Good Books to Read on an Italian Vacation
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There'southward something specially dreamy about an Italian vacation, but you lot don't take to actually be in Italy to get a pocket-sized gustatory modality of this wonderful land.
Here are some of the best books almost Italy to add together to your reading listing, whether you're planning to read them on an Italian vacation or want something to read to assistance inspire your next trip!
To assistance narrow down the list, I've added my favorites, but I've also updated with the selections of some of my favorite travel writers.
Tin can't read now? Pivot for later!
Essential Travel Resources for 2022
These are my favorite companies that I use on my travels.
Find cheap flights with CheapOair.
Notice the best deals on hotels & vacation rentals on Booking.com or Hotels Combined.
For road trips and ground transportation, hire a car through Find Cars.
For RV rentals and camper vans, book through RVshare.
Discover the all-time city tours, day tours, bus tours, & skip-the-line tickets on GetYourGuide, Viator, and Large Bus Tours.
Detect local food tours, cooking classes, and exclusive dining experiences on Eatwith.
Detect information and cruise reviews on Prowl Critic.
For packing and travel essentials club via Amazon.
For travel guidebooks to have with you during your trip, I always choice one or two (or five) from Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, Moon Travel Guides, or Fodor's Travel Guides.
Become reliable travel insurance through World Nomads.
Store your baggage safely with Radical Storage.
Book an affordable family or romantic photography session on your trip through Flytographer (Use the code HISTORYFANGIRL for 10% off your first photoshoot).
The Best Books almost Italy
In no particular order…
Beautiful Ruins by Jesse Walters
Editor's Selection:The cover is the Cinque Terre–plenty said, correct?
This novel strings together the lives of an Italian hotelier, a failed musician, an American actress, Liz Taylor, a reality television mogul, and a World War Two vet, amidst others.
The characters are rich and distressing, the landscapes are dripping with Italian civilisation, and Richard Burton is almost ever boozer.
At its middle is a fight between the glamorous and the mundane, with the mundane coming out ahead more often than not. This novel is fantastic.
>>Read reviews for Cute Ruins on Amazon<<
Beneath a Scarlet Skypast Marker Sullivan
Contributed by Vanessa Hunt from I Heart Italia: Ane of my favorite books set in Italy is called Beneath a Scarlet Sky past Mark Sullivan. The book is a historical fiction based on the true story of Pine Lella, one of the many unsung heroes of WWII.
Pine is a boy from Milan who proves his courage and bravery through his many heroic acts during the war, from smuggling Italian jews over the Alps into Switzerland to going secret and spying on the Nazi leadership.
The things that he does and sees in this book are truly astounding, and I found myself thinking this couldn't be existent life, but it was!
It was fascinating to larn more about the war from an Italian perspective, one not ofttimes heard, and it made me fall in love with Milan, Lake Como, and the Italian Alps! If you lot're interested in history, especially WWII history, and if you love Italy, this book is for yous!
>>Read reviews for Beneath a Scarlet Sky on Amazon<<
A Room with a Viewby E.Thousand. Forster
Contributed by Larch from The Argent Nomad : First published in 1908, E.Thousand. Forster's 3rd novel A Room with a Viewis a love story set up first against the backdrop of Florence, then moves to Surrey in England.
The book starts in a alimony in Florence with the arrival of Miss Lucy Honeychurch and her overprotective older cousin Miss Charlotte Bartlett for Lucy's first visit to the city on her bout through Italy with their trusty Baedeker guide in hand.
The rooms they are assigned do non have a view over the River Arno and they are offered a swap from the less desirable Socialist father and son, the Emersons, and Lucy moves into her room with a view.
As the story weaves its mode around the sights of Florence and the countryside of Surrey, information technology explores Edwardian cultural values of class and the rigid morality of the time and pokes gentle fun at the straight-laced English middle classes.
The naïve Lucy fights against her own feelings and what is expected of her equally she is encouraged to follow her heart's and her trunk'south desire in her choice of husband.
