Italy Memoirs

Benito Mussolini was a figure that was both revered and dreaded. He climbed the ladder of power rapidly in Italian politics, and he was brought down just as fast. Mussolini wished to stir up a united front of nationalism within his people. But, in the end, the only thing he united was their hatred and contempt for him as a despotic leader. There were several twists and turns in the life of Benito Mussolini, and this book will take you through them all. Follow his astonishing rise and his dramatic fall.

In 1967, veteran travel writer Eric Newby and his heroic wife, Wanda, fulfilled their dream of a return to life in the Italian hills where they first met during World War II. But this fulfillment would not come easy. The dream materialised in the form of I Castagni ('The Chestnuts'), a small, decrepit farmhouse with no roof, an abandoned septic tank and its own indigenous wildlife reluctant to give up their home. But in the foothills of the Apuan Alps on the border of Liguria and Northern Tuscany, this ramshackle house would soon become a hub of love, friendship and activity.

Fourteenth-century Italy was chaotic: mercenaries swarmed across the land as competing city-states attempted to vie with each other for power, while pestilence and famine decimated populations. Into this cauldron was born Giangalezzo Visconti, a man who perfectly exemplified all the contradictions of his age. E. R. Chamberlin's The Count of Virtue is a remarkable study of the life and times of Giangaleazzo Visconti that provides fascinating insight into the political, social and cultural world of fourteenth-century Italy.

FROM BRITAIN TO SPAIN AND BACK AGAIN is Sam Haigh’s account of his family’s four challenging years in their new country, as he and his wife Emma do their best to build a life for themselves and their young son Luke. Wishing to do more than just get by, Emma and Sam try their hardest to progress in their respective professions – teaching and building – and live a similarly prosperous life to the one they left behind in Todmorden, Yorkshire. Arriving in the town of Ontinyent, Valencia in the summer of 2007, little do they know that a cataclysmic economic crash lies just around the ...

HEADING SOUTH is a light-hearted account of an English brother and sister’s reconnection with the Spanish side of their family. When the author was just four years old their father, Francisco, left the family home in Preston, Lancashire and disappeared from their lives. One day Adam, now twenty-eight, receives a letter from his errant dad and decides to take a break from supply teaching and accept an invitation to visit him in rural Malaga. Later joined by his sister Kate, a series of events begins to unfold which promises to change both their lives forever. Please ‘look inside’ ...

Annette Joseph's years in Italy revealed this truth: Italy, in all its multifaceted, glorious history and culture has to be experienced in full. Over almost three decades, Italy has fed, entertained, confused, excited, lured, promised, lied, satisfied, occasionally disappointed, and utterly enchanted her. She's left, but can't stay away - she'll always return. Always. Just like a beloved partner....

*All three books in the series are now available in an omnibus edition under the title THREE MEN IN SPAIN* THREE MEN IN A VAN is a humorous and informative account which explores both Spain and the ups and downs of our middle-aged trio’s singular road trip. When the fifty-something friends from Lancashire decide to take some time out together, little do they know that they will end up traversing Spain from north to south in an old and somewhat unsightly mini-campervan. Garrulous Geoff, hefty Harry and the relatively rational Jeremy, unused to spending longer than an evening in each ...

To all outward appearances, Ivanka’s life as a middle-aged ex-pat in Tuscany seems delightful. (Middle-aged is a rather comforting, if delusive term, since few live to 102.) She lives with her charming husband in a gorgeous villa in the rolling hills outside of Florence. The views are stunning, the neighbors are delightfully quirky, and perfect pizza is a short drive away. Yet despite the beauty surrounding her, and notwithstanding the passing of time, Ivanka still struggles with grief over her father’s death. A decade of living in Italy has taught her that above everything else, it’s...

Eroe, mercenario, sognatore, corsaro, liberatore, scrittore, marinaio, playboy, generale, contadino, rivoluzionario...

È l'alba del XVI secolo. L'Italia è divisa in una miriade di regni litigiosi e incapaci di opporsi alle mire delle grandi potenze. Tra quelle corti soggette ai capricci della guerra si aggira un personaggio bizzarro e affascinante, che sembra uscito dalla penna di uno scrittore. È un pittore e scultore che come nessun altro riesce a catturare l'anima di ciò che raffigura. È un inventore in grado di concepire monumenti di prodigiosa bellezza, architetture così ardite da superare ogni immaginazione, macchine belliche che sembrano provenire da un futuro lontano.

