Cooking with Nonna by Rossella Rago

Some of you may know Rossella Rago from her on-line/social-media cooking videos in which she cooks alongside an Italian or Italian-American grandmother (nonna). This book is an accompaniment to that series, featuring 100+ of the basic Italian and Italian-American recipes she's gleaned from various grandmothers who have been featured on her show.

The recipes cover meals from appetizers to desserts, with step by step instructions on how to make the dish, preparation times, cooking times and yields. Photos illustrate many important techniques, and show many of the finished dishes.

A few of the dishes may challenge experienced cooks, but this is really a basic to intermediate book. I expect that the sequel will feature advanced dishes. Each recipe is prefaced by a short and entertaining introduction by the author.

The filtered images take on a nostalgic feel, which is intentional, and helps to blend the down-to-earth grandmothers with Rossella's at times too-Hollywood style. The author hopes to create nostalgia for the traditional Sunday dinners she grew up with.

If you didn't grow up with that tradition, the stories from the various grandmothers may inspire you to create the tradition for your own family. The one page life stories about each grandmother are fascinating slices of immigrant life, in which home-cooked meals equate directly with love. One grandmother insists:

You've got love the food like you love your boyfriend.

From the book's description:

Now you can cook classic Italian meals with the long-awaited debut cookbook from the popular web TV series Cooking with Nonna!

For Rossella Rago, creator and host of Cooking with Nonna TV, Italian cooking was never just about the amazing food or Sunday dinner. It was also about family, community, and tradition. Rossella grew up cooking with her Nonna Romana every Sunday and on holidays, learning the traditional recipes of the Italian region of Puglia, like focaccia, braciole, zucchine alla poverella, and pizza rustica. And in her popular web TV series, Rossella invites Italian-American grandmothers (the unsung heroes of the culinary world) to cook with her, learning the classic dishes and flavors of each region of Italy and sharing them with eager fans all over the world.

Now you can take a culinary journey through Italy with Rossella and her debut cookbook, Cooking with Nonna, featuring over 100 classic Italian recipes, along with advice and stories from 25 beloved Italian grandmothers. Learn to make fresh homemade pasta, handcrafted Spaghetti with Meatballs, and decadent Four-Cheese Lasagna that will have everyone coming back for seconds! With easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions and mouthwatering photos, Cooking with Nonna covers appetizers, soups, salads, pasta, meats, breads, cookies, and desserts, and features favorites such as Sicilian Rice Balls, Fried Calamari, Stuffed Artichokes, Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe, Veal Stew in a Polenta Bowl, Struffoli, Ricotta Cookies, and more! So if you are ready to bring back Sunday dinner and learn how to make Italian food just like nonna, then look no further!

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Visit Rossella's website or YouTubeChannel to view the videos of her cooking with Italian grandmothers.

Out of Rushmore's Shadow by Lou Del Bianco

Lou Del Bianco's first-person account of his grandfather's work on the Mr. Rushmore presidential carvings, as Chief Carver, is entertaining, personable and very interesting. The conversational tone and lightly self-deprecating humor, combined with family photos, made this reader feel like I was an audience of one, enjoying a command performance by the author.

The story of Italian immigrant Luigi Del Bianco's work on Mt. Rushmore takes up roughly two-thirds of the book. The other third is the frustrating and heartbreaking struggle the Del Bianco family (mainly Lou and his aunt and uncle) waged for 25+ years (YES! Sadly, it took that long!) to get the U.S. Parks Service to recognize the Chief Carver's role in the creation of the Mr. Rushmore presidential monument, and to commemorate that at Mt. Rushmore.

For those who don't know, Gutzon Borglum, a master-carver (and amazing self-promoter), artist and engineer, designed the memorial in South Dakota and convinced the U.S. government to foot the bill. He brought to the project expert carvers from his studio, all accomplished artists in their own right, to do the most delicate parts of the work. Chief among those artists was Luigi Del Bianco.

Luigi Del Bianco was designated the Chief Carver by Borglum, and was tasked with not only training the unskilled miners who were hired locally, but with finishing the granite faces of the presidents so they came to life with rich expressions and amazing likenesses to the former presidents. Del Bianco was the only carver Borglum, who was too old to hang for long periods of time off the side of a mountain, trusted to do this delicate work in his stead, and entrusted to make the delicate repairs needed periodically in the friable mountain face.

Luigi Del Biano working on Mt. Rushmore.

The really amazing part of the story is that for decades Luigi Del Bianco was written out of the Mt. Rushmore monument's story, at least by the official historians. His community in Port Chester, New York, knew of their local son's talents and accomplishments, and regularly honored him in their press. But for the world at large, the Italian immigrant with the broken English was “officially” just one of the four hundred or so “workers” who did Borglum's bidding.

