The Italian American Reader: A Collection of Outstanding Stories, Memoirs, Journalism, Essays, and Poetry
by Bill Tonelli (Author), Nick Tosches

Tonelli, a former editor at Esquire and Rolling Stone magazines and author of The Amazing Story of the Tonelli Family in America, offers this personal and solid compendium of Italian-American voices. After enumerating the accomplishments of other Italian-American artists (singers, musicians, actors, film directors), Tonelli compares these highlights with those of other immigrants and asks whether Italians, in fact, need to be recognized for literary accomplishments. The answer is yes, and Tonelli thematically arranges 68 stories, poems and excerpts from memoirs and novels by such categories as "Home," "Mom," "Work" and "Death." The selection of contributors (some dead, most still writing) is anything but perfunctory, and none of the selections gives a stereotypical picture of Italian-Americans (in fact, several contributors even refuse to identify themselves by ethnicity). The book opens with a section from Don DeLillo's Underworld and includes a piece each by Evan Hunter and Ed McBain (who are one and the same, of course). Kim Addonizio and Tom Perrotta have pieces under "Sex, Love, and Good Looks"; no tome of Italian-American literature would be complete without Camille Paglia, Gay Talese, John Fante and Pietro DiDonato. While Tonelli doesn't shy from stories about or figures of the Mafia (Nick Pileggi contributes a section of Wiseguys, as does Victoria Gotti from Superstar), Mario Puzo's only piece is from his first, under-appreciated novel, Fortune's Pilgrim, about the immigrant experience. Nick Tosches sets the tone of this beautiful volume with a bold homage to the granddaddy of Italian-American literature, Emanuele Conegliano, better known as Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist for La nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte.

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Honor Thy Father
by Gay Talese

Here is the story of the rise and fall of the notorious Bonanno crime family of New York. Now considered a classic, Honor Thy Father was the first true-to-life look at the Mafia from the inside. Gaining unprecedented access to the inner sanctum of dons, decisions, and deals, bestselling author Gay Talese brought to the American consciousness a world and a life previously known to only a few. No other book has done more to acquaint this country with the fascinating feuds, secrets, and frightening personalities of the secret organization known as the Mafia.

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Beginning with the 16th and 17th century Italian explorers of the American continent, this book traces historical figures of Italian descent who participated in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and early American politics. Chapters also are devoted to Italian American inventors, entrepreneurs, educators, athletes and entertainers. A special section is dedicated to pioneering Italian American women and their accomplishments.

The book's 200-plus illustrations include rare and historic photographs of immigrant life in the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as images of significant people and events in modern Italian American history.

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Who's Who Among Italian Americans
by The National Italian American Foundation

The second edition of the NIAF's popular directory Who's Who Among Italian Americans has finally been released. The book provides an extensive list of prominent Italian Americans in the arts and sciences, government, business, sports, education, finance and other fields. Relevant personal and professional information is given on over 1800 Italian American leaders. Who's Who Among Italian Americans includes both an occupational index and a geographical index for easy reference.

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From Sicily to Elizabeth Street
by Donna R Gabbaccia

Recommended to anyone of Sicilian descent. It describes the family life and conditions our grandparents had first in Sicily then moving to New York at the turn of the century.

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Coffee With Nonna: The Best Stories of My Catholic Grandmother
by Vincent Iezzi

During World War II, young Vincent Iezzi was at home with his grandmother in his Philadelphia neighborhood. Because of the war effort, most of the mothers, big sisters, and aunts were working in the factories while most of the fathers, big brothers, and uncles were off at war.

Nonna always knew just what to say. Gifted with a native ability to tell stories, her solution for every one of Vincent’s questions or problems was another elaborate story, accompanied by cups of coffee sweetened with war-rationed brown sugar and milk.

And such stories they are! Angels and saints take on peasant charm, God paints peacocks’ tails, and the humble good Joe always finishes first. Heroes. Plots. Intrigue. Better than any comic book, for sure.

Pull up a chair. You can almost smell the coffee.

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Umbertina: A Novel
by Helen Barolini

One Amazon reader said: “Rendered in a convincing realism, Helen Barolini 's novel depicts a search for definition as woman and American through three generations, starting with the eponymous Umbertina. One may justifiably assume that the author has lived her subject--so sensitively does she enter and depict it. I would emphatically recommend this book to any American of Italian descent who wishes to understand the experience of his or her forebears and the need of successive generations to come to terms with the past. But that is not to limit its audience. At base, this is an American book, well worth the attention of those willing to feel the struggle, victory, and loss involved in the acquisition of an American identity.”

