Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

A postmodern novel which combines a love and a detective story with a sardonic dissection of the publishing industry in an allegory of reading. Two readers attempt to finish the same book, but are comically and repeatedly frustrated.

Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy

Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso

by Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy , is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.

The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

It is the year 1327. Franciscans in an Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, but Brother William of Baskerville’s investigation is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths. Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Machiavelli's The Prince

by Niccolo Machiavelli

Rufus Goodwin has made a new translation into modern English of Machiavelli's masterpiece, The Prince. Machiavelli, father of Social Sciences, continues to have relevance in our modern world, and his observations on the nature of human being and the political systems are as new today as they were during the Renaissance. In the Introduction, the adjective "Machiavellian" is analyzed.

Divine Comedy: Book 1

The Inferno

by Dante Alighieri

The epic grandeur of Dante’s masterpiece has inspired readers for 700 years, and has entered the human imagination. But the further we move from the late medieval world of Dante, the more a rich understanding and enjoyment of the poem depends on knowledgeable guidance. Robert Hollander, a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante, and Jean Hollander, an accomplished poet, have written a beautifully accurate... (more)

Foucault's Pendulum

by Umberto Eco

Bored with their work, three Milanese editors cook up "the Plan," a hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with other occult groups from ancient to modern times. This produces a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled—a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault’s Pendulum. But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real, and when occult groups,... (more)

Invisible Cities (A Harvest/Hbj Book)

by Italo Calvino

Imaginary conversations between Marco Polo and his host, the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan, conjure up cities of magical times. “Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant” (Gore Vidal). Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Penny from Heaven (Newbery Honor Book)

by Jennifer L. Holm

It’s1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing’s that easy in Penny’s family. For starters, she can’t go swimming because her mother’s afraid she’ll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father’s name is mentioned. And the two sides of her family aren’t speaking to each... (more)

The Decameron

by Giovanni Boccaccio

Set against the background of the Black Death of 1348, the hundred linked tales in Boccaccio's masterpiece are peopled by nobles, knights, nuns, doctors, lawyers, students, artists, peasants, pilgrims, servants, spendthrifts, thieves, gamblers, police-and lovers, both faithful and faithless.

Lucia, Lucia: A Novel

by Adriana Trigiani

It is 1950 in glittering, vibrant New York City. Lucia Sartori is the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a prosperous Italian grocer in Greenwich Village. The postwar boom is ripe with opportunities for talented girls with ambition, and Lucia becomes an apprentice to an up-and-coming designer at chic B. Altman’s department store on Fifth Avenue. Engaged to her childhood sweetheart, the steadfast Dante... (more)

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

by Umberto Eco, Geoffrey Brock

Yambo, a sixtyish rare-book dealer who lives in Milan, has suffered a loss of memory-he can remember the plot of every book he has ever read, every line of poetry, but he no longer knows his own name, doesn't recognize his wife or his daughters, and remembers nothing about his parents or his childhood. In an effort to retrieve his past, he withdraws to the family home somewhere in the hills between Milan and... (more)

Inferno (Modern Library Classics)

by Dante Alighieri

A groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dante’s masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dante’s key sources and influences.

The Leopard (Everyman's Library Classics)

The Leopard (Everyman's Library Classics)

by Di lampedus, Archibald Colquhoun

A classic of modern fiction. Set in the 1860s, THE LEOPARD is the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.

The Island of the Day Before

by Umberto Eco, William Woys Weaver

After a violent storm in the South Pacific in the year 1643, Roberto della Griva finds himself shipwrecked-on a ship. Swept from the Amaryllis, he has managed to pull himself aboard the Daphne, anchored in the bay of a beautiful island. The ship is fully provisioned, he discovers, but the crew is missing. As Roberto explores the different cabinets in the hold, he remembers chapters from his youth: Ferrante, his... (more)

Cosmicomics

by Italo Calvino

Enchanting stories about the evolution of the universe, with characters that are fashioned from mathematical formulae and cellular structures. “Naturally, we were all there, - old Qfwfq said, - where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?” Translated by William Weaver. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Barone rampante. (English)

by Italo Calvino

Cosimo, a young eighteenth-century Italian nobleman, rebels by climbing into the trees to remain there for the rest of his life. He adapts efficiently to an arboreal existence and even has love affairs. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun.

Divine Comedy: Book 2

Purgatorio

by Dante Alighieri

This splendid verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum provides an entirely fresh experience of Dante's great poem of penance and hope. As Dante ascends the Mount of Purgatory toward the Earthly Paradise and his beloved Beatrice, through "that second kingdom in which the human soul is cleansed of sin," all the passion and suffering, poetry and philosophy are rendered with the immediacy of a poet of our own... (more)

Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes

Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes

by Giada De Laurentiis

In her hit Food Network show Everyday Italian , Giada De Laurentiis shows you how to cook delicious, beautiful food in a flash. And here, in her long-awaited first book, she does the same—helps you put a fabulous dinner on the table tonight, for friends or just for the kids, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of flavor. She makes it all look easy, because it is. Everyday Italian is true to its title: the... (more)

Godfather: Book 1

The Godfather

by Mario Puzo

More than thirty years ago, a classic was born. A searing novel of the Mafia underworld, The Godfather introduced readers to the first family of American crime fiction, the Corleones-and became the definitive novel of the virile, violent subculture that remains steeped in intrigue, in controversy, and in our collective consciousness.

Looking for Alibrandi

by Melina Marchetta

For as long as Josephine Alibrandi can remember, it’s just been her, her mom, and her grandmother. Now it’s her final year at a wealthy Catholic high school. The nuns couldn’t be any stricter—but that doesn’t seem to stop all kinds of men from coming into her life. Caught between the old-world values of her Italian grandmother, the nononsense wisdom of her mom, and the boys who continue to mystify her, Josephine... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: italian

by Italo Calvino

Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso

by Dante Alighieri

by Umberto Eco

by Niccolo Machiavelli

by Dante Alighieri

by Umberto Eco

by Italo Calvino

by Jennifer L. Holm

by Giovanni Boccaccio

by Adriana Trigiani

by Umberto Eco, Geoffrey Brock

by Dante Alighieri

by Di lampedus, Archibald Colquhoun

by Umberto Eco, William Woys Weaver

by Italo Calvino

by Italo Calvino

by Dante Alighieri

by Giada De Laurentiis

by Mario Puzo

by Melina Marchetta