Featured Categories : Travel & Holiday : Countries & Regions : Europe : Italy

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Featured Categories : Travel & Holiday : Countries & Regions : Europe : Italy

• Italian: Essential Language for Short Trips (Lonely Planet Fast Talk)

  Lonely Planet

  
  
   

• Italy (Lonely Planet Country Guide)

  Damien Simonis, et al

  
  
   

• Rome (Lonely Planet City Guide)

  Duncan Garwood, Abigail Hole

  
  
   

• Rome (Eyewitness Travel Guide)

  
  
   

• Rome (Eyewitness Pocket Maps and Guides)

  
  
   

• Francesco's Venice

  Francesco da Mosto

  
  
   

• Venice

  Jan Morris

  
  
   

• The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

  Jonathan Buckley

  
  
   

• Venice (Eyewitness Top Ten Travel Guide)

  
  
   

• Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  
  
   

• Venice and the Veneto (Lonely Planet City Guide)

  Damien Simonis

  
  
   

• Francesco's Italy

  Francesco da Mosto

  
  
   

• Naples and the Amalfi Coast (Eyewitness Travel Guide)

  
  
   

• Italy (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

  
  
   

• Venice (Eyewitness Travel Guide)

  
  
   

• The Rough Guide Map Venice (Rough Guide Map)

  
  
   

• Rome (Eyewitness Top Ten Travel Guide)

  Reid Bramblett, Jeffrey Kennedy

  
  
   

• The Rough Guide to Italy (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

  Martin Dunford, Celia Woolfrey, Rob Andrews, Jules Brown, Ros Belford, Jonathan Buckley, Mark Ellingham, Tim Jepson

  
  
   

• Florence and Tuscany (Eyewitness Travel Guide)

  Christopher Catling

  
  
   

• The Dark Heart of Italy

  Tobias Jones

  
  Tobias Jones' remarkable book essential reading for Italy enthusiasts: The Dark Heart of Italy (subtitled Travels Through Time and Space across Italy) is unlike any book on the country you may have read before. It is not a guide to Italy's art, or her geographical splendours. Nor is it a guide to her amazing cuisine. And it is not an examination of the Italian character. It does, however, contain elements of all of these and much more. When the author emigrated to Italy in 1999, he expected the customary ravishing of the senses that Italy usually provides. But, looking beneath the surface, Jones was astonished to encounter surprising undercurrents, among them national paranoia and the crippling fear inspired by terrorists (the Italian parliament, it seems, has a 'Slaughter Commission').

  This is, of course, the country of Silvio Berlusconi, the tycoon whose controversial election via his stranglehold on the media was (to British eyes at least) something that should not be countenanced in a non-totalitarian country. While always taking on board the glories of Italy, Jones' picture of the country is both fascinating and disturbing: this is a land torn apart by civil wars and endemic corruption, the still influential Cosa Nostra and unbending Catholicism exert considerable sway.

  Italy remains utterly unlike any of its European neighbours. Jones sees links between the powerful creativity of the Italian soul and the 'dark heart' that he refers to in his title. What is most remarkable about the book is the fact that no one who loves Italy will be at all disenchanted to encounter the truths that Jones presents to us. If anything, the complex and contradictory nation that emerges will hold an even greater fascination for both the serious student and the casual visitor. --Barry Forshaw