Paolo Giordano

Anne Milano Appel

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

California

A Novel

“From aide to nanny and housekeeper . . . Paolo Giordano examines this unusual relationship in the context of one household of three. . . . Spare, elegant.”–The New York Times “Like Family. . . demands to be savored. . . Giordano's emphasis on how we choose to live and love offers subtle hope that our decisions actually matter.”—NPR.org From the author of Heaven and Earth, an exquisite portrait of marriage, adulthood, and the meaning of family Paolo Giordano’s prizewinning debut novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, catapulted the young Italian author into the literary spotlight. His new novel features his trademark character-driven narrative and intimate domestic setting that first made him an international sensation. When Mrs. A. first enters the narrator’s home, his wife, Nora, is experiencing a difficult pregnancy. First as their maid and nanny, then their confidante, this older woman begins to help her employers negotiate married life, quickly becoming the glue in their small household. She is the steady, maternal influence for both husband and wife, and their son, Emanuele, whom she protects from his parents’ expectations and disappointments. But the family’s delicate fabric comes undone when Mrs. A. is diagnosed with cancer. Moving seamlessly between the past and present, Giordano highlights with remarkable precision the joy of youth and the fleeting nature of time. An elegiac, heartrending, and deeply personal portrait of marriage and the people we choose to call family, this is a jewel of a novel—short, intense, and unforgettable.

Like Family

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Colleen McCullough

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Minnesota

A story tracing the creation of Republican Rome presents those who founded an empire, including Marius and Sulla, each determined to become the First Man of Rome

The First Man in Rome

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Adriana Trigiani

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Vermont

From Adriana Trigiani, “a master of visual and palpable detail” (The Washington Post), comes a lush, immersive novel about three generations of Tuscan artisans with one remarkable secret. Epic in scope and resplendent with the glorious themes of identity and belonging, The Good Left Undone unfolds in breathtaking turns. Matelda, the Cabrelli family’s matriarch, has always been brusque and opinionated. Now, as she faces the end of her life, she is determined to share a long-held secret with her family about her own mother’s great love story: with her childhood friend, Silvio, and with dashing Scottish sea captain John Lawrie McVicars, the father Matelda never knew. . . . In the halcyon past, Domenica Cabrelli thrives in the coastal town of Viareggio until her beloved home becomes unsafe when Italy teeters on the brink of World War II. Her journey takes her from the rocky shores of Marseille to the mystical beauty of Scotland to the dangers of wartime Liverpool—where Italian Scots are imprisoned without cause—as Domenica experiences love, loss, and grief while she longs for home. A hundred years later, her daughter, Matelda, and her granddaughter, Anina, face the same big questions about life and their family’s legacy, while Matelda contemplates what is worth fighting for. But Matelda is running out of time, and the two timelines intersect and weave together in unexpected and heartbreaking ways that lead the family to shocking revelations and, ultimately, redemption.

The Good Left Undone

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Casa Bonechi

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Golden Book of Florence

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Jamie Oliver

Michigan

Bestselling author Jamie Oliver finally devotes an entire book to America's favorite cuisine -- Italian!

Italy and its wonderful flavors have always had a major influence on Jamie Oliver's food and cooking. In Jamie's Italy, he travels this famously gastronomic country paying homage to the classic dishes of each region and searching for new ideas to bring home. The result is a sensational collection of Italian recipes, old and new, that will ensure that Italy's influence reaches us all.

Italy has inspired Jamie Oliver throughout his career. His ambition has always been to travel across the country on a quest to capture the very essence of Italian cooking -- and to produce the best and simplest Italian cookbook for everybody anywhere to enjoy.

Jamie's Italy is the result of that journey -- and it's a land of plenty. As well as providing more than 120 brand-new recipes for everything from risotto to roasts and spaghetti to stews, structured as traditional trattoria menus, Jamie takes you all over Italy to cook with and learn from the real masters of Italian cuisine: the locals. Far from the standard "lemons and olives" version of Italian cooking, Jamie's Italy is a cookbook by the people for the people. From Sicily to Tuscany, it's about the local fishermen, family bakers, and, of course, the "Mamas," sharing their recipes and the tips that have gone into their cooking for generations. But it's not only mouthwatering food that Jamie brings back home: it's also the spirit that makes cooking and eating absolutely central to family life, whichever part of Italy you're in.

Bursting with the warmth and hospitality of real family life, this is both a superbly accessible cookbook and a unique travelogue and diary, in which you'll find the authentic flavor of Italy and the people who live there. If you love quality food prepared with genuine passion -- you'll never want to leave Jamie's Italy.

