms. Landrum's story (co-authored by her son, Mike) is about more than the cocktail parties, "dressing" for dinner, and nightclubs (though that is pretty fun stuff, to be sure). She is a lively tour guide, taking the reader along as she and Blossom climb the dome at St. Peter's, eat at Alfredo's and see Mussolini address the crowd from his balcony in Rome; or as they live every tourist's nightmare and discover in the middle of nowhere that they are on the wrong train. She also writes about family and the strength that comes from that bond. Most appealingly, Ms. Landrum writes with candor and fondness about her young self. Her style is both direct and friendly--what you would expect from a plain-spoken Missourian.

The world as it was in 1938 is gone forever, but Ms. Landrum gives us a glimpse of it through young American eyes. It's a great view.

If you are looking for a first-hand, honest account of a little known area of Italy, you should get this book. This accounting of a group of young people's sojourn through the Marche area of Italy made me want to get on the first plane! No travel agent bull---- here. You will fall in love with the book and the region.

Great book! Fun and so funny! Will quickly inspire any reader to hop on a plane to Europe and explore the world the way these girls have

Reviewed by Emily Judah (age 13) for Reader Views (1/08)

"The Angel and the Ring" is a great book. I think that the "angel blog" in the book is really cool because it shows the author's vivid imagination on how angels can protect us on earth. Sigmund Brouwer is an awesome author. It shows so much in his books.

Young Brin is a 16-year-old half-gypsy, who lives with his thieving gypsy relatives. His gypsy mother and white father died of the plague, Black Death, when he was only a baby. Because Brin's mother married a "dirty" white man, the rest of the gypsies hated Brin because his mother betrayed her clan. His only possession is a ring, given to him by his father before he died. After his parents died his relatives decide to use Brin to pickpocket innocent people when the clan goes into towns. After pick-pocketing the people he is not even allowed to keep any money for himself, but is forced to give all the money back to the gypsy leader.

After one of his pick-pocketing adventures, he walks down a dark alley to return to the gypsy camp. He is almost through the alley when a hand grips his shoulder. He turns around to find a tall man whose face is hidden by dark shadows. Brin is surprised and a little wary when the man tells Brin he is just like his father. Brin is even more suspicious when the man asks to meet him at midnight that night. Brin doesn't outright accept but tells the man he will think about it, even though he has already made up his mind to meet him. Later that night Brin sneaks away from camp. When he reaches the man it is obvious that there has been some kind of battle. The man has blood on the side of his face, he can barely talk, but he manages to tell Brin to run. As Brin begins to leave he is approached by four dark-cloaked men, "The ring, gypsy boy" one of the men says in a deadly whisper.

The remainder of the book is the struggle between good and evil to posses the ring. This journey leaves Brin to discover the true meaning of the ring and to eventually discover the gift of God. The angel blog shows the reader how God and his guardian angels are always with us in our struggles. "The Angel and the Ring" is a simple read I would recommend to all youth.

I really loved the book! The angel that narrates the book is very funny. The action and the adventure were really awesome!
The book was so good that I couldn't put it down! The author Sigmund Brouwer, did an EXCELLENT job on the book.The story was great! THE ANGEL AND THE RING deserves better than five stars!