Italy Books

Historical novels are at their most compelling when they get the details of daily life in the past right, argues bestselling author Tracy Chevalier. She picks five of her favorite historical novels set in Italy, from 16th-century Florence to 1950s Naples, with a couple of stops in Venice, where her own latest novel, The Glassmaker, is set.

In the decades following Italian unification, its authors started writing in the new common language: Italian. Italy-based novelist Tim Parks introduces us to some of the best novels by some of Italy's greatest writers.

One of Italy's greatest living authors, Dacia Maraini, nominates her choices for the best works of Italian literature.

A culinary tour of Italian food, with co-founder of the acclaimed River Café restaurant Ruth Rogers. She tells us about the books that have inspired her, including the one she asks all her chefs to read!

If you’re going to look at the past, you have to understand the people who were living there and see the world through their eyes, says historian and Renaissance specialist Kenneth Bartlett. He picks the best books written during the Italian Renaissance.

"You may have the universe, if I may have Italy," goes the Verdi opera. Italy has had a profound influence on everything from art and food to religion and organized crime. Anglo-Italian journalist Alan Rhode recommends books to better understand Italian politics and history—and the Italians themselves.

Italian unification was one of the great political dramas of 19th century Europe, transforming a patchwork of territories speaking different languages into the nation-state of Italy. Here, historian Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti discusses the people and ideas that brought it about and how its disputed legacy continues to impact Italy today.

From her early novellas to the Neapolitan quartet, the elusive Elena Ferrante has achieved deserved superstar status for the compulsively readable, addictive quality of her writing. Two of the authors of The Ferrante Letters, Sarah Chihaya and Merve Emre, introduce us to Ferrante and recommend what to read next after My Brilliant Friend.

Journalists are no longer able to properly investigate organised crime in modern Italy — leaving it to crime fiction writers to pick up the slack, says the acclaimed Italian novelist, Massimo Carlotto. Here he chooses five noir novels that explore the reality of Italian corruption in highly original ways.

Italy has a rich tradition of political philosophy, producing a number of thinkers with both practical experience and a cosmopolitan outlook. Here Guglielmo Verdirame, Professor of International Law at King's College London, talks us through the five most important Italian political philosophers, and the best books to read to understand their work.