Jamie's Italy

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Lina Wolff

Saskia Vogel

Wickedly dark with a mystical edge, this story of an Italian love affair gone bad captures the irresistible pull of toxic relationships—from the acclaimed author of Carnality. A woman arrives in Florence, overwhelmed by the strange, warm city so different from her home. Amidst the Renaissance architecture and amorous couples, she finds an unexpected love of her own. With his dark, ugly looks, people might stop and stare, wondering what someone like her was doing with someone like him. But he’s the Mickey to her Minnie, and she can fix him—they can fix each other. She feels bound to him, body and soul. It’s not long before the lying starts. Other women have begun to notice him, and she spirals into paranoia. Soon they’re both cheating and lashing out, and she becomes more and more convinced he’s not merely a violent man: there’s a demon inside him, and inside her too. Their grip on each other is so strong, it might be impossible to break, even after she puts an ocean between them, following another man to New Orleans. Heady, unsettling, and shockingly funny with its dead-on descriptions of codependent and abusive relationships, The Devil’s Grip takes us on a breathless journey with the shadow selves we can’t escape.

The Devil's Grip - ARC

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Some wear and tear to edges, one small tear on one page and some ridges/bends to some pages, see pics. Binding intact, no writing or highlighting in book. 

"Funny, moving. . . I defy anyone to finish this story without tears in their eyes." --Graeme Simsion, bestselling author of The Rosie Project

What would you do if you knew you only had 100 days left to live? For Lucio Battistini, it's a chance to spend the rest of his life the way he always should have--by making every moment count.

Imperfect, unfaithful, but loveable Lucio has been thrown out of the house by his wife and is sleeping at his father-in-law's bombolini bakery when he learns he has inoperable cancer. So begin the last hundred days of Lucio's life, as he attempts to right his wrongs, win back his wife (the love of his life and afterlife), and spend the next three months enjoying every moment with a zest he hasn't felt in years. In 100 epigrammatic chapters--one for each of Lucio's remaining days on earth--100 Days of Happiness is as delicious as a hot doughnut and a morning cappuccino. 

Wistful, touching, and often hilarious, 100 Days of Happiness reminds us all to remember the preciousness of life and what matters most.

100 Days of Happiness

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Maggie O'Farrell

New Jersey

The author of Hamnet--New York Times best seller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner--brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.
 
Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?
 
As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court's eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess's future hangs entirely in the balance.
 
Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman's battle for her very survival.

The Marriage Portrait

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#hardcover #Italy #contemporary #fiction #historicalfiction #retellings #romance #ya 

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Ohio

In 1933, seventeen-year-old Bea is invited to visit her bohemian uncle in Italy where she meets Ben, a brash young artist, who challenges her to create the perfect summer romance.

Under a Dancing Star

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Lori Nelson Spielman

"The enduring bonds of sisterhood flourish in this heartwarming and dazzling Italian adventure, where a love that spans generations reveals the path to one woman's destiny, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Life List. When the fiercely independent and mysterious Paulina "Poppy" Fontana invites her great-nieces and fellow second-born daughters, Emilia and Lucy, to visit her birthplace of Italy, she makes a wild declaration. On her eightieth birthday, Poppy claims she'll meet the love of her life on the steps of the Ravello Cathedral and put an end to the Fontana Family Second-Daughter Curse once and for all. The Fontana Second-Daughter Curse is probably nothing but a coincidence, a self-fulfilling prophecy, an old-world myth. Even so, nobody can deny that for centuries, not a single second-born daughter in the Fontana family has married. But twenty-nine year-old Emilia actually appreciates the curse--some may even say she hides behind it. What might happen if the supposed curse is actually broken, and she's expected to find love? Reluctantly, the trio of second-born daughters embark on a journey to fulfill Poppy's last wish. Against a backdrop of lush Italian countryside and rich landmarks, Poppy shares family secrets and tales of forbidden love that threaten to upend every belief her young nieces have held to be true"--

The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany

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Alice Steinbach

The Travels of an Independent Woman

"In many ways, I was an independent woman," writes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alice Steinbach. "For years I'd made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own snow." But somehow she had become dependent in quite another way. "I had fallen into the habit of defining myself in terms of who I was to other people and what they expected of me." But who was she away from the people and things that defined her? In this exquisite book, Steinbach searches for the answer to this question in some of the most beautiful and exciting places in the world: Paris, where she finds a soul mate; Oxford, where she takes a course on the English village; Milan, where she befriends a young woman about to be married. Beautifully illustrated with postcards from Steinbach's journeys, this revealing and witty book transports you into a fascinating inner and outer journey, an unforgettable voyage of discovery.

Praise for Without Reservations:

"A rich account of one woman's journey through Europe and into the self."
--Us Weekly

"I loved going along with Alice Steinbach as she goes off on this rare, wonderful adventure, an escape into discovering herself and some of the truly magical places in this world." --DOMINICK DUNNE

"More than a chronicle of the writer's search for self-discovery, Without Reservations is a lovely travelogue."
--Chicago Tribune

"The best books, like the best vacations, contain unexpected delights, surprises that enrich the soul as well as the senses. This is a book about love, and longing, and the passage of time. It's about hope, and courage, and the resiliency of memory. This book is a feast. Bon appétit!"
--The Des Moines Register

"Beautifully written, clear, insightful, thoughtful . . . Steinbach's book should be taken in slowly and savored all the way."
--St. Petersburg Times

Without Reservations

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Alaska

Century of Flight

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Antony Shugaar

Marco Videtta

Massimo Carlotto

A dark action story out of Italy, fighting the systems in place. Underlines and annotated inside (seen in pictures).

