Explore the latest books of this year!
Bookbot

Italy and Italians Series

This series delves into the rich history, culture, and life of Italy and its people. It explores the diverse regions of the country, from bustling cities to picturesque landscapes. Readers will discover fascinating stories about the people, traditions, and cuisine that define Italian identity. It's a celebration of all things Italian, perfect for those who have a passion for this captivating nation.

Medici Money
Italien in vollen Zügen
An Italian Education
A season with Verona : travels around Italy in search of illusion, national character and goals
An Italian Education
Italian ways : on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo

Recommended Reading Order

  • Italian ways : on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo

    • 288 pages
    • 11 hours of reading
    3.8(117)Add rating

    'All Italy is here' Sunday Times From the bestselling author of Italian Neighbours, An Italian Education and A Season with Verona Longlisted for the Dolman Travel Book Award In 1981 Tim Parks moved from England to Italy and spent the next thirty years alongside hundreds of thousands of Italians on his adopted country's vast, various and ever-changing networks of trains. Through memorable encounters with ordinary Italians - conductors and ticket collectors, priests and prostitutes, scholars and lovers, gypsies and immigrants - Tim Parks captures what makes Italian life distinctive. He explores how trains helped build Italy and how the railways reflect Italians' sense of themselves from Garibaldi to Mussolini to Berlusconi and beyond.

    Italian ways : on and off the rails from Milan to Palermo

  • An Italian Education

    The Further Adventures of an Expatriate in Verona

    • 352 pages
    • 13 hours of reading
    4.0(19)Add rating

    Exploring the nuances of Italian parenthood, the narrative delves into the challenges and joys of raising Italian-born children while navigating local culture. Parks captures the essence of family life through vivid observations at home, school, and church, blending humor with moments of despair. His experiences reveal the complexities of adapting to a new society, emphasizing the Italian philosophy that all days blend together. Through his keen insights, Parks offers a charming and relatable portrayal of expatriate life in Italy.

    An Italian Education

  • A season with Verona : travels around Italy in search of illusion, national character and goals

    • 464 pages
    • 17 hours of reading
    4.2(195)Add rating

    Is Italy A United Country, Or A Loose Affiliation Of Warring States? Is Italian Football A Sport, Or An Ill-Disguised Protraction Of Ancient Enmities? After Twenty Years In The Bel Paese, Tim Parks Goes On The Road To Follow The Fortunes Of Hellas Verona Football Club, To Pay A Different Kind Of Visit To Some Of The World'S Most Beautiful Cities, And To Get A Fresh Take On The Conundrum That Is National Character. From Udine To Catania, From The San Siro To The Olimpico, This Is A Highly Personal Account Of One Man'S Relationship With A Country, Its People And Its National Sport. A Book That Combines The Tension Of Cliff-Hanging Narrative With The Pleasures Of Travel Writing, And The Stimulation Of A Profound Analysis Of One Country'S Mad, Mad Way Of Keeping Itself Entertained.

    A season with Verona : travels around Italy in search of illusion, national character and goals

  • An Italian Education

    • 464 pages
    • 17 hours of reading
    3.7(66)Add rating

    How does an Italian become Italian? Or an Englishman English, for that matter? Are foreigners born, or made? In An Italian Education Tim Parks focuses on his own young children in the small village near Verona where he lives, building a fascinating picture of the contemporary Italian family at school, at home, at work and at play. The result is a delight- at once a family book and a travel book, not quite enamoured with either children or Italy, but always affectionate, always amused and always amusing.

    An Italian Education

  • Italien in vollen Zügen

    3.6(8)Add rating

    In diesem äußerst unterhaltsamen Reisebericht zeichnet Tim Parks ein authentisches Portrait italienischer Lebensweise – wie es sich auf Zugfahrten durch das Land erschließt. Ob als Pendler im Regionalzug, beim Kampf mit dem Fahrkartenautomaten oder auf der Suche nach dem richtigen Gleis in Mailands Hauptbahnhof. In Begegnungen mit pedantischen Schaffnern und kauzigen Mitreisenden, mit Priestern und Prostituierten auf spektakulären Bahnstrecken fängt Parks ein, was für das italienische Leben so charakteristisch ist: rasantes Tempo und zugleich der Sinn für entspannte Entschleunigung sowie die unsterbliche Begeisterung für ein gutes Argument und den perfekten Cappuccino.

    Italien in vollen Zügen

  • Medici Money

    • 288 pages
    • 11 hours of reading
    3.5(84)Add rating

    The Medici are famous as the rulers of Florence at the high point of the Renaissance. Their power derived from the family bank, and this book tells the fascinating, frequently bloody story of the family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bank (from Cosimo who took it over in 1419 to his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent who presided over its precipitous decline). The Medici faced two apparently insuperable problems: how did a banker deal with the fact that the Church regarded interest as a sin and had made it illegal? How in a small republic like Florence could he avoid having his wealth taken away by taxation? But the bank became indispensable to the Church. And the family completely subverted Florence's claims to being democratic. They ran the city. Medici Money explores a crucial moment in the passage from the Middle Ages to the Modern world, a moment when our own attitudes to money and morals were being formed.To read this book is to understand how much the Renaissance has to tell us about our own world. Medici Money is one of the launch titles in a new series, Atlas Books, edited by James Atlas. Atlas Books pairs fine writers with stories of the economic forces that have shaped the world, in a new genre - the business book as literature.

    Medici Money

  • Medici Money

    Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence

    • 273 pages
    • 10 hours of reading

    The Medici are famous as the rulers of Florence at the high point of the Renaissance. Their power derived from the family bank, and this book tells the fascinating, frequently bloody story of the family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bank (from Cosimo who took it over in 1419 to his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent who presided over its precipitous decline). The Medici faced two apparently insuperable problems: how did a banker deal with the fact that the Church regarded interest as a sin and had made it illegal? How in a small republic like Florence could he avoid having his wealth taken away by taxation? But the bank became indispensable to the Church. And the family completely subverted Florence's claims to being democratic. They ran the city. Medici Money explores a crucial moment in the passage from the Middle Ages to the Modern world, a moment when our own attitudes to money and morals were being formed.To read this book is to understand how much the Renaissance has to tell us about our own world. Medici Money is one of the launch titles in a new series, Atlas Books, edited by James Atlas. Atlas Books pairs fine writers with stories of the economic forces that have shaped the world, in a new genre - the business book as literature.

    Medici Money