If y'all are looking for a curt read that flits between Italy and England, "A Room with a View" is perfect and may inspire you lot to visit both Florence and Surrey.
>>Read reviews for A Room with a View on Amazon<<
Pompeii by Robert Harris
Contributed by Helen from Helen on her Holidays: I read Robert Harris'due south book Pompeii a couple of years ago, just before I visited the part of Italy which lies in the shadow of Mountain Vesuvius.
I'd wanted to visit Pompeii e'er since I get-go heard nigh it equally a child, and had read history books nigh the volcano Vesuvius' catastrophic eruption in 79AD, but it took a novel to really bring it to life for me.
Robert Harris's novel begins a brusk time before the volcano erupts. Our hero is Attilius, an engineer who's arrived from Rome to oversee the Aqua Augusta, an channel which supplies h2o to the towns effectually the bay of Naples, including Pompeii.
The waters take been failing, and Attilius realises that the problem lies on the slopes of Vesuvius – and that things are about to get a lot worse for the residents of Pompeii.
What follows is a fast-paced tale that'due south surprisingly illuminating about Roman life in Pompeii. Real-life historical characters like Pliny the Elderberry announced in the novel, and it feels well-researched.
To get the nearly out of a visit to Pompeii, it's actually of import to do some research nearly Roman life at the time of the eruption, and Robert Harris's Pompeii is a fantastically enjoyable fashion to exercise that.
If on a Wintertime'due south Night a Traveler past Italo Calvino
Editor's Choice: Italo Calvino was one of Italy's about of import authors of the twentieth century. If y'all're headed to Siena, choice up If on a Winter'southward Dark a Traveler, paying homage to this Italian great in the city that was his final domicile.
This novel is crazy. You will get lightheaded. Yous will desire to know the reply to questions that Italo Calvino refuses to answer.
You volition dive into novels within novels. Y'all volition have moments when you remember that he has described the world as it really is, that you have awoken from a stupor and finally in front of your eyes someone has laid out all the globe's truth.
And then yous will think that's airheaded. And so y'all volition think about it over again. And and then there's the fashion he describes the art of traveling itself:
"To fly is the opposite of traveling: yous cross a gap in space, you lot vanish into the void, you accept not being in a place for a elapsing that is itself a kind of void in time; so yous reappear, in a identify and in a moment with no relation to the where and when in which you vanished."
There are characters. There'southward a plot. But this is more than about the art of reading and the art of traveling in novel form–cute and challenging.
And the parts that take identify in Italy are a different Italy–dark and mysterious. Ah, I call back I demand to re-read this one, folks.
>>Read reviews forIf on a Winter'southward Night a Traveler on Amazon<<
The Inspector Montalbano Serial
Contributed by Mar from Once in a Lifetime Journey: Andrea Camilleri, who died in June 2019, is one of Italia's most famous 21st-century authors.
Aside from many novels, his most popular books are the series of offense detective novels starring Inspector Montalbano (named after Spanish author Manuel Vázquez Montalbán) which take place in the isle of Sicily, more specifically in a fictional town called Vigata which corresponds to real-life Porto Empedocle the native town of the author.
The books take been translated into many languages and brought to the screen by the Italian national broadcasting visitor RAI which turned them into a Goggle box evidence filmed in the UNSCO-listed urban center of Ragusa.
If you visit Ragusa, y'all will almost certainly stumble upon the cast and the filming.
What makes Montalbano most interesting is not just the plot or his astute ways of finding the truth, simply the fact that there is always a Sicilian and political undertone that reflects the writer'due south behavior and criticism both of La Mafia as well every bit of the Italian and international governments.
The Church building does not escape Camilleri's despise either. This gives each story a historical reference that is more reality than fiction.
While the writer has now passed abroad, he wrote the last book in the serial in 2012 and that ane is however to be published.
