Friday, June 02, 2006

Italian Books at Chicago Book Fair, June 3-4, Build Your Family Italian Library

The ANNOTICO Reports

 

The best way to perpetuate your Italian Heritage in your family is by creating a Family Library, (Not merely by handing down family recipes:) AND by giving Italian Books as Gifts for ALL occasions!!!!! 

 

 

THE CHICAGO BOOK FAIR

 

CHICAGO, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- From toddler-wielding parents to antique book collectors to fiction aficionados, the Chicago Tribune Printers Row Book Fair has something to please book lovers of all kinds. The Fair -- the largest free outdoor literary event in the Midwest -- is expected to draw nearly 90,000 visitors to the two-day showcase, set in Chicago's historic Printers Row neighborhood June 3-4.

 

The  Italian Cultural Center booth is located near the corner of Clark and Dearborn..

 

Look for them, They will have over 1000 Titles of Books and Media related to Italy and Italian Americans

 

Author Fred Gardaphe,will be signing his books on Sunday at 1 PM: "Leaving Little Italy" and "From Wise Guys to Wise Men."

 

Paul Paolicelli: "Dances with Luigi" and "Under the Southern Sun":  Paolicelli is an award-winning television journalist and documentary producer. He has spent more than twenty-five years as a news reporter, producer, and executive, and  additionally is director of news and programming for the Ohio News Network.      http://www.paulpaolicelli.com/

 

"Dances with Luigi" "[A] touching memoir...The reader becomes a passenger on a sensual trip through the Italian countryside as Paolicelli vividly describes each person he meets and each food he tastes." --Chicago Tribune

"[Paolicelli's] writing has a headlong, heartfelt quality, the energy of someone who has searched to find words for what he feels so deeply. His narrative is made more compelling by his skill full interpolation of local history and story. The coda, where he finds the words--in Italian--to share his feelings with his father and where he names his new daughter, Cara, is almost unbearably moving." --Booklist

"Under the Southern Sun": Like many Americans who identify with cultural hyphenation, Italian-American Paolicelli (Dances with Luigi) has a strong desire to explore his heritage through numerous visits to his grandparents' native southern Italy. What he discovers is much more than traces of hi! s own family tree; it's an obliterated history, hidden by prejudice and bias. According to Paolicelli, northerners have looked down on the southerners as illiterate, unskilled laborers and inferior. The region, however, contains some of Europe's oldest cities (e.g., Matera, in Basilicata, dates back more than 7,000 years). Paolicelli's history is a patchwork of conversations, legends and research. His zeal for the stories he hears is evident in his enthusiastic and easy-to-read prose. From Publishers Weekly

In an effort to learn more about himself, his family, and the last generation of Italian Americans to have "direct memory and ties with the great diaspora from Italy during the end of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries," Paolicelli, author of Dances with Luigi (2000), undertakes an illuminating journey of self-discovery. Traveling through southern Italy in search of the "unique southern sensibility" that informed his grandparents a! nd their offspring, he peels back the layers of a region and a society largely ignored or misunderstood by both historians and modern tourists. In the Mezzogiornio, he travels off the beaten path, investigating the tradition-rich social customs that provided an entire generation of immigrants with the motivation and the drive to succeed in America. Smashing conventional stereotypes of southern Italians, he opens a window onto an essentially unexplored cultural and geographical landscape. Margaret Flanagan, American Library Association. Booklist

Four Centuries of Italian American History by Giovanni Schiavo (If you have only ONE Italian Book, This is it!!!)

One of the first to chronicle the presence of Italians in America, Schiavo’s seminal work begins with the early explorers and ends with World War II. Acknowledged as the pioneer encyclopedist of Italians in America, Schiavo spent 60 years researching the role of Italians and Italian Americans in the discovery, exploration, and development of America from the 15th through the 20th centuries. Richly illustrated and with a leather-bound cover. 238 pages hardcover.

