By Donna Leon
Series Guido Brunetti Mysteries
Recommended By Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk

“With her 18th stellar entry in the Commissario Guido Brunetti series, Leon continues to live up to the increasingly high standards set by each novel. Her latest brings the Venetian policeman into intertwining cases involving dangerous environmental hazards: mounting trash heaps, air & water pollution (Library Journal Review).”

By Alberto Moravia

A thirteen-year-old boy, on vacation at a Tuscan seaside resort, joins a local group of young toughs and struggles to overcome his troubling attachment to his beautiful widowed mother.

By Jess Walter
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 28, 2013.  1:30 PM.

A novel that spans fifty years. The Italian housekeeper and his long-lost American starlet; the producer who once brought them together, and his assistant. A glittering world filled with unforgettable characters.

By Piero degli Antoni
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

“Two elderly survivors of Auschwitz recall the harrowing night when they and eight other prisoners were ordered to pick which of their number would be executed at dawn, a choice marked by shocking revelations and wrenching debates (From the Publisher).”

By André Aciman
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

The sudden and powerful attraction between a teenage boy and a summer guest at his parents' house on the Italian Riviera has a profound and lasting influence that will mark them both for a lifetime.

By Francesca Melandri

Living in Northern Italy, Eva, a 40-year-old PR professional, searches for the truth about her origins when she is called to Southern Italy by a man named Vito, a retired police officer who, in the 60s, fell in love with her mother, Gerda, a northerner and the sister of a terrorist.

By Mario Puzo

The story opens with Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia manipulating papal elections in 1492 to become the new Pope Alexander. Determined to establish a family dynasty, he begins ruthlessly eliminating rivals and marrying his children into alliances with the offspring of noble families of France and Spain.

By Mario Puzo
Series Godfather Trilogy

Puzo pulls us inside the violent society of the Mafia and its gang wars. The leader, Vito Corleone, is the Godfather. He is a benevolent despot who stops at nothing to gain and hold power. His command post is a fortress on Long Island from which he presides over a vast underground empire that includes the rackets, gambling, bookmaking, and unions. His influence runs through all levels of American society, from the cop on the beat to the nation's mighty.

By Catherine Banner
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Four generations of women on a Mediterranean island fight to safeguard their family against the forces of history and bitterness that divide them from World War I through the 2008 recession.

By Niccolò Ammaniti

In the summer of 1978 in a small Italian village, nine-year-old Michele Amitrano loses his innocence of childhood when he accidentally uncovers a dark secret being kept by the adults of Acqua Traverse.

By Martin Amis

Richard Tull, a fortyish book reviewer and failed novelist, is driven to distraction by the effortless and unmerited success of fellow Oxonian Gwyn Barry. While Barry's simpleminded novels become overnight best sellers, Tull's dense experimental manuscripts send a succession of literary agents to the hospital with migraine. Tull finally decides it's payback time, and this novel chronicles his slapstick attempts to annihilate his friend.

By Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

“Confronting the social changes sweeping nineteenth-century Italy, including the forces of revolution and democracy, an elderly Sicilian aristocrat arranges a marriage between his daughter and a wealthy merchant (From the Publisher)”

By Chris Bohjalian
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

Hoping to safeguard themselves from the ravages of World War II within the walls of their ancient villa in Florence, the noble Rosati family become prisoners in their home when 18-year-old Cristina's courtship by a German lieutenant prompts the Nazis to take over the estate, a situation that leads to a serial murder investigation years later.

By Elena Ferrante
Series Neapolitan Novels
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian

Tuesday, November 22, 2016. 1:30 PM.

The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other.

By Elena Ferrante
Series Neapolitan Novels

This leisurely, engrossing series lyrically chronicles the deep, essential, and fraught friendship between Lila and Elena, both intelligent and ambitious women, through 40 years of shifting fortunes and diverging paths. Throughout their personal stories and inner dialogues runs the grit, violence, and beauty of Italy from 1944 into the 1980's.

By John Grisham
Recommended By Rosemary Moran, Senior Library Clerk

Cut from the Cleveland Browns after the worst performance in the history of the NFL, Rick Dockery, desperate to play football, is hired by the Panthers of Parma, Italy, and finds himself confronted by the confusing diversity of Italian culture, language,and romance.

By Robert Harris
Recommended By Barney Levantino, Reference Librarian

“When the aqueduct that brings fresh water to thousands of people around the bay of Naples fails, Roman engineer Marius Primus heads to the slopes of Mount Vesuvius to investigate, only to come face to face with an impending catastrophe (From the Publisher).”

By Donna Woolfolk Cross
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

“Cross's first novel, based on the life of the controversial historical figure Pope Joan, is a fascinating and moving account of a woman's determination to learn despite the opposition of family and society (Library Journal Review).”

By Susanna Kearsley
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

In 1921, an infamous Italian poet wrote his last play, inspired by his mistress, Celia, but she vanished and the play was never performed, now, sixty years later, his grandson is staging the play with a young actress named Celia set to star.

By Elena Ferrante
Series Neapolitan Novels

Continues the story of Lina and Elena as they push against boundaries in 1970s Italy, where Lina has left her husband and is working in a factory while taking care of her son and Elena has graduated college and published a novel.

By Adriana Trigiani
Series Valentine Trilogy
Recommended By Ann Competello, Library Clerk

“Very Valentine is a sumptuous treat, a journey of dreams fulfilled, a celebration of love and loss filled with Trigiani's trademark heart and humor (From the Publisher).”