>>Read reviews for the Inspector Montalbano series on Amazon<<
The Ghosts of Italian republic by Angela Paolantonio
Contributed by Donna Meyer for NomadWomen: Angela Paolantonio was born in New York, but her roots are planted deep in the soil of southern Italy.
Both her grandparents were born in the small hilltown of Calitri, in Campania. It's a couple of hours east of Naples, but in some ways, it's a century backside.
Compelled to learn well-nigh her Italian grandparents and her own roots, Angela travels to Calitri, never suspecting she's about to exist drawn deeply into her Italian family unit, into the rituals and lives of their neighbors, and into a love affair with both a handsome man and an aboriginal village.
There are many kinds of dearest, and Paolantonio explores several of them in this memoir—love for a place, for history (both local and personal), for family, traditions, food.
And beloved for a man. All these loves, and the means in which they grow and change, are skillfully woven into her story every bit she meets her family—and herself.
The writing is rich with sensory detail—the smells of ravioli on the stove, the sweet taste of Nocino (the traditional walnut liqueur made in the village), the singing of women as a religious procession passes her firm, the touch of ancient stone or a caressing summer breeze against your skin.
I loved this book, which made me want to get on a plane to Italian republic. It will appeal to lovers of Italia and travelers with curiosity in their minds, some romance in their souls, and a belief in the ties of family, even those nonetheless unmet. I think the kind of women I write for on my blog, nomadwomen.com, will dearest it as much equally I did.
>>Read reviews for The Ghosts of Italy on Amazon<<
The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman
Editor's Choice: 
And when y'all're done with Hogwarts, you lot become to graduate and go to Narnia. And you're nevertheless an asshole.
And there's alcohol everywhere. That'south basically the premise of The Magicians Trilogy. And it's exactly as much fun equally it sounds.
Now, what does that take to practice with Italy? Well, there are some amazing scenes in a Venetian palazzo. And there'due south a Venetian dragon.
You lot'll too really, really desire to accept a vacation to Narnia Fillory. And the southward of France. And Brooklyn. And Connecticut. And a really cool spa out Westward. And the English countryside. And the S Pole. And you'll wish you could fly there with your own wings and and then be transformed into a fox.
>>Read reviews for The Magicians Trilogy on Amazon<<
The Gondola Maker by Laura Morelli
Contributed by Katy from Untold Italy: Ship yourself dorsum to 16th century Venice through Laura Morelli's tale of tragedy, love and artistry in the canal city. The narrator, Luca Vianello is the heir to a family boatyard renowned formaking the city'due south iconic gondolas. When tragedy strikes, Luca lashes out at his male parent and rejects his destiny. Notwithstanding, it soon becomes clear he cannot resist his calling to be an proficient in the fine art of gondola making.
Through the story, ou discover the culture and history of the gondola and the artistry needed to create such magnificent vessels. The author describes the ornate woodwork and carvings and opulent upholstery required to brand each gondola unique in the context of Luca'south journeying.You also learn about the hierarchy governing the boatmen and the pride and passion they have for their work.
This is a story virtually pride, redemption and forgiveness. Luca rejects his birthright, but to rediscover it through the beauty and craftsmanship of the gondolas of the lagoon urban center. Ultimately yous end up believing that everybody deserves a second chance in life. And what place improve to take that chance than exquisite Venice.
Acqua Alta by Dona Leon
Contributed by Monique fromt Trip Anthropologist: Rivalled only by Inspector Montalbano equally Italy's well-nigh beloved detective, Commissario Guido Brunetti solves murders in his hometown of Venice.
Over the years, Dona Leon'southward hero has introduced us to the Venetian class system, Venice java shops and snack bars, how, what and when Italians swallow, and the importance of honey, family, literature and beauty in the lives of Venetians.
This serial is really a guide-book for Venice and you will larn much virtually contemporary Venetian life past reading these novels.
Dona Leon is an American who has lived in Venice for xxx years, now lives in Switzerland, and loves helping us navigate the abuse and incompetence of the Italian police forces and country bureaucracy.