Lisa Scottoline: 


Lisa Scottoline is an Italian-American and identifies strongly with her heritage (she is even taking Italian lessons). She draws from it to create her best-selling series of suspense novels, which feature an Italian-American lawyer named Benedetta Rosato, and her law firm, Rosato & Associates. Lisa's novels are populated with other successful, loveable, and intelligent Italian-American characters - and on every page she presents positive yet realistic images of her culture. For that reason, Lisa was recently nominated by the National Organization of Italian American Women for its annual award. As part of the entertainment industry, Lisa has ? and uses ? the power of the written word.

The success of Lisa's books proves that people want to read about Italians who are heroes instead of gangsters. Lisa's novels connect with Italian-Americans heart-to-heart, and they are responding.

 

"Killer Smile" released in 2004, is my favorite. It  revolves around the Internment of Italians in WWII. "Dirty Blonde" (2006)is her latest, with "Devil's Corner" in 2005, and prior to that are ten other novels.   http://scottoline.com/Site/italians/

 

Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, a coal-mining town in southwest Virginia that became the setting for her first three novels. The Big Stone Gap books feature Southern storytelling with a twist: a heroine of Italian descent, Ave Maria Mulligan.

I happen to like her "Rococo", the uproarious tale of a small Italian American town poised for a makeover it never expected.

 

Making History- A Handbook for Italian American Social History Projects by Dominic Candeloro A handy guide published by the National Italian American Foundation that outlines the necessary steps needed to be taken in order to create and present a successful project on the history of Italian Americans. A Must for any Italian Teacher or Italian Organization.

 

" Five Centuries of Italian American  History" by Richard Cappozola, is not easily Available, But a Good Reference Book. Contact  << ameritalguy@cfl.rr.com >>

 

Italians in America: A celebration by Gay Talese, Editor
This richly  illustrated coffee table book chronicles the Italian experience in America from the early explorers through the American Revolution and Civil War to the Great Migration and modern times. Featured are Italian American inventors, law enforcers, educators, scientists, politicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, and others past and present who have contributed to the United States. 200+ pages.

Lucky Corner: The Biography of Alfred E. Santangelo and the Rise of Italian Americans in Politics by Betty L. Santangelo. This book chronicles the early years of Italian American political activism from the 1920s to the 1970s -- providing colorful vignettes of historic figures from NYC Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt and Governor Alfred E. Smith to President John F. Kennedy. Congressman Santangelo represented the 18th Congressional District of Manhattan during the 1950s and 1960s -- after serving four terms in the New York State Senate.

 

Dominic Candeloro's Italians in Chicago Picture Book  Italians have been a part of the Chicago community since the 1850s. The city's Italian immigration rate peaked in 1914, and many of these new residents settled in neighborhoods on the north, west, and south sides of the Loop and in the industrial suburbs of Chicago. In over 200 images accompanied by an insightful narrative, this collection uncovers the challenges of migration and ethnic survival as well as the trials and triumphs of daily life.


 

+++Biographies of Italian Americans like Rudolph Giuliani and Madonna,

+++Travel books on dozens of Italian regions and cities

+++Italian American history, sociology, politics

+++Language instruction books and media for children and adults

+++Periodicals

+++Don Camillo novels +++Art Books +++Sports +++Bi-Lingual Italian classics

+++"From Ann's Kitchen" and many other Italian Cook Books

 

Bargain Prices! Proceeds benefit the Italian Center

 

For those Not in the Chicago Area, Visit the Book Sections of  "ItaliaUSA" and "Italia Mia" for those Italian and Italian American books that You might want to enjoy, or give as a gift to others, particularly the youth who must be encouraged and allowed to appreciate their Italian Ancestry, Heritage and Culture.

 

 

The ANNOTICO Reports are Archived at:

Italia USA: http://www.ItaliaUSA.com (Formerly Italy at St Louis)

Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net