Liguria

Call Me By Your Name: A Novel

by André Aciman

Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks’ duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman’s frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by YourName is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.

NovelsLiguria, Rome

Coffee, Chianti and Caravaggio: One Man’s Love Affair with La Bella Italia

by Robert Noble Graham

(131)

A masterwork of Italian rambling. Those who have rambled with Robert through Cuba and Spain already know what to expect, but Italy is more so. Robert rambles through great sites of Rome and Venice of course, but finding a special meal on the exclusive beach of Portofino or listening to woodworm digest a bed in the Chianti hills take a special mastery. Whether getting lost on the tourist road from Bologna or crossing to Capri with a Mafia don, Robert rambles through history, language and gastronomy as readily as the back streets of Naples for delight, color and discovery. Who did Caravaggio kill and who killed him? What did Tiberius get up to in Villa Jovis? Why are car crashes in Naples more democratic than anywhere else? How can one man who so easily loses himself when travelling be so good at finding unique, memorable companions? Sometimes alone, sometimes in company, Robert’s tales give you more color, romance and knowledge of Italy than many an expensive visit will provide. Whether you wish to laugh, marvel or learn, this book will meet the need.

Guidebooks, MemoirsAmalfi Coast, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Rome, Venice

Doctor Antonio: A Tale of Italy

by Giovanni Ruffini, Christine M. Kulper (Illustrator)

(7)

First published in 1855, this completely re-formatted edition of Doctor Antonio, published in the year of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, has over 75 original illustrations by a Ligurian-based artist and an afterword introducing the Riviera of Giovanni Ruffini. Stranded by a coach accident in a small Osteria on the Italian Riviera, Sir John Davenne and his beautiful, delicate daughter Lucy come to terms with this strange land, its people and their customs. Under the guidance of the mysterious Doctor Antonio they slowly grow to love the country and its people; even as it is being torn apart by the unification struggle. Reaching an explosive climax against the back drop of the uprisings of 1848, this tale of love and loss on the Riviera presents a rich tapestry of Ligurian life and English society in the mid-19th century. Writing from exile in England, Ruffini combined a keen eye for the quirks and mores of the English aristocracy with an exile’s longing for his homeland. Both are drawn with skill and affection and he adds contemporary commentary on the many injustices of the age. Today it gives us a window into the past and is a wonderful example of classic writing from the golden age of Victorian fiction.

Classics, NovelsLiguria

Italy To Die For: From The Savino Sisters Mystery Series

by Loretta Giacoletto

(55)

Too much togetherness spells disaster for these 30-something sisters vacationing in Italy. When glamorous Margo opts for a steamy romance in Florence, plain-Jane Ellen travels alone to their next destination, a charming hillside villa at La Spezia. The owner Lorenzo, a mysterious widower, insists on showing Ellen around Cinque Terre, five picturesque villages overlooking the Ligurian Sea. Ellen is determined to experience the local culture but instead encounters intrigue in Monterosso el Mare where gypsies are turning up dead faster than Lorenzo can show her the sights. Then Margo arrives, and soon discovers her own life is in danger.

NovelsLiguria

The Villa In Italy: Four strangers. An Italian villa. A will

by Elizabeth Edmondson

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Italy, 1958. None of the four strangers summoned to the magical Villa Dante on the coast of Liguria knew Beatrice Malaspina. Yet she named them in her will: Delia, an opera singer with no voice; George, a physicist haunted by the horrors unleashed at Los Alamos; Marjorie, a struggling detective novelist; and Lucius, a New York banker with grim memories of the war in Europe. They find a Palladian villa with enchanting frescoes, a medieval tower, and a garden that leads to the sea. The villa seems spellbound, with its tower locked and its fountains dry. Why are they there? Who was Beatrice Malaspina? And what is the devastating secret hidden in her villa?

NovelsLiguria

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