Too being an heady murder mystery, Leon's characters are beautifully rendered – they are whole and complex and embody all the strengths, weaknesses and contradictions of contemporary Venetians.
Brunetti'south travails teach us virtually how difficult it is for Venice's citizens living in an over-touristed travel Disneyland.
We learn virtually the empathy the author has for African migrants trying to make a living on the streets.
Nosotros also learn almost the dwindling facilities and places for residents to store and the difficulty of even walking the streets of their hometown due to the tourist throng.
Leon's 5th novel, Acqua Alta (1996), is the novel most readers love. Besides as a gripping mystery, it explores the devastating effects of rising bounding main waters and the resultant flooding known every bit the acqua alta.
>>Read reviews for Acqua Alta on Amazon<<
Swallow Pray Love past Elizabeth Gilbert
Contributed by Maire from Temples and Treehouses:Eat Pray Beloved is a archetype modern memoir by American author Elizabeth Gilbert, and equally famous for the 2010 moving picture version starring Julia Roberts.
The book is prepare in three primary locations and follows the author'due south existent-life journeying of self-discovery (both literally and metaphorically) which she embarks on afterward a horrible divorce.
In Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert travels from her home metropolis of New York to Italy, Republic of india, and Bali. Simply the Italia section of the book is my favorite because of its vibrant animalism for life.
Elizabeth Gilbert began her journey with a iv-calendar month stay in Rome, during which she fabricated lifelong friends, experienced the laidback Italian civilization based on enjoyment and happiness, and ate a lot of incredible Italian nutrient — this experience is the "Eat" function of Eat Pray Dearest.
The book's descriptions of Italian republic'southward indulgent lifestyle and cuisine are highly enjoyable.
You'll like this book if you lot enjoy humorous and accurate memoirs, and are looking for a light read about life's pleasures.
>>Read reviews for Eat Pray Love on Amazon<<
When in Rome by Penelope Green
Contributed by Jan Robinson from Budget Travel Talk: Penelope Greenish, the Author of travel memoir When in Rome is a print journalist from Sydney Australia.
When 28 year former Penelope'due south life in Sydney Australia begins to experience like a beige coloured Groundhog Day and her high profile PR task leaves her feeling listless and uninspired, she knows a drastic modify is needed.
With her long fourth dimension personal relationship on the rocks, information technology's fourth dimension to entertain her long held dream of living in Italy. Penny resigns her job and with the advice of a friend to "say yes to everything" fresh in her mind, she enrols in a language course in Perugia Italy.
The story has equal amounts of ups and downs equally Penny carves her ain slice of la dolce vita. It chronicles her jobs, friendships, mistakes, success and lovers in a funny and frank manner. It describes the joy she finds in her very ain Italian Romeo – the bicycle that never lets her downward.
Her never say die attitude toward making a new life in her beloved Rome is music to the ears of anyone who has always dreamed of starting life once more in some other country.
Although she struggles daily with the linguistic communication, civilisation and occasional lecher, Penny doesn't requite up on her dream.
If you accept ever strolled beside a famous bridge in Rome or hope to 1 twenty-four hour period, y'all will love and learn from this memoir.
The Author writes two more consecutive books where this one leaves off – Run into Naples and Die and Girl Past Sea.
>>Read reviews for When in Rome on Amazon<<
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Editor's Option: This is the just novel on this list that I was assigned to read (Thanks to Professor Sullivan!), but ten years later information technology's notwithstanding with me.
I love a novel virtually a ruined woman (see also Edith Wharton'sThe House of Mirth for this wonderful sub-genre). Especially one that takes identify in Rome. The scenes in the Coliseum are beautiful and dam****.
>>Read reviews forDaisy Miller on Amazon<<
My Vivid Friend by Elena Ferrante
Contributed by Claudia Tavani fromMy Adventures Across The World: Elena Ferrante is the author of a serial of 4 books that starting time with My Vivid Friend. Not much is known most the author, who's idea to have used a pseudonym and to be in fact either a man, or a couple.