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The Dream Book: An Anthology of Writings by Italian American Women (Writing American Women) (Paperback)
by Helen Barolini

With a much acclaimed introductory essay revealing the past barriers to Italian American women writers within their own tradition as well as in the world of publishing, this collection explodes the silence by presenting fifty-six writers from the earliest to the present in all writing genres with excerpts from their work. Winner of an American Book Award.

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Milocca: A Sicilian Village
by Charlotte Gower Chapman

I was fascinated with how they described life in this village. They divided the society into three classes. And there was a form of address that went with each class to distinguish them. The wealthy were addressed as Don and Donna; the artisans who had their own business or practiced a trade were addressed as Masru and Gnura; and the peasants were addressed as Zu and Za.

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The Golden Milestone - Over 2500 Years of Italian Contributions to Civilization
NEW 3rd Edition, 549 pages, 34 Illustrations
by Russell Esposito

The Golden Milestone has received outstanding reviews and is an international bestseller that covers Roman, Italian and Italian-American accomplishments. This comprehensive book on Italians and Italian-Americans accomplishments contains 22 chapters (549 pages) on every subject, from the arts and sciences to sports and entertainment celebrities. The author's ability to blend facts with some humor and personal anecdotes makes this book a joy to read. The book covers the wonders of ancient Rome, Renaissance Italy, as well as modern accomplishments and Nobel Prize winners. The book is illustrated and contains an amazing collection of inventions and accomplishments. For example, Italians invented the piano, violin, opera, ballet, battery, telescope, radio, telephone (on Staten Island in NYC before Alexander Bell) and split the first atom. Discover how the Lincoln memorial in Washington D.C. was carved in NYC by Italians, and read about the origins of many famous fairy tales (Cinderella, Snow White, Pinocchio, etc.). Also, learn about other distinguished Italians: Chairman & CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, President of the European Union's Commission, and the Director of the European Space Agency. This book also includes a unique 'Italy Travel Guide' supplement that combines history and attractions for over twenty cities and locations in Italy. A great gift idea for any occasion!

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A Decent Girl Always Goes to Mass on Sunday
by Rocco Fumento

Amazon Reader's review: "Excellent read. I had a difficult time putting the book down and always looked forward to picking it up. I found myself laughing out loud. Well written."

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Lincoln's Foreign Legion: The 39th New York Infantry, the Garibaldi Guard
by Michael Bacarella

Amazon Reader's review: "Mr. Bacarella has written a great narritive of the 39th NYVI. It is one of the best regimental histories I have read. He gives the day to day happinings of a regiment in battle and in camp. The 39th was one of the most unusual regiments in federal service during the American Civil War, and Mr. Bacarella has done the men & woman of the regiment justice!"

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Under the Southern Sun: Stories of the Real Italy and the Americans It Created
by Paul F. Paolicelli

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 his 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 considered their dialects to be inferior to the "proper" Italian spoken in the north. The region, however, contains some of Europe's oldest cities (e.g., Matera, in Basilicata, dates back more than 7,000 years) and has produced many successful Italian-Americans, including Jimmy Durante and Mario Cuomo. Paolicelli also writes about less proud moments in the south's history, such as Ferramonti, a Calabrian concentration camp where Italian and foreign Jews were imprisoned with other "enemies of the state." "Unlike their German counterparts, the Italians... had no anti-Semitic beliefs, no taste or liking for the situation and, in fact, took steps to make the camp as tolerable as possible for all involved." 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. The larger narrative, however, is a bit choppy. His numerous visits and lack of chronology make the book more of an account of his personal journey than a serious journalistic pursuit.

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A Rose on Ninth Street
by Joseph F. Ruggiero

This book tells two love stories: one romantic, the other self-sacrificing. Set in an ethnically diverse South Philadelphia community in the 1950's, the novel ushers in a new age. The changes told in the story would alter America beyond recognition.

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Old Italian Neighborhood Values
by M. D. Stephen L. DeFelice

Amazon Reader's Review: "I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Old Italian Neighborhood Values. It's about lost traditional values in modern times. This novel was enlightening for me because it gave me a glimpse of some of the values of my grandparents' generation (saving money, importance of family, etc.) that were not passed on to my generation (I'm 26)."

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Where’s the Minestrone? An Italian American Explores Italy
by Peter S. Carusone

Voice from the Mountains
by Anthony Caponi

The pages of this intimate and engaging memoir feature short poetic vignettes that, when read together, create a richly vivid tale of Caponi's ideallic childhood in Pretare, a small Italian mountain village, and his contrasting immigration and experiences as a young man in modern American culture. It also incorporates Caponi's years as a U.S. soldier during WWII, which brought him to Italy and lead to his eventual return to the mountain of his youth. A sculptor by trade, Caponi's visual sensibilities are reflected in the text, as each page offers as a crucial tile in the incredible mosaic that is his life story.

