Aspettando Natale

Aspettando Natale
published by Einaudi
(as seen on my iPad)

I find it difficult to read "Christmas stories" at any other time of the year than now, but this collection of stories published by Einaudi is one for any month of the year.  Aspettando Natale is a collection of Christmas stories by Italian authors and published by Einaudi.

The authors range from Dino Buzzati to Cesare Zavattini, and their stories range from the humorous to the bizarre and some are even poignant and moving in their simplicity.

Many of the authors poke fun at Christmas, some even ridiculing it.  For example, in Dino Buzzati's Una torta e una carezza, he shows a darker side of the holidays while the elderly, Signora Tata, works to bake her famous cake (one that even the spirits of the holidays wait each year for!) that her friends seem not to want anymore ("Be'...a me personalmente non mi serve.  Vado a sciare io, il ventisei!"), but the arduous baker continues her work. I won't spoil the ending of this story for you -- needless to say Buzzati has an unexpected ending for the old woman -- a message that surely won't be lost on many readers!

Christmas stories such as these can be illuminating insights into Italian history and culture as well as an understanding of a tradition that is, while the same holiday for the most part here in the USA, is celebrated quite differently.  Definitely a book worth reading this holiday season!

Purchasing links:
Available as an ebook via iTunes, ibs.it, and most other sites (bookrepublic.it, ultimabooks.it).

Or order it as a paperback from ibs.it.

Tiziano Ferro's new CD, "L'amore è una cosa semplice"

The fifth studio recording by the Italian pop singer, Tiziano Ferro, debuted at the end of November, entitled L'amore è una cosa semplice.  His newest CD is a change of pace from his last recording -- the music is more subtle and soft.  The lyrics, too, seem more poetic and heartfelt, and this is a departure from the music and sound of his previous albums.  There's a definitely "bluesy" feel to most of the tracks on the CD, and the energy and pulse is mostly certainly "ramped down" from his previous CD's.

The first song released as a single, La differenza tra me e tre ("The difference between me and you") is the only song on the album that seems to depart from rest of the album, perhaps done for commercial reasons, and still retains the "pop" and "energetic" feel of many of his other songs done on his previous recordings (you can watch the video for the song above).  It's a very poignant and touching song so have a listen (you can find the lyrics here).

Remember that listening to Italian music is a great way to build your vocabulary, and, in some cases, also help with pronunciation.  That's how many immigrants to the US learned and learn English -- and the same works in reverse for those of us learning Italian!

Other CD's by Tiziano Ferro (in order from his earliest to latest CD's):

1. Rosso relativo
2. 111 (mp3's for this album not available in the US iTunes store or on Amazon - the CD can be purchased here)
3. Nessuno è solo
4. Alla mia età

Like many of his previous albums, Ferro also released a Spanish version, El amor es una cosa sencilla.

Dacia Maraini's "Bagheria"

Villa Valguarnera, Bagheria

If you ever have the chance to go to Palermo, there's a wonderful town outside the city that you must make the effort to see:  Bagheria.  This lovely town is full of villas from the Baroque era, where the Sicilian elite built lavish homes away from the bustle of Palermo!

Dacia Maraini profiles this town in her book, Bagheria, a wonderful (autobiographical) novel about her experiences moving and living there after surviving for several years in a Japanese concentration camp.  The novel is exquisite and is one of my favorite works by this author.

Villa Valguarnera, Bagheria: view of the
countryside

The settings in the book "dance" between Japan, Bagheria and other places of her childhood as Maraini connects them all in this wonderful account of her life and her interactions with various people and places.  Maraini also shifts the "time" in the book - at some points talking about the past while exploring Bagheria in its present, providing a wonderful sense of nostalgia. Brutal in its honesty and starkly descriptive, this book explores several themes:  family, corruption, love, sex, and, as man of her books do, the role of women and their suffering.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is Maraini's accounts of corruption and scandal in Bagheria.  She discusses at length how building projects skirted the rules and destroyed the fabric and cohesion of the town, naming names and pointing the finger at the people, she believes, are guilty of "corrupting" Bagheria's "soul".

If you want to learn more about Bagheria, this is a wonderful book profiles the town, the villas and its history with amazing photography of the villas and the surrounding countryside as well as small chapters devoted to the history of each of the villas.  Also, Giuseppe Tornatore's movie, Baaria, is also an excellent film that features profiles the town and its history (also available from ibs.it or via the iTunes store).


Purchasing suggestions:
The paperback copy of this book is available from several online bookstores.  We recommend ibs.it, and the book can be found here.

Maraini's book is available as an ebook via iTunes (for use on your iOS device) or via ibs.it! If you have a question about what ebooks work on what device, drop me an email -- I might be able to help!

All rights reserved for the two images in this post - they may not be duplicated/re-posted/shared or published without permission of the author.

Il Maestro di Vigevano

Lucio Mastronardi (biography from Wikipedia) is an italian writer of the 60’s and 70’s. He was born in Vigevano, a small town in the county of Pavia and not far from Milano and famous for its grand and splendid piazza and for the large shoe manufacturing industry (one of the most important in the world), which sprung up just after the second world war.

Piazza del Duomo, Vigevano (Pavia), Italy
Photo by Luca Volpi (Goldmund100)

Vigevano not only is the setting of this trilogy of novels but also represents a symbol of provincial Italy during the postwar period. These novels center on small, inept men who seem incapable of living. When they try to mark a turning point in their lives, they always fail, and the repercussions are often catastrophic. Il calzolaio di Vigevano, the first of the triology, is written in the Vigevanese dialect and can be a very overwhelming to read (even for Italians!). The style is wonderfully rhythmical, and there are many plays on words which makes the reading endearing and fun.
The first novel tells the rise and the fall of Mario Sala, also known as “Micca”, a gifted and clever shoemaker who will first become a successful entrepreneur but soon succumbs to his failures.


