Author: Dianne Hales Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1451658966 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
The book rests on the premise that the woman in the painting "Mona Lisa" is indeed the person identified in its earliest description: Lisa Gherardini (1479-1542), wife of the Florence merchant Francesco del Giocondo. Dianne Hales has followed facts from the Florence State Archives, to the squalid street where Mona Lisa was born, to the ruins of the convent where she died
Author: Dianne Hales Publisher: Crown Archetype ISBN: 0451499182 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
A jubilant celebration of Italy’s outsize impact on culture, from literature to art, music to movies, that “masterfully examines the multitude of reasons why so many people fall in love with Italy and the Italian lifestyle” (Forbes) Can you imagine painting without Leonardo, opera without Verdi, fashion without Armani, food without the signature tastes of pasta, gelato, and pizza? The first universities, first banks, first public libraries? All Italian. New York Times bestselling author Dianne Hales attributes these landmark achievements to la passione italiana, a primal force that stems from an insatiable hunger to discover and create; to love and live with every fiber of one's being. This fierce drive, millennia in the making, blazes to life in the Sistine Chapel, surges through a Puccini aria, deepens a vintage Brunello, and rumbles in a gleaming Ferrari engine. Our ideal tour guide, Hales sweeps readers along on her adventurous quest for the secrets of la passione. She swims in the playgrounds of mythic gods, shadows artisanal makers of chocolate and cheese, joins in Sicily’s Holy Week traditions, celebrates a neighborhood Carnevale in Venice, and explores pagan temples, vineyards, silk mills, movie sets, crafts studios, and fashion salons. She introduces us, through sumptuous prose, to unforgettable Italians, historical and contemporary, all brimming with the greatest of Italian passions—for life itself. A lyrical portrait of a spirit as well as a nation, La Passione appeals to the Italian in all our souls, inspiring us to be as daring as Italy’s gladiators, as eloquent as its poets, as alluring as its beauties, and as irresistible as its lovers. Praise for La Passione “[An] effervescent love letter to all things Italian.”—Newsday “In this sweeping account of la passione italiana from ancient to modern times, Dianne Hales shows once again why she is one the world’s foremost guides to the riches of Italian culture. Every page resonates with the author’s love for Italy and her joy in sharing its remarkable discoveries and exquisite pleasures with her readers.” —Joseph Luzzi, author of My Two Italies and In a Dark Wood “Hales takes us on an enriching and delightful journey, filled with fascinating characters, scintillating sensual details, and an authentic connection to the ever-inspiring Italian heart and soul that has given the world boundless pleasures.” —Susan Van Allen, author of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go
Author: Barbara Grizzuti Harrison Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic ISBN: 0802190294 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 483
Book Description
A “contagiously exuberant” celebration of Italian food, culture, and history that “will be the companion of visitors for years to come” (The Washington Post Book World). In an absorbing journey down the Italian peninsula, essayist, journalist, and fiction writer Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, offers a fascinating mixture of history, politics, folklore, food, architecture, arts, and literature, studded with local anecdotes and personal reflections. From fashionable Milan to historic Rome and primitive, brooding Calabria, Harrison reveals her country of origin in all its beauty, peculiarity, and glory. Italian Days is the story of a return home; of friends, family, and faith; and of the search for the good life that propels all of us on our journeys wherever we are. “Harrison’s wonderful journal will make you update your passport and dream of subletting your job, home, etc. . . . With Harrison, you never know with whom you’ll be lunching, or climbing down a ruin. You just know you want to be there.” —Glamour
Author: Dianne Hales Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0767932110 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 322
Book Description
A celebration of the language and culture of Italy, La Bella Lingua is the story of how a language shaped a nation, told against the backdrop of one woman’s personal quest to speak fluent Italian. For anyone who has been to Italy, the fantasy of living the Italian life is powerfully seductive. But to truly become Italian, one must learn the language. This is how Dianne Hales began her journey. In La Bella Lingua, she brings the story of her decades-long experience with the “the world’s most loved and lovable language” together with explorations of Italy’ s history, literature, art, music, movies, lifestyle and food in a true opera amorosa — a labor of her love of Italy. Over the course of twenty-five years, she has studied Italian through Berlitz, books, CDs, podcasts, private tutorials and conversation groups, and, most importantly, time spent in Italy. In the process the Italian language became not just a passion and a pleasure, but a passport into Italy’s storia and its very soul. She invites readers to join her as she traces the evolution of Italian in the zesty graffiti on the walls of Pompeii, in Dante’s incandescent cantos and in Boccaccio’s bawdy Decameron. She portrays how social graces remain woven into the fabric of Italian: even the chipper “ciao,” which does double duty as “hi” and “bye,” reflects centuries of bella figura. And she exalts the glories of Italy’s food and its rich and often uproarious gastronomic language: Italians deftly describe someone uptight as a baccala (dried cod), a busybody who noses into everything as a prezzemolo (parsley), a worthless or banal movie as a polpettone (large meatball). Like Dianne, readers of La Bella Lingua will find themselves innamorata, enchanted, by Italian, fascinated by its saga, tantalized by its adventures, addicted to its sound, and ever eager to spend more time in its company.