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La Casa De' Colli
by Marco Cima

These farmer's sons from the Italian Piedmont, who leave home for adventure and for economic reason, are central characters in a true story of a family disrupted by emigration. Their American experience takes them to mining towns in the Midwest and Far West during the turbulent years of the late 19th century. Their experiences mirror the emotional and social upheaval of the times.

Equally important are the family members who remain in the Canavese Mountains. They carry on with their lives and experience the joys and struggles characteristic of traditional village society.

While recounting the difficulties of the character's lives, the author also deals with their complex emotional make-up: their disillusionment, resentment, resignation and hope. Above all, their love, which is capable of destroying an entire family.

Marco Cima recounts his story in a thoroughly researched world of farming, mining and ethnography. The result is a universal tale of people caught up in the social and emotional consequences of emigration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Crossing Ocean Parkway
by Marianna De Marco Torgovnick

Born and raised in the Italian American enclave of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, New York, Marianna De Marco Torgovnick left the neighborhood to attend prestigious colleges, eventually becoming an English professor at Duke University in North Carolina. Writing at such a distance from Bensonhurst, De Marco Torgovnick, in this collection of essays, touches upon issues of ethnicity and class, prejudice and exclusion, and does it all with insight, irony, and frequent flashes of humor. Her essays concerning her family, and especially her experience of giving birth to a child with a congenital heart defect, are very personal and touching, and her analysis of cultural trends and works of literature, including a startling look at the classic pop novel, The Godfather, are insightful.

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From Paesani to White Ethnics: The Italian Experience in Philadelphia (Suny Series in Italian/American Culture)
by Stefano Luconi

Stefano Luconi delivers a compelling study of 20th-century identity politics in From Paesani to White Ethnics: The Italian Experience in Philadelphia. Focusing on key historical moments ("World War I... offered... Italians and Italian Americans... a chance to construct some sense of their common... identity"), Luconi traces political and personal enactments of race relations. His incisive investigation of the mayoral tenure and many campaigns of Police Commissioner Frank L. Rizzo during the 1970s and '80s is especially astute: initially the recipient of "trans-ethnic white support" due to those constituents' "dislike of racial conflict," Mayor Rizzo, he finds, fueled racial animosity by catering to white Philadelphians.

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Thomas Angel, American
by August C. Bolino

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DiMaggio: Setting the Record Straight
by Morris Engelberg, Marv Schneider

Morris Engelberg was Joe DiMaggio's best friend and constant companion over the last 16 years of DiMaggio's life. This book combines anecdotes from DiMaggio's playing days with an extensive account of his relationship with his family, including Joe Jr., who finally succumbed to a life spent battling alcohol and drug addiction, and Marilyn Monroe, who was the true love of DiMaggio's life. The DiMaggio Engelberg knew was a man whose fame made him suspicious of those who would be his "friends" and who was seldom unaware of the image--cool, sophisticated, and graceful--he needed to protect. But he was also intelligent, compassionate, a good friend, and a doting, attentive grandfather. It was in the latter role that he found the most joy late in life. Engelberg has been criticized for exploiting his friendship with DiMaggio. Anyone who reads this book will dismiss the thought out of hand. There's nothing here to diminish DiMaggio's reputation. No one sets out to become a legend; it can be a troublesome burden. DiMaggio handled it better than most

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Christ in Concrete
by Pietro Di Donato, Studs Terkel (Preface), Fred L. Gardaphe (Introduction)

Amazon Reader's Review: "Christ in Concrete, by Pietro di Donato, is a superb novel of the Italian-American experience. The Signet Classic edition contains a preface by Studs Terkel and a very informative introduction by Fred L. Gardaphe. Terkel notes that the book was first published in 1939, and compares it to John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.

"Christ" tells the story of an urban, working-class Italian-American family in the early part of the 20th century. Much of the book is focused on Paul, a young man who finds work as a bricklayer.

Di Donato writes with a vivid style; he attains a muscular poetry of blood and concrete as he describes the workers' "symphony of struggle." He brings to life both the specifics of Italian-American life as well as the larger multicultural world in which Paul's family lives. The book deals with Italian-American folk beliefs, tenement living, bilingualism, and a young man's sexual awakening. Di Donato also writes on the theme of the common person's struggle against uncaring officialdom. He also explores the question of faith in the face of suffering.

There are many vivid scenes and characters in this novel. One account of an Italian-American feast is particularly memorable. There are also some really graphic, horrifying descriptions of workplace death and injury. I believe that this powerful novel belongs on the shelf with all those great books that sympathetically look at the oppressed and the overworked in the United States. And for another author who has written eloquently on the Italian-American experience, I recommend the fiction of John Fante."

