Italy; recommended reading?
 

I've just finished reading "City of Falling Angels" and would like recommendations for any other similar types of novels set in Italy, France or Switzerland. I've also read A Thousand Days in Venice and loved it! Thanks in advance!

If you are interested in Tuscany and wine making, try A Vineyard in Tuscany: A Wine Lover's Dream by Ferenc Mate. Very entertaining.

Tim Parks "Italian Neighbors" is another non-fiction about Italy..not a novel, but neither is the book you mentioned.

There are so many books set in those places!

I am aware that there are lots of novels set in Italy, but please give me more suggestions! Grazie!

A Thousand Days in Tuscany. You can click on "books" on Amazon; type in Italy (or Tuscany, to be more specific) and many, many books will be listed.

"Gomorrah" by Roberto Saviano is about Naples. Again, most of the books mentioned are not novels but non-fiction.

"The English Patient" is a novel set partly in Tuscany.
Donna Leon writes absorbing crime novels set in Venice. These are a bit addictive!

These three rank among my favorite nolves:

- Christ Stopped at Eboli (Carlo Levi)
- Arturo's Island (Elsa Morante)
- The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith)

Castellanese.

Hi Mirella,

You might try to do a search here - there was another thread back in February titled something like "what books do you recommend reading before traveling to Italy?" that had lots of great suggestions. (I don't know how to post a link, or I would do that for you!!)

I loved all the Dan Brown novels - "Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons" especially (if you haven't read them, don't be scared off by the DaVinci code movie - the books are page-turners!) I had read "Angels and Demons" right before the new Pope was chosen, and it was interesting to have some background (from the book) on the process as it was unfolding live on CNN! I also loved "Lucia - a Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon" by Andrea Di Robilant. I just picked it up one day at Costco, and I thought it was an interesting portrait of life in Venice at that time. Also try Sarah Dunant's "Birth of Venus" (set in Florence).

Happy reading!

This is a must (non-fiction):

"War in the Val d'Orcia" by Iris D'Origo

A new book that looks good is "In Maremma" by David Leavitt

Also Norman Lewis: "Naples 44" and "In Sicily."

..sorry, "In Maremma" is not a new book.

I loved THE BIRTH OF VENUS, set in Florence.

I am now reading (and really enjoying) THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY, a "biographical novel" of Michelangelo.

Not novels, but not your traditional travel book or biography either - Peter Robb's <i>Midnight in Sicily</i> and <i>The Man Who Became Caravaggio</i>.