Based in Naples, My Vivid Friend is the story of the (sometimes troubled) friendship betwixt Elena Greco, nicknamed Lenù, and Raffaella Cerullo, nicknamed Lina and which Elena calls Lila.
The volume starts with Lenù finding out from Rino, Lila'south son, that Lila has disappeared without a trace. That's when she starts reflecting on more than 60 years of friendship, starting with their early childhood in ane of Naples most disadvantaged and unsafe "rione" (neighborhood) in the 1950s, when both are attending elementary school and are at the elevation of their class.
As years get by, both girls try to escape their destiny – 1 made of poverty, violence and gossip. Lenù strives to become the perfect student and – at a time when girls at most went to secondary school – goes to high school and then university. Lila stops attending school at historic period x, when her father decides it'southward time for her to start helping in the modest family business.
The but way she has to escape poverty is then to ally Stefano Carracci, son of a usurer and friend of the Solara brothers, two youngsters known for being linked to the local mafia.
>>Read reviews forMy Vivid Friend on Amazon<<
The Lemon Tree Cafe past Cathy Bramley
Contributed past Mica from Senyorita: On my commencement ever UK machine boot experience, ane of the items I managed to buy is a novel with a catchy cover fine art and title. "The Lemon Tree Café" is written by Cathy Bramley.
It is a story of a thirty-something Creative Director named Rosie who suddenly found herself jobless when she fought for her principles in the workplace.
Coming to her grandma'south café in Derbyshire for some comfort, she realized that the identify needs help – not in terms of nutrient or service, merely with paperwork and other things that I wouldn't share here.
She decides to stay despite her grandma's skepticism. For her, it is improve to keep decorated than practice nada while waiting for the next task offer to come up.
Her grandma is quite mysterious. All that she knows well-nigh her is that she moved to England from Italia by the time her female parent was born and that her grandfather is an Italian who passed abroad.
Later on in the story, a shocking twist near the past will be revealed.
I will not spill out the whole matter her, but some characters will notice themselves in Sorrento, Italy.
The Italian influence is very axiomatic in grandma's Lemon Tree Café. Eventually, Rosie fell in love with the café and decided to start anew in life. Of course, beloved is on the carte and she had a good shot with a special guy.
I enjoyed reading this novel because the lead grapheme is an empowered woman who made sure that she sticks to her principles and that she will fight when she knows she is right.
I besides love how she was able to help her thriving customs in this setting. Those who wishes to read something lite but inspirational while on the route or on a suspension must read this!
>>Read reviews forThe Lemon Tree Cafe on Amazon<<
Where Angels Fright to Treat past E.M. Forster
Contributed by Bridget Coleman from The Flashpacker:Due east.M. Forster was an early on 20th Century English novelist, whose books explored class differences in guild.
Where Angels Fright to Tread (1905) was his beginning novel, and the first of ii of his works to exist set in Italia, the second being the better-known A Room With a View (1908). The volume is a deliciously dark comedy fix in the fictional boondocks of Monteriano, said to be based on San Gimignano in Tuscany.
Much to the outrage of her prim and snobbish in-laws, Lilia, an impetuous English widow, has become engaged to Gino, a younger Italian, whilst on an extended visit to Italy.
Her brother-in-law, Phillip, is despatched to rescue her from this ill-advised match, setting in motion a concatenation of tragic and comedic events.
Equally much as Lilia viewed Gino as her escape route from her suffocating in-laws, Where Angels Fear to Tread will speak to those with a yearning to carve a path outside of societal norms.
If you are a traveller who travels alone, you lot will relate to the volume'due south theme about the "otherness" of another state and the misunderstandings that tin arise because of these differences.
Only, ultimately, Where Angels Fear to Tread waxes lyrical near Italia herself:
Italy, Phillip had e'er maintained, is only her true self in the height of summer, when the tourists have left her, and her soul awakes under the beams of a vertical sun.