Part of the reason for this was likely the out-sized ego of Borglum who saw the monument as his claim to fame. He died during its creation, and biographers liked to focus solely on the larger than life artist when discussing the larger than life presidential carvings. 

 Luigi Del Bianco worked on the marble fireplaces in Kykuit, John D. Rochafeller's Pocantico Hills home in New York, some pictured here.

Another part of the reason for Luigi Del Bianco's being kept in the shadows was certainly the contempt that immigrants were held in during the 1920s and 1930s, the time of the monument's creation, especially immigrants from Italy, who were also unfortunately Catholics arriving in a predominantly Protestant country. That bigotry was so intense in the U.S. at the time that it brought the Klan back to life in the Southern states, and gave it fresh ground to grow in the Western states. Oddly, Borglum was a supporter of the new Klan.

Luigi Del Bianco suffered from that bigotry during the project, with docked wages, disrespect, shunning... all sorts of indignities, and was repeatedly defended by Borglum. The grandson doesn't go into the details in this book because he tries to focus on his grandfather's accomplishments rather than paint the man as a victim. Luigi Del Bianco didn't see himself as a victim; of all the hard work he did in his adopted country, he was proudest of his work creating a truly American iconic monument:

I'd do it again even knowing all the hardships involved.

 Luigi Del Bianco made plinths for monuments in and around his New York area. Here is one he made, with one of his three sons and late-life-gift daughter seated before it.

That's how this book becomes more than a biography of one Italian immigrant who helped create a modern masterpiece of monumental patriotic art. It becomes an iconic story of how an immigrant to America contributed to the country with his unique skills, hark work, and determination to succeed, supported by a community of immigrants who helped pull each other up, and by those open-minded Americans who recognized the rich talent that immigrants could contribute to the country.

I suspect that for Luigi Del Bianco's New York community, a monument as great as Mt. Rushmore was certainly their local cemetery, decorated with over five hundred memorials to loved ones, carved with skill, talent and heart by their local, celebrated artisan. Immigrant, son, daughter and grandson join together in this book to tell a timeless tale of familial love, pride and the life of newcomers and their descendants. I highly recommend this book.

From the book's description:

Sometimes history does not tell you the whole story. When 8-year-old Lou Del Bianco finds out that his Grandpa Luigi was the Chief Carver on Mount Rushmore, his young life is instantly changed. Follow Lou’s journey as he and his Uncle Caesar make the painful discovery that Luigi is not even mentioned in the most definitive book on Rushmore. Cheer them on as you read the historic documents they unearth from the Library of Congress that not only tell Luigi’s story but also prove his great importance. Finally, ride the roller-coaster of the 25 year journey to get Luigi the recognition he deserves. Out of Rushmore’s Shadow is the dramatic and touching story of Luigi’s legacy and the immigrant’s struggle.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com where it is available in paperback and as an e-book:

Please visit the Luigi Del Bianco Mr. Rushmore website for videos, interviews and lots of photographs.

On this site I have a review of another book about Luigi Del Bianco, Mt. Rushmore and the era in which it was made, by the author Douglas J. Gladstone: Carving a Niche for Himself: The Untold Story of Luigi Del Bianco.

 The Black Hills monument in South Dakota during the work, which involved blasters removing initial layers of rock, pointers marking the carving parameters based on the scale model in a nearby studio, drillers removing more stone, and carvers doing the final work to get the faces just right under the guidance of the Chief Carver, Luigi Del Bianco, who did the most delicate work himself.

Appointment with ISIL (Anthony Provati Thriller) by Joe Giordano

This Ludlum-esque international thriller stars an Italian-American man, east-coast Anthony Provati. His parts of the fast-paced story are told in first-person narrative, as Anthony manages to get himself into a bad situation that quickly escalates into a horrible situation. Third-person limited narration is used for the scenes without Anthony.

Lots of tough guy stuff here, with punchy dialogue, violence, threats of violence, off-scene sex, mobsters, dirty cops, hot chicks, a psychopath, and some truly evil human beings. International terrorism becomes the focus of the book as it progresses. The most interesting part of that, for me, was the discussion of social media's use for recruitment and propaganda.

Napoli, Italia

Just a warning, since the events in this book are very topical: For those touched directly by the evil of terror groups, those who feel raw from all the death and horror, this work of fiction may be something to skip. And the harrowing first chapter, which is chronologically out of sequence in the story, may be too disturbing for some readers. Those are things each reader must determine alone.

