At the outbreak of the Civil War, Howells was appointed United States consul in Venice, Italy. In Venetian Life, an utterly engaging travelogue, Howells revises a series of travel letters he had written about his experiences in Venice for the Boston Advertiser. Honest in its love for (yet discomfort in) Venice, it would be followed by Italian Journeys.

The novel is set mainly in the court of Parma, Italy, in the early 19th century. It follows the fortunes of Fabrice del Dongo, a young aristocrat and ardent admirer of Napoleon. He fights at Waterloo and returns to Parma, where he joins the church for worldly advantage. In the course of the story he kills a rival, fathers a child, and eventually retires to the Carthusian monastery.

"Headstrong and naive, the young Italian aristocrat Fabrizio del Dongo is determined to defy his ultra-conservative father and go to fight for Napoleon. He stumbles on the battle of Waterloo, ill-prepared, yet filled with enthusiasm for war and glory. Following Napoleon's defeat, Fabrizio returns secretly to Italy, to pursue a series of amorous adventures under the protection of his aunt and her ministerial lover at the ducal court in Parma." "This...

A lighthearted tale of the colonization of the Umbrian countryside by international yuppies. With one hand they fight the locals, with the other each other. The bone of contention is who will pay for the collapsed village wall, an accident blamed on a moving truck. By the author of Morality Play.

Overview: Here is the dazzling saga of two women, the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery uncontainable Lila. In this book, both are adults; life's great discoveries have been made, its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women's friendship, examined in its every detail over the course of four books, remains the gravitational center of their lives. Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew...

"In this modern translation and exquisitely crafted portrayal of domestic life, Forbidden Notebook centers the inner life of a dissatisfied housewife, Valeria Cossati, living in postwar Rome"--

"Developed by literacy experts for students in grades three through seven, this book introduces young readers to the geography and culture of Italy"--Provided by publisher.

"In Italo Calvino's cosmicomics, primordial beings cavort on the nearby surface of the moon, play marbles with atoms, and bear ecstatic witness to Earth's first dawn. Exploring natural phenomena and the origins of the universe, these beloved tales relate complex scientific concepts to our common sensory, emotional, human world."--from publisher's description.

Istanbul, 1840: the new sultan, Abdulmecid, has heard a rumor that Bellini's vanished masterpiece-a portrait of Mehmed the Conqueror-may have resurfaced in Venice. Yashim, our eunuch detective, is promptly sent to investigate, but-aware that the sultan's advisers are against any extravagant repurchase of the painting-decides to deploy his disempowered Polish ambassador friend, Palewski, to visit Venice in his stead. Palewski arrives in disguise in...

Born in Australia, Shirley Hazzard first moved to Naples as a young woman in the 1950s to take up a job with the United Nations. It was the beginning of a long love affair with the city. The Ancient Shore collects the best of Hazzard's writings on Naples, along with a classic New Yorker essay by her late husband, Francis Steegmuller. For the pair, both insatiable readers, the Naples of Pliny, Gibbon, and Auden is constantly alive to them in the present. With...