>>Read reviews forWhere Angels Fearfulness to Tread on Amazon<<
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Editor's Pick: 
While the majority of the stories accept place in New York and LA, Sasha'southward short fourth dimension in Naples introduces a modern Italian city that is sweaty and dangerous, total of crevices and the thieves who hide in them. This is not an Italy of nutrient and wine, it's one of lost souls and starving pickpockets.
>>Read reviews forA Visit from the Proficient Squad on Amazon<<
Angels and Demons by Dan Chocolate-brown
Contributed by Laura from The Travelling Breadbasket: Set beyond Rome featuring some of the city'southward iconic sites, Angels and Demons by Dan Brownish is a racy thriller featuring Robert Langdon equally the main character.
Drawing on century-old Catholic traditions surrounding the ballot of a new pope and the legendary Illuminati, an anti-religion arrangement, readers are gripped from folio one of this unputdownable book.
Follow Robert Langdon and his ally Vittoria Vetra every bit they frantically follow an ancient trail of clues to discover the kidnapped Preferiti in the promise of discovering the location of the canister of antimatter before a cataclysmic explosion.
Dan Brown's vivid descriptions of Rome and the Vatican City transport the reader to the streets of Italy, and those exploring Italian republic after reading Angels and Demons volition instantly be able to imagine the dramatic scenes taking identify.
At present a major move picture, y'all can even take an Angels and Demons guided bout around Rome spending an afternoon visiting the key sites from the volume including Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.
>>Read reviews forAngels and Demons on Amazon<<
v Things to Pack for Your Trip to Italy
The Lonely Planet Italy guidebook or the Rick Steves Italy guidebook for your trip. It tin can be kind of a hurting to find the major guidebooks once yous arrive in Italy, or you'll find them overpriced. I always like to pick mine up ahead of time.
An Unlocked Cell Phone so that you tin use an Italian sim bill of fare while hither to assistance navigate the trains.
Backup Charging Banking concern for your cell phone since you lot'll be using information technology equally a photographic camera, GPS arrangement, and general travel genie.
A Camera since Italian republic is super photogenic. I use a mix of my Nikon D810 and my Samsung8 smartphone these days.
A Bully Solar day Purse so you can carry what you need with you (like your photographic camera, snacks, water, sunscreen, cash, etc). My current favorite is the Pacsafe Citysafe, which is specially great for Italy (and it's many pickpockets) because it has many anti-theft features.
More than Italia Resources
If you're going to be visiting Rome, check out my interview with Mike Duncan on the history of the Roman Forum. I also have three episodes nigh Rome on Rick Steves Over Brunch, including this episode on Rome recorded with Rick Steves himself!
And of class, you'll want to read 50 Beautiful Rome Quotes and the best Rome puns. In improver, I have guides to visiting Ostia Antica from Rome and how to choose between Pompeii or Ostia Antica.
If you're headed to Venice, check out my podcast episode Rick Steves Over Brunch: Venice and my drove of quotes about Venice and hilarious Venice puns and jokes.
Headed to Milan? Exist sure to check out these beautiful ancient Milan churches while you're in that location!
Finally, bank check out my list of quotes about Italy and the best Italian republic puns.
Don't Forget Travel Insurance!
Before you exit for Italy make sure yous have a validTravel Insurance Policy because accidents happen on the road. I pay for Earth Nomads, and I happily recommend them. It'south especially important to get travel insurance if yous'll be hanging out in cities (like Rome…ahem) where tourists can be the victims of pickpockets. Italian republic is the only country I've been to (out of almost seventy) where I've had someone try to pick my pocket!
I accept been a paying client of World Nomads for travel insurance for two years, and I happily recommend them. If you go ill, injured, or take your stuff stolen, yous'll be happy to take the power to pay for your medical bills or replace what'southward stolen or broken.
Pin these Fabled Books about Italy for Your Trip!
Source: https://historyfangirl.com/best-books-about-italy/
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