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The Italian American Family Album (The American Family Albums)
by Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler, Mario Cuomo

An Italian immigrant says, "I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: first, the streets weren't paved with gold; second, they weren't paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them."

Against all odds--a new language, new customs, and the ethnic slurs and catcalls of prejudice--Italian Americans paved the streets, rolled the cigars, sewed the clothes, cooked the meals, and did all manner of back-breaking work to build a new life in Lamerica, the land of success. The Italian American Family Album brings us into the heart of those immigrants' experiences. Through diaries, letters, interviews, and articles from magazines and newspapers we share the ordeals and the triumphs of the Italian American first setting foot on his new homeland.

These personal accounts and family photographs of scores of Italian American families tell inspiring and courageous stories of hardship and suffering. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the journey across the Atlantic was remembered by many as the via dolorosa, the "sorrowful way." And even after arriving in the new homeland and successfully getting through immigration, finding a job and a place to live, and learning new ways of doing almost everything was a challenge. But there was joy in the new country, as well. The new arrivals were embraced by a community of fellow Italians with a grand sense of humor, an intense appreciation of music, and an even greater appreciation of good food. Life for the newcomer was full of old traditions and pleasure, and we hear first-hand how the old ways endured even as new philosophies and customs were embraced daily. Through the stories of the children of those early immigrants--writers Gay Talese and John Ciardi, entertainers like Tony Bennett, baseball great Yogi Berra, and others not famous, but still proud to call themselves Italian Americans--we see how family pride and strong ties to the old country survive even today.

As Governor Mario Cuomo says in his introduction: "I have always been intensely proud that I am the son of Italian immigrants and that my Italian heritage helped make me the man I am." That pride and the unique experiences of the early Italian Americans are an integral part of our country's history. Through the memories and photographs from the albums of generations of Italian families we meet real people, cut of the same cloth as we are--a many-colored and multi-textured cloth of ethnic customs, languages, traditions, and memories. We are a nation of immigrants, and The Italian American Family Album belongs to each of us.

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The Mafia Cookbook: Revised and Expanded
by Joseph Iannuzzi (Author)

n The Mafia Cookbook, Joe Dogs took the quintessential Mob formula -- murder, betrayal, food -- and turned it into a bestseller, not surprisingly, since Joe Dogs's mixture of authentic Italian recipes and colorful Mafia anecdotes is as much fun to read as it is to cook from.

Now The Mafia Cookbook is reprinted with Cooking on the Lam -- adding thirty-seven original new recipes and a thrilling account of Dogs's recent years since he testified against the Mob in five major trials, all told in his authentic, inimitable tough-guy style.

The new recipes are simple, quick, and completely foolproof, including such classic dishes as Shrimp Scampi, Tomato Sauce (the Mob mainstay), Chicken Cordon Bleu, Veal Piccata, Marinated Asparagus Wrapped with Prosciutto, Baked Stuffed Clams, Veal Chops Milanese, Sicilian (what else?) Caponata, Gambino-style Fried Chicken, Lobster Thermidor (for when you want to celebrate that big score), and desserts rich enough to melt a loan shark's heart. Readers can follow these recipes and learn to cook Italian anytime, anywhere, even on the lam, even in places where Italian groceries may be hard or impossible to find. Tested by Mob heavy hitters as well as FBI agents and U.S. marshals, these recipes are simple to follow, full of timesaving shortcuts, and liberally seasoned with Joe Dogs's stories of life inside -- and outside -- the Mob. This is the perfect cookbook for anyone who wants to make the kind of food that Tony Soprano only dreams about.

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Those Without a Country: The Political Culture of Italian American Syndicalists (Critical American Studies Series)
by Michael Miller Topp

In the first book-length history of the Italian American syndicalist movement-the Italian Socialist Federation-Michael Miller Topp presents a new way of understanding the Progressive Era labor movement in relation to migration, transnationalism, gender, and class identity. Those Without a Country demonstrates that characterizations of "old" (pre-1960s) social movements as predominantly class-based are vastly oversimplified-and contribute to current debates about the implications of identity politics for the American Left and American culture generally.

Topp traces the rise and fall of the Italian American syndicalist movement from the turn of the twentieth century to the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1927. His use of Italian-language sources, combined with his attention to transnationalism and masculinity, provides new vantage points on a range of related topics, including the 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile workers' strike, the impact of World War I on this immigrant community, and the genesis of both fascism and antifascism. Those without a Country brings forward fascinating new material to revise and refine our views of not only Progressive Era radicalism but immigration, gender, and working-class history as well.