In 1946, Italy became a democratic Republic, thereby entering the family of modern Western nations. But deep within Italy there lurked a forgotten curse: three major criminal brotherhoods, whose methods had been honed over a century of experience. As Italy grew, so did the mafias. Sicily's Cosa Nostra, the camorra from Naples, and the mysterious 'ndrangheta from Calabria stood ready to enter the wealthiest and bloodiest period of their long history. Italy made itself rich by making scooters, cars and handbags.

‘Making Friends – A Spanish Memoir’ is a book of reminiscences based on real people and events, commencing in the late summer of the year 2000. A humorous, informative and sometimes poignant account of a young Englishman’s discovery of a whole new world beyond the boundaries of the expat teaching community, his friendships with Antonio, Dominic, Pedrín and others at first complicate then enrich his life in the Spanish city of Murcia. In an account that takes us from seedy bars, through rock group rehearsals, to valiant attempts to help the eccentric and rather unstable Antonio sell...

'The Complete Diaries' includes: Part One - Integration Part Two - Invasion Part Three - Consolidation Part Four - Conclusion Please see individual diary descriptions and reviews for more information.

David Gross is working as a corporate lawyer in New York when he gets a call from a friend inviting him to move to Bologna to help turn around a legendary Italian motorcycle company, known for its dominance on the track and its inability to turn a profit. Off he heads to the fabled home of marbled meats, radical leftist politics, and bespoke shoes, diving into his new life as the "corporate image consultant" to gearheads while learning to navigate the giddy mores of Bolognese society.

On November 11, 1943, the Nazis invaded Cansano, forcing its two thousand inhabitants to make a tough decision—fight and be killed or sent to a POW camp, stay behind as servants to the Nazis, or move into the unforgiving mountains of Abruzzo while the Nazis used their village as a home base. Giovanni Ruscitti's family chose the latter and spent the next few months living in horrendous winter conditions in the rugged mountains. When the war ended, they returned to a village so ravaged by the Nazis that, today, the town has less than 200 citizens and remains in a dilapidated state.

Cosa Nostra is the compelling story of the Sicilian mafia, the world's most famous, most secretive and most misunderstood criminal fraternity. The mafia has been given many names since it was founded 140 years ago: the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times have changed, the mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. Now, for the first time, Cosa Nostra reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian mafia from its origins to the present day.

A CURIOUS AFFAIR is the funny, heart-warming account of an unlikely liaison between a restless Englishwoman and an enigmatic Andalusian man. Thoroughly fed up of commuting to her high-flying job in London, 44-year-old Claire Hadland decides to ditch both her unfaithful husband and her marketing career and spend some time abroad. On her arrival in Guardo, a small northern town, she sets about brushing up her Spanish and making friends, but during a visit to a tiny mountain hamlet she meets Daniel, a rather peculiar man from the south who has as little reason to be in rural Palencia as ...

ESCAPE TO EXTREMADURA is the candid, entertaining account of a middle-aged Lancastrian’s move to a small town in one of the least populated areas of Spain. After fate brings Brian and Mónica together in a café in Clitheroe, love blossoms and they begin to make plans for the future. His hasty retirement from a long career at a Lancaster furniture company precedes their flight to Llerena, Mónica’s home town, where her pious mother and unruly father await them expectantly. Don Andrés, the ailing patriarch of their ever-expanding family, welcomes the Englishman with open arms, while ...

The remarkable true story of a couple on the brink of separation who finds love again while spending a year in Italy with their family now including an update five years later. Tired, empty, and disillusioned with married life, Susan Pohlman was ready to call it quits. As soon as she and her husband, Tim, completed their business trip to Italy, she planned to break the news that she wanted to end their eighteen-year marriage. During their last day as they walked along the Italian Rivera, Tim fantasized aloud that, perhaps, they could live there. After initially dismissing the idea, Susan ...

Jacob Torney, uprooted from his Cumbrian home at the tender age of fifteen-and-a-half, had to get to grips with a new language and culture whether he liked it or not. Thrust into small-town Spanish life just when he should have been studying for his GCSEs, his candid account tells not only of his own ups and downs, but also those of his Guinness-guzzling, tax-evading father, his long-suffering mother, and his happy-go-lucky younger sister, Katie. After steering a shaky course between the pitfalls of adolescence and the huge demands of school life, Jacob holds nothing, or very little, back ...