Author: Beppe Severgnini Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0307486877 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 242
Book Description
Join the bestselling author of Ciao, America! on a lively tour of modern Italy that takes you behind the seductive face it puts on for visitors—la bella figura—and highlights its maddening, paradoxical true self You won’t need luggage for this hypothetical and hilarious trip into the hearts and minds of Beppe Severgnini’s fellow Italians. In fact, Beppe would prefer if you left behind the baggage his crafty and elegant countrymen have smuggled into your subconscious. To get to his Italia, you’ll need to forget about your idealized notions of Italy. Although La Bella Figura will take you to legendary cities and scenic regions, your real destinations are the places where Italians are at their best, worst, and most authentic: The highway: in America, a red light has only one possible interpretation—Stop! An Italian red light doesn’t warn or order you as much as provide an invitation for reflection. The airport: where Italians prove that one of their virtues (an appreciation for beauty) is really a vice. Who cares if the beautiful girls hawking cell phones in airport kiosks stick you with an outdated model? That’s the price of gazing upon perfection. The small town: which demonstrates the Italian genius for pleasant living: “a congenial barber . . . a well-stocked newsstand . . . professionally made coffee and a proper pizza; bell towers we can recognize in the distance, and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone.” The chaos of the roads, the anarchy of the office, the theatrical spirit of the hypermarkets, and garrulous train journeys; the sensory reassurance of a church and the importance of the beach; the solitude of the soccer stadium and the crowded Italian bedroom; the vertical fixations of the apartment building and the horizontal democracy of the eat-in kitchen. As you venture to these and many other locations rooted in the Italian psyche, you realize that Beppe has become your Dante and shown you a country that “has too much style to be hell” but is “too disorderly to be heaven.” Ten days, thirty places. From north to south. From food to politics. From saintliness to sexuality. This ironic, methodical, and sentimental examination will help you understand why Italy—as Beppe says—“can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters or ten minutes.”
Author: Beppe Severgnini Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0593315642 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
One-of-a-kind timeless lessons for handling challenges and living with joy, the Italian way—“with unparalleled insight and brilliant wit, Severgnini’s book not only transports us to Italy but deep into the Italian mind and spirit" (Stanley Tucci, host of Searching for Italy). Is there an Italian way to deal with life? Can we all learn something from the Italians? Italy often arouses in Americans a unique mix of attraction and bafflement, moderate disapproval and incredible allure. From the Italians' love of poetry to an innate desire to socialize to the regional differences between the north and the south, Beppe Severgnini, who has dedicated his career to the meticulous observation of his compatriots, embarks on an enthralling quest to identify a core Italian identity and explore how that identity has evolved since the global pandemic. Told with the warmth and humor of a longtime friend, Severgnini touches upon patience, endurance, and wisdom, and offers a one-of-a-kind set of timeless lessons for overcoming trials, the Italian way.
Author: Dianne Hales Publisher: Broadway ISBN: 0767927699 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 255
Book Description
Follows the author's quest to learn Italian over twenty-five years and her study of the ties between the language and Italy's culture, literature, history, and food.
Author: Kamin Mohammadi Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 0385354002 Category : Self-Help Languages : en Pages : 263
Book Description
“My ideal type of armchair travel: immersive, insightful, seductive. In Bella Figura, Kamin Mohammadi takes us to the year in Florence that changed her life, and gives us the tools to bring the grace of the Italian lifestyle to our own lives.” —National Bestselling Author Stephanie Danler “She walks down the street with a swing in her step and a lift to her head. She radiates allure as if followed by a personal spotlight. She may be tall or short, slim or pneumatically curvaceous, dressed discreetly or ostentatiously—it matters not. Her gait, her composure, the very tilt of her head is an ode to grace and self-possession that makes her beautiful whatever her actual features reveal.” This is the bella figura, the Italian concept of making every aspect of life as beautiful as it can be, that Kamin Mohammadi discovered when she escaped the London corporate media world for a year in Italy. Following the lead of her new neighbors, she soon found a happier, healthier, and more beautiful way of living. The bella figura knows: • That the food that you eat should give you pleasure while eating it. Pause for meals, and set a place, even if you are eating alone. • To seize any opportunity to get moving—be it taking the stairs, doing a coffee run at work, or dancing with abandon. • To drink a spoonful of excellent-quality extra-virgin olive oil four times a day. • To seek out nature, be it a city park, a tree on your street, or some wild place. • And to love yourself. The bella figura—occupies her space, emotionally and physically, with style and entitlement.
Author: Doris Wild Helmering Publisher: Harmony ISBN: 0767920260 Category : Health & Fitness Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
If you’ve been struggling with your weight, you know how hard it can be to lose those extra pounds and keep them off. In the groundbreaking Think Thin, Be Thin, nationally prominent psychotherapist Doris Wild Helmering and award-winning health writer Dianne Hales assert that the true key to a healthy body weight is a healthy attitude toward food and exercise. Their logic is simple: Your brain ultimately controls what you eat and whether you work out. If you change the way you think, you can change the way you behave. And you can lose weight. Using proven psychological strategies and scientifically based exercises, you will learn how to harness your thoughts to transform your behavior, body, and life. With practical advice on such troublesome issues as curbing emotional eating, motivating yourself to exercise, and overcoming diet plateaus, this book is the ideal complement to any diet and weight-loss program.
Author: Margo Sorenson Publisher: Regal House Publishing ISBN: 9781947548206 Category : Young Adult Fiction Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
A fictional celebration of Italian life and culture where seventeen-year-old Alessandra returns for the summer to Italy, where she grew up. While confronting organized crime in the picturesque small town of Positano and babysitting a rebellious twelve year old, Alessandra loses her heart to a handsome Italian boy who hides secrets of his own.
Proudly powered by WordPress |
Theme: Rits Blog by Crimson Themes.
Author: Dianne Hales
Author: Dianne Hales
Author: Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Author: Dianne Hales
Author: Beppe Severgnini
Author: Beppe Severgnini
Author: Dianne Hales
Author: Kamin Mohammadi
Author: Doris Wild Helmering
Author: Margo Sorenson