In 1849 Garibaldi gave up the defence of Rome to the besieging French troops and made his way northwards with a few thousand volunteers; this is an earlier phase of the attempt at Italian li... read more
Set in Florence and spanning three generations of women, this novel centres on the catastrophic floods of 1966 and the international volunteers - the 'angels of mud' - who helped.
A woman moves through her lonely days in an Italian city: Lahiri's move to Rome a few years ago must inform this sensitive and observant novel. Written in Italian, the text is translated int... 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
The marvellous Attlee takes us on the journey, through space and time, of one violin, whose voice "was powerful enough to unbuckle joints". Cremona, Russia, Venice, Alpine forests... (Her la... read more