Maryland

This bestselling noir novel features murder, moral ambiguity, and a protagonist who is hardly heroic. In this thriller, however, the killer is not an individual but an entire system.

Poisonville

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Travel through Italy with this guide to 4 great cities with over 300 color pictures. Immerse yourself in these Italian cities’ civilizations, art, history and cuisines.  Also includes 11 typical Italian recipes.

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Civilization, Art, History and Cuisine

Rome and the Vatican City, Venice, Florence, Naples

Sarah Dunant

Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo, a situation that is complicated by her unwanted arranged marriage to an older man and a battle between the Medici family and the fundamentalist followers of Savonarola. Reader's Guide included. Reprint. 200,000 first printing.

The Birth of Venus

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Elizabeth Lev

Cathy Hemmings

Texas

Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de' Medici

An examination of the Renaissance countess explores her marriage at the age of ten into a corrupt pope's influential family, her fierce rule after the assassination of her husband, and the inspiring resistance she led against the Borgia family.

The Tigress of Forli

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Inglath Cooper

New York

Ren Sawyer and Lizzy Harper live completely different lives. He’s a rock star with a secret he can no longer live with. She’s a regular person whose husband stood her up for a long planned anniversary trip. On a flight across the Atlantic headed for Italy, a drunken pity party and untimely turbulence literally drop Lizzy into Ren’s lap. It is the last thing she can imagine ever happening to someone like her. But despite their surface differences, they discover an undeniable pull between them. A pull that leads them both to remember who they had once been before letting themselves be changed by a life they had each chosen. Exploring the streets of Florence and the hills of Tuscany together - two people with seemingly nothing in common - changes them both forever. And what they find in each other is something that might just heal them both.

That Month in Tuscany

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#paperback #nonfiction #italy #travel #lookingforadventure #food 

Pennsylvania

20th-Anniversary Edition

Applies a poet's sensibility, a traveler's eye, and a cook's palate to the pleasures of the Tuscan countryside, where the author began restoring an abandoned villa

Under the Tuscan Sun

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Book of the Month edition. 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

North Carolina

#paperback #romance #europeanhistory  #forbiddenlove #starcrossed  #casanova #italy

A True Tale of Forbidden Love in the 18th Century

The discovery of a box of eighteenth-century love letters thrusts Andrea di Robilant into an adventure of familial intrique that will carry him back hundreds of years to the golden era of Venice and into the middle of a secret love affair between Venetian statesman Andrea Memmo and Giustiniana Wynne, a beautiful, half-English girl. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

A Venetian Affair

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MaryJanice Davidson

Missouri

The Love Scam

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John Berendt

Traces the aftermath of the 1996 Venice opera house fire, an event that devastated Venetian society and was investigated by the author, who through interviews with local figures learned about the region's rich cultural history.

The City of Falling Angels

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Elena Ferrante

Ann Goldstein

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post * O, The Oprah Magazine * TIME Magazine * NPR * Financial Times * New York Post * Kirkus Reviews * Harper's Bazaar AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NATIONAL INDIE BESTELLER In this powerful novel set in a divided Naples by Elena Ferrante, the New York Times best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend, fourteen-year-old Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which wears a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity, where her guide is the unforgettable Aunt Vittoria. With this new novel about the passage from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, Ferrante gives her readers another gripping, highly addictive, Neapolitan story. "Another spellbinding coming-of-age tale from a master."--People Magazine

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Paolo Giordano; Anne Milano Appel

Like Family

Colleen McCullough

The First Man in Rome

Adriana Trigiani

The Good Left Undone

Casa Bonechi

Golden Book of Florence

Jamie Oliver

Jamie's Italy

Lina Wolff; Saskia Vogel

The Devil's Grip - ARC

Fausto Brizzi

100 Days of Happiness

Maggie O'Farrell

The Marriage Portrait

Laura Wood

Under a Dancing Star

Lori Nelson Spielman

The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany

Alice Steinbach

Without Reservations

Ray Bonds (Editor)

Century of Flight

Antony Shugaar; Marco Videtta; Massimo Carlotto

Poisonville

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Rome and the Vatican City, Venice, Florence, Naples

Sarah Dunant

The Birth of Venus

Elizabeth Lev; Cathy Hemmings

The Tigress of Forli

Inglath Cooper

That Month in Tuscany

Frances Mayes

Under the Tuscan Sun

Adriana Trigiani

The Good Left Undone

Adriana Trigiani

The Good Left Undone

Andrea Di Robilant

A Venetian Affair

MaryJanice Davidson

The Love Scam

John Berendt

The City of Falling Angels

Elena Ferrante; Ann Goldstein

The Lying Life of Adults