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Wine Heritage: The Story of Italian-American Vintners
by Dick Rosano, Robert Mondavi, Tom Pinney (Editor)

Who could deny the importance of Italians to the development of America's wine industry? It is little known that Italians have been planting vineyards and making wine in America since the early colonial days when Filio Mazzei was the vineyard consultant for Thomas Jefferson. Grapes were planted and nurtured in virtually every corner of America where Italians settled. Wine making was as sacrosanct as making bread or pasta. Wine is inseparable from the Italian culture and is loved and revered as the "holy blood of the grape." It is one of the secrets of the healthy Mediterranean life style now preached by health experts.

Here is the story of Italian immigrants whose descendants now dominate American wine making. How they struggled and endured. How they persisted in the face of Prohibition and facilitated legislation permitting home wine making of 200 gallons per family. The intrigue, the feuds, the love affairs and financial triumphs are all in this authenticated history from the earliest days of America to the new Italian/American wine makers such as Francis Ford Coppola. 256 pages, 150 historic photos.

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Italian Americans: The Immigrant Experience (Immigrant Experience Series)
by Ben Morreale, Robert Carola

The story of Italians in America is one of struggle and hope, prejudice and pride, passion and perseverance. Through the years, the Italian people have assimilated the ways of their adopted country and been transformed by its culture. The character and sensibility of Italians have left an indelible mark on America, from well-loved musicians such as Frank Sinatra to creative businessmen such as Lee Iacocca. Through lively text and 200 color and B&W photographs, Italian Americans honors the Italians who came to America and their descendants who keep the traditions and spirit alive.

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Night Bloom: A Memoir
by Mary Cappello

Cappello, a professor of English at the University of Rhode Island, has a lovely way with images: the "night bloom" of the title is a Night-Blooming Cereus that after much care blossoms suddenly at night, a flower that occasioned spontaneous parties in the Cappello family. These beautiful images tend to pile up without cohering, however, and the material in this disjointed memoir is somewhat familiar, if elegantly composed. Cappello sometimes takes hold of a good idea and overdoes it: in a few paragraphs she ties together a cousin with a glass eye, her parents harping that a new toy "could knock your eye out," her father's insistence that she and her siblings always wear seat belts and the importance of the evil eye in Sicilian-American culture. Cappello quotes liberally from the diaries kept by her grandfather, John Petracca, which are sometimes touching with their descriptions of extreme poverty ("October 22, 1941. I am working and starving") and sometimes very mundane ("October 1, 1941. Got out of bed early. Inspected my garden"). Some of his journals and other writings were in English and some were in Italian, and the fact that Cappello does not read Italian (because she is a "bona fide product of assimilation") occasionally hampers full understanding. Ultimately, this isn't a coherent whole but rather a grab bag of ideas, beautifully expressed.

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The Last Cannoli: A Sicilian-American Family Comes of Age through the Ancient Power of Story-telling
by Camille Cusumano

The Last Cannoli is a fast-paced read in a voice that is fresh and powerful. It introduces the Donitella family, ordinary people with extraordinary tales to tell. Spanning four decades the novel opens its mouth-watering tale in the '50s when the father's ritual story telling begins to take on the power of prayer amidst the cheerful cacophony of this large Sicilian-American family. The Donitellas, their house, and their stories will stay with you and you'll keep thinking of them as one thinks of interesting people one has just met.

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Heritage Italian-American Style Bilingual (2nd Edition)
by Leon Radomile

Awarded "Best Fact Book" for 2003 by the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association

This book is a great starter book for kids or adults, and a great reference or reminder book for all. It is bilingual, and therefore, helpful especially to youngsters attempting to learn Italian. It will test your knowledge of Italian American and Italian History and Culture.

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Sometimes I Dream in Italian
by Rita Ciresi

A bitter olive of a collection: stories from the girlhood and adulthood of sisters Angelina (Angel) and Pasqualina (Lina). Angel narrates, younger, less favored, remembering her mother's pinched and shapeless existence in New Haven; her father's work as a soda deliveryman; evenings in front of the television. The dark side of the Italian American experience is viciously etched in the plastic religious trinkets and snatches of dialect. In the first half, their mother wrings every drop of possible joy from their existence, as Lina dreams of a life of riches and glamour. In the second half, Lina is married to a nice man she can't stand, and Angel writes greeting cards for a living. Ciresi gets the details horribly right: her mother carrying cheese and salami for a bus ride to New York; her father endlessly reminding them what keeps a roof over their heads; the sisters' frantic and hopeless longing to be normal--that is, blonde and nonethnic.

