In this inspired recreation of her parents' hopes and lives, MW has created a vivid memoir of post-war childhood and adventure in Cairo, Italy and London.
Ludwig Pollak was the art dealer-scholar who found the missing arm of Laocoön, in the famous classical sculpture. In this mysterious, cerebral novella set in Rome in 1943, Pollak is exhorte... read more
CT, a foreign correspondent, had a house in the Appenines in the area of the 2016 earthquakes. Starting with letters found in her attic, she delves into the life of her house's last permanen... read more
A neurotic Italian businessman obsessed by his own hypochondria, Zeno Cosini recounts his early years to his psychoanalyst Dr S. With a cigarette clutched permanently between his fingers, he... read more
Siena's medieval golden age was brought to a grisly end by an appalling visitation of the plague in 1348. Nevertheless, the republic of Siena lasted for four hundred years, from the C12th un... read more
One of the great patrons of the Renaissance, creator of perhaps the most remarkable library outside the Vatican, the Duke of Urbino was also the most successful and feared mercenary of the a... read more
First translation of his novel set in Naples in the shadow of WW2, about a railway clerk, thwarted in his artistic ambitions, and his long-suffering family. Published in Italian 20 years ago... read more
The architecture and interiors of Pompeii, photographed in natural light and in marvellous detail. This lavish book has emerged from a project undertaken by Spina and the Parco Archeologico ... read more
A villa with a Roman aqueduct in the garden that famously belonged to Princess Zenaida Wolkonsky, whose salon included Gogol, Donizetti, Thorvaldsen, Stendhal and Sir Walter Scott. The autho... read more