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 Linguaa, 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.

Throughout her first excursion in Italy—with “non parlo Italiano” as her only Italian phrase—Dianne delighted in the beauty of what she saw but craved comprehension of what she heard. And so she chose to inhabit the language. Over more than twenty-five years she has studied Italian in every way possible through Berlitz, books, CDs, podcasts, private tutorials and conversation groups, and, most importantly, large blocks of time in Italy. In the process she found that Italian became not just a passion and a pleasure, but a passport into Italy’s storia and its very soul. She offers charming insights into what it is that makes Italian the most emotionally expressive of languages, from how the “pronto” (“Ready!”) Italians say when they answer the telephone conveys a sense of something coming alive, to how even ordinary things such as a towel (asciugamano) or handkerchief (fazzoletto) sound better in Italian.

To buy La Bella Lingua, click here!

From the prestigious Lucca publishing house Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore, this beautiful book cleverly combines fine art and traditional Tuscan cookery. Containing 128 recipes and over 40 full-color still-life paintings from the Medici collections, this book will please any lover of Italian culture and cuisine. Whether enjoyed as an art book or used as a cookbook, this elegant volume belongs on every Italophile’s shelf. Available exclusively from EyeItalia! To read more and to buy, click here.

Edited by Alice Leccese Powers, Italy in Mind is a delightful literary potpourri, revealing Italy’s incomparable beauty and its many contradictions. Featuring essays, letters, novel excerpts, short stories and poems, Powers has chosen works from over 40 writers spanning two centuries – including Mark Twain, Lord Byron, Richard Wilbur, Michael Ondaatje, Calvin Trillin and Edith Wharton – all of whom have been charmed, seduced or perplexed by Italy and her inhabitants.  Appropriate for any traveler (whether real or armchair) desiring a greater understanding of  “la bella paese”, this book offers rich and marvelous perspectives from some of Britain’s and America’s greatest writers. To purchase Italy in Mind, go here.

Beautifully designed and illustrated, this is a perfect gem of a book to give yourself and the Italy lovers in your life. Buy Italianissimo!

Beloved and trusted by Italian cooks for decades, this cookbook-first published in 1950-contains scores of traditional recipes that Italians have been preparing for generations. There’s nothing trendy here; authenticity defines Il Talismano.

Whether you’re a novice or an accomplished  cook, The Talisman is one standard your cookbook library should not be without.  Buy The Talisman today!

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Ginzburg is one of the greatest women writers you’ve probably never heard of. Though she was one of Italy’s most celebrated writers of the 20th century (Ginzburg died in 1991), she is far from a household name in the United States. According to the New York Times,  A Place to Live is " a glowing light of modern Italian literature…Ginzburg’s magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning stroke of a plain phrase…As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart."

Lynne Sharon Schwartz, the accomplished American writer,  was both editor and translator of  the 21 essays collected in this volume, and her profound respect for Ginzburg’s talent shines through on every page.

For a rare reading pleasure and a book you will never forget, order A Place to Live. Highly recommended by eyeItalia.

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—From the back cover

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