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Leadership
by Rudolph W. Giuliani

This highly anticipated book from New York's once controversial, now beloved former mayor opens with a gripping account of Giuliani's immediate reaction to the September 11 attacks, including a narrow escape from the original crisis command headquarters, and closes with the efforts to address the aftermath during his remaining four months in office. But, he argues, he did not suddenly become a great leader on September 11, and "had been doing [my] best to take on challenges my whole career." The bulk of the book draws on his experiences as a corporate lawyer and U.S. attorney and then as mayor. The leadership principles he champions preparation, accountability and strong self-definition chief among them come as no surprise, but the stories he uses as examples are filled with vivid scenes and organized with a veteran trial lawyer's flair for maximum effect. Apart from a few childhood anecdotes, he shies away from his personal life and recalls his abandoned Senate campaign against Hillary Clinton only as one factor in his decisions about dealing with prostate cancer. Throughout, he displays the hands-on management that marked his administration, including his willingness to respond swiftly and in person to crises, to prove that he could be relied on when the city needed him most. While some critics found his style too aggressive, he has an effective counterargument: "Before September 11, there were those who said we were being overly concerned [about security]," he observes. "We didn't hear that afterwards," he observes. "We didn't hear that afterwards."

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Italian Pride: 101 Reasons to Be Proud You're Italian
by Federico Moramarco, Stephen Moramarco

Amazon Reader's Review: "I'm not Italian, but the book is a perfect gift for someone who is. The real beauty of the book is in its prose. The authors' genuine love of the Italian culture comes through in the poetry of the written word."

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Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Interment During World War II
by Lawrence DiStasi

Una Storia Segreta: The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment during World War II looks at "both the secret shame of those who suffered the wartime restrictions, and the dirty little secret of those who imposed them." These words, from Lawrence DiStasi's (Dream Streets: The Big Book of Italian American Culture) introduction to his seminal book on the internment of Italian-Americans during WWII (with a foreword by Sandra M. Gilbert), reveal what Japanese-American detainees and their descendants already know too well about the wartime experience. DiStasi has marshaled a group of potent and moving essays, personal narratives of ancestors and others who were detained, arrested, evacuated or who just disappeared, and some more scholarly examinations of our government's treatment of the more than half a million Italian immigrants, many of them naturalized U.S. citizens whose lives were turned upside down. B&W illustrations.

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Dances With Luigi: A Grandson's Search for His Italian Roots
by Paul E. Paolicelli

Amazon reader's review: "This book touched major chords with me. The author lucidly tells the tail of searching for family and family history in Italy,with both stark self examination and great observations of the people around him. His portrayal of the good and the bad, and the uncertainty involved in being in a foreign country and trying to speak their language; Italy, specifically, are excellent. I recommend this book to people planning a trip to Italy, specifically southern Italy, but I think it would be great reading for anyone who loves things Italian or is a genealogist.

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Were You Always an Italian?: Ancestors and Other Icons of Italian America
by Maria Laurino

Laurino, a New York writer who grew up in suburban New Jersey and was once a speechwriter for NYC mayor David Dinkins, explores the disconnect that many Italian Americans, rooted in the rocky soil of Southern Italy, feel between images from Bensonhurst and Mafia movies, on one hand, and Northern Italian style and verve on the other. Her essays ask questions that follow like beads on a rosary: Do we smell bad? Is our food weird? Why is it so hard to accept leisure in our lives? Her deconstruction of Italian dialect--captured snatches of parents' and grandparents' unwritten past in words like gavone and stunod is mesmerizing, both as a journalist's examination of words and their uses and as a woman's study of what makes her herself. And her witty analysis of the difference between Versace and Armani from an Italian American standpoint is itself worth the price of admission. Essential for Italian Americans, enlightening for anyone else.

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Our Italian Surnames
by Joseph Fucilla

Our Italian Surnames covers every fact of Italian names and naming practices. It is here we discover, for example, that bussolari is Italian for compass, orsini means bear, and passalacqua stands for butterfly. In addition to sections on given names and the evolution of Italian surnames, the book contains chapters devoted to pet names, botanical names, geographical names, bird names, insect names, occupational names, and more. Our Italian Surnames is written for a popular audience, and each chapter of the book is a separate and informative unit in itself. Complete with a list of sources and an index of more than 7,500 names, Our Italian Surnames is a monument to the late Professor Fucilla's lifelong interest in the language and names of Italia.

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In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu
by Tony Ardizzone

In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu is a magical, warm, and wise novel about a close-knit family's immigration from Sicily to America in the early 1900s. The Santuzzus are poor Sicilian farm laborers who endure back-breaking work in the fields of a tyrannical landlord. Wanting more for their children and grandchildren than a lifetime of servitude, Papa Santuzzu and his wife Adriana push their seven sons and daughters, one by one, to immigrate to La Merica, a land of promise and opportunity.

