Italy Biography

In A CASTILIAN ADVENTURE former teacher Jane Holden relates the story of her move to northern Spain. At fifty-seven she feels that life may be passing her by, so she decides to put her Spanish studies into practice and sets off on an open-ended trip in order to immerse herself in another culture. Starting in Madrid and intending to tour Castile and León, she soon decides to go with the flow and allow new friendships to influence her eventual destination. This amusing and informative account is a must-read for all those interested in the possibilities Spain offers away from the crowded coast.

Naples '44 is an unflinching autobiographical account of a year in Naples after the armistice and Allied landings in Sorrento in 1943. Working as a British counterintelligence officer under the Allied occupation, Lewis documents the rich pageant of life in the city and its surrounding areas. There is suffering and squalor: Criminal gangs are on the rise, along with typhus and black market commerce, and the female population is forced into part-time prostitution. But there is farce and humor, too, witnessed in the Roman uncle paid handsomely simply to appear at funerals.

Hitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator's main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s, was not communism or the Soviet Union, but capitalism and the United States. Whereas most historians have argued that Hitler underestimated the American threat, Simms shows that Hitler embarked on a preemptive war with the United States precisely because he considered it such a potent adversary.

It is not an easy job to draw the border between the history of Italy and the history of Rome. In so many places, the two political and geographical entities collide. They wouldn’t be possible without each other, but they each have their own story. Rome’s history is only a small fragment of Italy’s history. Although it is just a city, Rome was the birthplace of the republic, a great empire, and notable philosophers, poets, and artists.

The author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil returns to give us an intimate look at the "magic, mystery, and decadence" of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.

With a new roof and working electrics in place on her villa in Italy, Rosie is ready for the next phase of turning the 22-roomed derelict Italian villa into a home. It needs to be ready in time for her elderly Irish parents to move in and her daughter to finally visit after being separated for so long.

In 1967, veteran travel writer Eric Newby and his heroic wife, Wanda, fulfilled their dream of a return to life in the Italian hills where they first met during World War II. But this fulfillment would not come easy. The dream materialised in the form of I Castagni ('The Chestnuts'), a small, decrepit farmhouse with no roof, an abandoned septic tank and its own indigenous wildlife reluctant to give up their home. But in the foothills of the Apuan Alps on the border of Liguria and Northern Tuscany, this ramshackle house would soon become a hub of love, friendship and activity.

In 1944 and 1945, Tom Faulkner was a B-24 pilot flying out of San Giovanni airfield in Italy as a member of the 15th Air Force of the US Army Air Forces. Only 19 years old when he completed his 28th and last mission, Tom was one of the youngest bomber pilots to serve in the US Army Air Forces during World War II. Between September 1944 and the end of February 1945, he flew against targets in Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia.

Award-winning writer Daniel Storey brilliantly shines a light on an unexamined moment in Gazza’s career that encapsulates everything that we have come to associate with this most mercurial of talents: childish joy, public gaffes, wondrous skill and saddening self-destruction. Funny and harrowing in equal measure, this book allows us a better, more rounded understanding of one of our greatest sporting idols and of a tragically misunderstood human being.

The Brandenburgers were Hitler's Special Forces, a band of mainly foreign German nationals who used disguise and fluency in other languages to complete daring missions into enemy territory. Overshadowed by stories of their Allied equivalents, their history has largely been ignored. First published in 1984, de Giampietro's highly-personal and eloquent memoir is a vivid account of his experiences. In astonishing detail, he delves into the reality of life in the unit from everyday concerns and politics to training and involvement in Brandenburg missions.

Having three generations of her family living under the same roof was once part of the Italian dream for Rosie. But when her party-loving, whiskey-drinking, poker-playing 85-year-old mother moves over from Ireland to Italy, Rosie’s longed for dolce vita in Umbria is anything but sweet.

Best-selling and beloved author Frances Mayes discovers the hidden pleasures of Italy in a sumptuous travel narrative that crisscrosses the country, with inventive new recipes celebrating Italian cuisine.

Edda Mussolini was the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s oldest and favorite child. At 19, she was married to Count Galleazzo Ciano, Il Duce’s Minister for Foreign Affairs during the 1930s, the most turbulent decade in Italy’s fascist history. In the years preceding World War II, Edda ruled over Italy’s aristocratic families and the cultured and middle classes while selling Fascism on the international stage. How a young woman wielded such control is the heart of Moorehead’s fascinating history.

Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia - three iconic figures whose intersecting lives provide the basis for this astonishing work of narrative history. They could not have been more different, and they would meet only for a short time in 1502, but the events that transpired when they did would significantly alter each man's perceptions - and the course of Western history.

Una noche de enero de 1993, en una apartada provincia italiana, dos jóvenes soldados carabinieri detienen a un vehículo. Una semana después, el 15 de enero, Totò Riina es aprehendido tras 24 años de vivir en la clandestinidad. "El último capo" narra los hechos de aquella semana decisiva. Esos días enmarcan el relato de la etapa más sanguinaria de la mafia de Corleone, en boca de quienes la vivieron en carne propia y de los hombres que cazaron a Riina. Una semana que representa la historia de una época.

Rosie is facing the ultimate ‘empty mansion syndrome’ in her 22-roomed Italian villa. With both her kids now living in different countries and the funds to finish renovations going AWOL, Rosie is starting to suspect that the Sighing House might be a tad too big for just her and hubby Ronan. To make matters worse, with Ronan’s pending criminal court case—following his encounters with a toupee rat pack and the anti-Mafia special police squad—Rosie may soon be the only resident in the house.

Valentino Rossi is an icon: the most successful and most loved motorcycle racer of all time, he has transcended MotoGP to become a symbol of courage, risk and daring. To race for 23 years at the very highest level of the world's most dangerous sport is unprecedented. But then, there has never been a motorcycle racer like Valentino Rossi. He is a modern-day gladiator, a man who still risks his life every time he throws a leg over a motorcycle.

More than 20 years ago, Frances Mayes - widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer - introduced readers to a wondrous new world when she bought and restored an abandoned Tuscan villa called Bramasole. Under the Tuscan Sun inspired generations to embark on their own journeys.

Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other major buildings. When the Pope handed Michelangelo control of the St. Peter’s project in 1546, it was a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and faulty engineering.

The very name Lucrezia Borgia conjures up everything that was sinister and corrupt about the Renaissance: incest, political assassination, papal sexual abuse, poisonous intrigue, unscrupulous power grabs. Yet, as best-selling biographer Sarah Bradford reveals in this breathtaking new portrait, the truth is far more fascinating than the myth.