Il Maestro di Vigevano, the second word of the trilogy, is widely regarded as the best of the three. The work has a very dramatic and intense story, full of a bitter and cruel sarcasm on the whole of society. No institution is safe from Mastronardi's criticisms, not even school or the Church. Antonio Mombelli is the protagonist Il maestro di Vigevano  who is held captive by his wife’s ambition. She is a sort of a provincial Madame Bovary, intensely attached to money and status. She forces her husband, Antonio, to give up his career at school so that he might open a small shoemaking factory. (NB: A film of the same name was directed ty Elio Petri and featured the inimitable, Alberto Sordi, in the lead. However the book has an ending that is more morbid and darker than the film!)

The final work of the triology, Il meridionale di Vigevano, tells the story of a humble businessman of Southern origins who finds himself immersed in the petty racist world of Pavian surroundings.  His story is not told with sentimentality but with a detachment that accents the mentality and prejudices of the Vigevanese populace, who nurture and despise the many Southerns who have fled their homes for the more prosperous north.

From a linguistic point of the view, the novels might seem difficult for the non-Italian reader who may have little knowledge of the Lombardian dialects.  However, it would not be difficult to use a glossary while reading the book which is full of musical prose and a book that is never trite or trivial.  This edition also includes essays by Italo Calvino and others which analyze the style of the writing and the themes of the work.

Purchase suggestions:
If you prefer a print copy, you can order one here from ibs.it -- it includes all three books in one volume and was the book referenced in this review.  As of the writing of this review, no ebook version seems to be available from sites I searched.

by Marcello Gammella

Ebook Readers

In my last post about ebooks, I talked about the why and the how.

In this post, I want to talk about what kind of ereaders there are and my personal opinion of each one.  So here goes:

• iPad:  I love the iPad as an ereader.  You can download the Kindle and Nook applications to the device to access those purcases or use the iBookstore to read books that you've purchased from Apple or non-DRM type books that you have purchased elsewhere.  I have purchased ebooks from ibs.it, Bookrepublic.it and ultimabooks.it, and all of those ebooks worked great on the iPad. It does a good job at handling many different kinds of ebook types.  I even enjoy reading pdf files on the iPad.  I haven't had a problem with formating yet.  Drawbacks:  the device is expensive.  The cheapest iPad is $499, but it is also an excellent web browser, great for email as well as gaming and other apps.  Also, battery life is not nearly as good as the Kindle or Nook (I find if I used the iPad a lot, it does need to be charged at least once a day).
• iPod Touch/iPhone and Android phones:  many of the same apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android devices that you might use on the iPad work on the iOS powered devices and the Android phones.  Phones are great when you're on the go.  Drawbacks: the small screen be frustrating to read on, especially long books, books with lots of images, and pdf's.  Definitely a last resort for me, but others might feel differently.
• Kindle:  Amazon.com's ereader.  I think that the Kindle is a wonderful device.  The e-ink screen is amazing and is easy to read.  I haven't tested out the new tablet that they have developed, but I have used several versions of the Kindle.  All work great, and it is easy to get books onto the device if you buy them from Amazon.  I haven't had a lot of luck putting non-Amazon content onto the devices, but I haven't tried it all that many times.  More and more stores are carrying the mobi format which has the best compatibility for the Kindle.  The Kindle also has 3G access that is free (at the time I am writing this) which makes adding books to the device a snap when you're traveling.  Drawbacks: not sure how many Italian books Amazon offers, and you're sort of tethered to this one store for your books unless you have the patience to figure out how to get other content on the device.  The amazing battery life and the fact that many libraries now let you check out books onto your Kindle makes this device hugely versatile.
• Nook: The first generation Nooks were so slow, but I recently played with the Nook color and the smaller version, the Nook Simple Touch Reader.  I actually preferred the simple touch reader over the color Nook, but both devices were a huge improvement over the first Nook that they released.  The new version has expandable memory, so I am sure that makes getting your own files and other ebooks onto the device a snap.  Since Barnes and Noble has so many brick and mortar stores all over the USA (and perhaps in Canada, too?), you can make use of free wi-fi to add content to your device.  The Nook color has expanded capabilities, can play media, and has the nice crisp color screen.  Drawbacks: Like the Kindle, the Nook works best with Barnes and Noble.  Not sure what kind of Italian offerings their store has either, however the Nook seems more open to other file formats besides its own.  Battery life, I felt, was slightly better than the Kindle, although not enough to sway me either way.
• Sony ereader:  Recently played with the latest wi-fi version...not sure what I thought of it.  The stylus was a bit tedius, and the touch screen seemed overly sensitive.  It didn't seem intuitive to use, although it seemed to work very seemlessly with DRM content that seems to be difficult to do with other ereaders. However, it was easy to read text.  Drawbacks:  I didn't like the interface...it didn't seem intuitive, but I got used to it.  The screen seemed smaller than I expected, but it was pleasant enough to use.  

Do you have an ereader? Do you love/hate ebooks? In my last post, as I said, buying Italian ebooks can be a cheaper alternative, especially when shipping costs can add a few dollars to the cost of a real book. Share your thoughts -- would love to hear from you.

NB:  All opinions expressed are my own.  I do own an iPad (which I purchased for myself). None of the ereader providers mentioned above paid for or sponsored this post.