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Italian-American Folklore
by Frances M. Malpezzi

Folklorists Malpezzi and Clements have produced a colorful overview of the folkways of Italian immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Following an introduction of other scholars' efforts to collect data about Italian American folk customs, the authors present a history of Italian immigration from Europe to the eastern United States and California (which began largely around 1880). The lore of a broad cross section of Italian Americans is then analyzed through chapters on conversation, life rituals, religious days and other important events, supernatural beliefs and medicine, recreation, storytelling, performing arts, and food. Other folklore studies, such as Elizabeth Mathias and Richard Raspa's Italian Folktales in America: The Verbal Art of an Immigrant Woman, focus on lore from one Italian person or region; the strength of this volume is its interview materials and data representing many Italian Americans. For ethnic/immigrant and folklore collections.

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Bruculinu, America: Remembrances of Sicilian-American Brooklyn, told in Stories and Recipes
by Vincent Schiavelli

Vincent Schiavelli's enchanting, sometimes deeply moving memoir with recipes, Bruculinu, America, is a warmly recalled distortion of Brooklyn, one of New York City's boroughs, as it really was. As Schiavelli says, "The stories may not always contain the strict facts, but they certainly tell the truth." Don't be surprised if his beautiful reminiscence of the miracle (which took place before he was born!) that saved his uncle Salvatore Calogero from dying of pneumonia brings a tear to your eye.

Schiavelli, a successful actor, writes scenes so vividly that you participate as he visits a strega, or witch, who exorcised him of a medical problem when he was nine years old. (After seeing a doctor, Schiavelli's mother figured that in case the condition was caused by malocchio, the evil eye, it would be wise to cover all bases.)

Schiavelli's recollections often involve his grandfather, Papa Andrea, a Sicilian master chef. The 70 or so recipes in this enchanting book come from him. The Baked Mashed Potatoes made with peas and grated cheese and fennel-flavored Pasta with Chickpeas are delicious everyday dishes. Baked Macaroni, rich with mushrooms, ground meat, and a touch of cinnamon, is for Sundays. Cucciaddatu are the buttery, log-shaped Christmas cookies filled with nuts and raisins that each Sicilian cook makes in his or her own way. Here, cocoa powder, honey, and cognac add nuances to the nubbly filling. The only frustrations with Bruculinu, America are that its compact size makes it hard to keep one's spot while cooking from it, and that the recipes are woven through the text in no logical order; to return to something in particular, it's necessary to consult a list at the back of the book.

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La Merica: Images of Italian Greenhorn Experience
by Michael A. La Sorte

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Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World
by Peter D'Epiro, Mary Desmond Pinkowish

"Everyone knows the difficulty of things that are exquisite and well done," the Renaissance philosopher Baldassare Castiglione once remarked. "So to have facility in such things gives rise to the greatest wonder." Italians call that artful facility sprezzatura, a term, Peter d'Epiro and Mary Desmond Pinkowish maintain, that well describes the nation's genius.

They have reason to celebrate: Italy, after all, has exerted an influence in world affairs and culture all out of proportion to its size and population, and has done so for hundreds of years. Among the authors' subjects are the navigators Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giovanni Verrazzano, whose transoceanic voyages changed the course of world history; Andrea Palladio, the architect whose theories have guided designers and builders to the present day; Claudio Monteverdi, whom the authors call "the father of modern music," who gave the world not only fine operas but also the modern orchestra; Enzo Ferrari, the great automaker; Roberto Rossellini, the often overlooked pioneer of New Wave cinema; and the anonymous Roman engineers who built aqueducts, sewers, and roads that still stand today.

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St. Joseph and the Triumph of the Saints
by Thomas W. Petrisko

While St. Joseph was surpassed by many saints in achievements such as prophetic power, signs, and wonders, the hidden life of St. Joseph triumphs over all as the silent path to perfection. Learn how St. Joseph has been given to the world as the model for all fathers, and how, like St. Joseph, many other great saints have contributed to the coming, 'Triumph of the Immaculate Heart!' Dr. Thomas Petrisko is the Editor of the Queen of Peace Newspaper and has written several books on the topics of apparitions and the times in which we live.

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The St. Joseph Altar Traditions of South Louisiana (Louisiana Life Series ; No. 4)
by Ethelyn Gay Orso

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Bye Bye America
by Nat Scammacca

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BLOOD of my BLOOD
The Dilemma of the Italian Americans
by Richard Gambino. Paperback, 388 pages.

Better described as "Understanding our Italian Origins." From Italy's Mezzogiorno to the cities and suburbs of America, Richard Gambino traces the evolution of Italian-American psyche. Read about:
* The Family System
* Reasons for Leaving Italy
* Receptions in the New Land - Work, Bread and Fire
* The Ellis Island experience, Little Italy, Jobs, etc
* L'Uomo di Pazienza - the Ideal of Manliness
* La Serieta' - The Ideal of Womanliness
* Religion, Magic, and the Church
* Childhood and Education
* Attitudes Toward Outsiders, Authority and Politics
* What It Means to Be Italian-American in the United States

In this engrossing, full-scale study, Gambino examines a uniquely Southern Italian value system, which survived intact for two thousand often perilous years, and examines the family as the only social reality; explaining its complex system of rules, stratifications, and roles for each member (father as head, mother as core ). Immensely readable - it offers us a practical blueprint for "creative ethnicity" in our struggle to withstand the fragmentation of American life.

"With greater impact than any other nonfiction book on the subject has achieved to date, it weaves together the history, sociology, and psychology of first-, second- and third-generation Italian Americans. Its data is presented with scholarly precision; yet the author's style, which he peppers with autobiographical tidbits, makes it immensely readable.' -- The New York Times

"This is a disciplined, poignant, superb book. Gambino does for Italian Americans what Luigi Barzini has done for the Italians. His book is packed with the taste and feel of life, full of rare insights, delightful and entertaining. It sheds explanatory light on the world of millions of Americans. It ought to be in the hands of all who try to plumb their own secret identity, and untangle the story of their own instincts and aspirations." -- Michael Novak

Since its publication in 1974, Blood of My Blood has become the most highly esteemed book on the subject. It is also rare in that it has been a popular bestseller and is widely used as a college text.

Richard Gambino holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from New York University. He is also the author of Vendetta (Guernica, 1998), which was made into a movie.

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Amazon Reader's review: "Jerre Mangione's writing is so vivid that reading it brought back my childhood years in the 20's and 30's. His Mt Allegro (NY) was my Silver Lake (NJ). His parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors were mine with similar names. His family gatherings were mine, too. In this land of immigrants, each era has its own stories of growing up in America. Mangione tells his with the greatest affection, bitter-sweet nostalgia, and tender humor. Recently,I gave a copy of Mt Allegro to my Aunt Angie for her 87th birthday. She plans to pass it along to her older sisters."

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La Storia
Five centuries of the Italian American Experience
by Jerre Mangione, Ben Morreale

The essence of this illuminating, panoramic chronicle is the great migration of Italians to the U.S. between 1880 and 1924. Their path to assimilation was emphasized by hard work, family solidarity, tradition-laden weddings and festivals… but also by poverty, crowded housing and dangerous working conditions ….A saga of a people, their struggles, and their triumphs in a new world.

Should be read by all Americans interested in what binds us together, despite our different backgrounds.

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Trade Paperback, 508 pages

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Italian Stories
By Joseph Papaleo

Papaleo's collection of 26 interwoven short stories dramatizes Italian-American family life in the Bronx during the 1940s and 1950s. The stories mainly deal with second generation Italian-Americans who struggle for mainstream acceptance while coming to terms with the traditions of their immigrant parents.

Paperback, 298 pages

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Passage to Liberty: The Story of Italian Immigration and the Rebirth of America
by A. Kenneth Ciongoli, Jay Parini

In this slim though surprisingly informative illustrated homage to the Italian-American experience, Ciongoli and Parini (coeditors of Beyond the Godfather) begin their history with the history of America. While the authors mention the great Italian explorers Amerigo Vespucci, Cristoforo Colombo, Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) and Giovanni da Verrazano they focus on the Italians who, alongside George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, inspired the shaping of America: Cesar Rodney and William Paca were two Italians who signed the Declaration of Independence; Jefferson borrowed a phrase from his friend Filipo Mazzei, an Italian wine merchant and surgeon ("All men are by nature equally free and independent"). Ciongoli and Parini delve into the great wave of Italian immigration that began in the late 19th century, exploring everything from conditions in Italy to the Italian assimilation in the U.S. under such chapters as "Saints of the Immigrants" and "Little Italies." One chapter, "Hostility and Hangings," describes anti-Italian crime in the U.S., while a chapter on the Mafia explains that while "70% of [Americans in 1977] polled associated the word `Italian' with the word `crime,' " only .ooo2% of Italian-Americans have ever been members of organized crime. This handsomely composed book with color illustrations and black-and-white photos also contains pullouts of authentically replicated documents, such as an Italian prayer card, a letter from Jefferson to Mazzei and a letter from Nicola Sacco written to his family nine days before he and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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