The Italian-American protagonist's backstory is told convincingly. The settings of the book range from east-coast USA to the Mediterranean, specifically Italy, Greece and North Africa. Readers familiar with tough-guy novels will recognize the cinematic action-and-dialogue-heavy writing, which is rendered expertly, and edited professionally. This is the first book in a planned series of thrillers featuring Anthony Provati.

Napoli, Italia

From the book's description:

This time, Anthony’s libido threatens his life. Anthony Provati flirts with Russian mob boss, Gorgon Malakhov’s mistress. The Russian deals in death. ISIL, the Islamic State in the Levant, wants the product. Russian Intelligence supplies the means, and an art theft funds the scheme. ISIL’s targets are chilling. The chase across the Mediterranean is on. Can Anthony thwart ISIL? Will he survive?

“The threats feel very real. The plotting and writing throughout are taut and the stakes are very high. Not only are individual lives in peril, but plans are laid for massive attacks and enormous security breaches. Sales of submarines, Strontium-90 (a component of diabolical “dirty bombs”), and shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles are all part of the high-level negotiations. Also mixed into the nefarious loot are massive amounts of heroin and three small, but priceless, Vermeer paintings…. A roller-coaster ride to the finish, this book confirms Giordano as a writer to eagerly watch.” –Kirkus featured review

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's blog site, where he has a special section about Italian-Americans.

Shepherd Avenue by Charlie Carillo

Shepherd Avenue is billed as a coming-of-age novel about a young boy who has to deal with a heck of a lot of loss of loved ones in a very short space of time. Coming-of-age novels tend to have an episodic structure, and this book is not different. Instead of having the support of his father during this time, he has been dumped at his grandparents' place, a place as foreign to him as another country.

The loss of his wayward father hits the child as hard as the losses due to death. Much of the story is about the boy's dealing with his feelings of abandonment. The rest of the story is about the boy dealing with his exuberant relations and their in-your-face neighbors. Young love gets in the mix too at a certain point. All the characters come alive with realistic dialog and actions, along with quick descriptions that paint clear pictures.

There is some foul language, racial slurs, deaths, children playing doctor, and animals being slaughtered. To be honest, I could have done without every scene that involved life of creatures other than human. If the story were true, I would have said “so be it”, but since the story is fiction, I wondered “why was that included?”. But the accounts of animals being slaughtered are accurate and true to life.

Set in 1961, there is a big helping of segregation, bigotry and sexism. The culture clash between the boy and his very Italian-American, Brooklyn-living family is strong, but just as strong is the clash between the family and the society at large. 1961 was a time of birth-control, women's liberation movements, black power movements, changing music and clothes and a whole universe of social norms. Rich details from that era set the reader front and center as a spectator to the clashes. I enjoyed the writing style, first-person with hindsight, and being transported to another place and time.

From the book's description:

An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year

From acclaimed author Charlie Carillo comes a poignant, darkly funny, coming-of-age story set in the heart of Italian-American Brooklyn, New York, and the heat of one eventful 1960s summer . . .

Ten-year-old Joey Ambrosio has barely begun to grieve his mother’s death when his father abruptly uproots him from his sedate suburban Long Island home, and deposits him at his estranged grandparents’ house in boisterous East New York. While his dad takes off on an indefinite road trip, Joey is left to navigate unfamiliar terrain. Besides his gruff Italian grandparents, there's his teenage Uncle Vic, a baseball star obsessed with the music of Frank Sinatra; a steady diet of soulful, hearty foods he’s never tasted, and a community teeming with life, from endless gossip and arguments to curse-laden stickball games under the elevated train. It’s a world where privacy doesn’t exist and there’s no time to feel sorry for yourself. Most of all, it’s where Joey learns not only how to fight, and how to heal, but how to love—and ultimately, how to forgive.

Here's a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website. And The East New York Project has some images of Shepherd Avenue from around the time of the book.

Return to Umbria (Rick Montoya Italian Mystery) by David P. Wagner

Rick Montoya is back in his fourth Italian Mystery. Half Italian and half pure New Mexican (his American wild west idea of justice at the end of the book could be considered proof of that), Rick makes a living as an interpreter and translator in Italy (if only!), when he's not helping out his friends and relatives who work in law enforcement. His cowboy boots mark him as American even if he speaks Italian like a native.

The series is clearly aimed at armchair travelers, and I enjoyed the virtual visit to beautiful Italy in Return to Umbria. The author includes lots of cultural information and many delicious Italian meals while the protagonist works to solve a mystery or two.

Orvieto and her gorgeous cathedral

I like Rick more in this book than in the previous one I read, mainly because he is less a superman or action hero in this book. He's fallible and not quite the ladies man he appeared to be in the other book. Perhaps as a female reader that is more appealing? I'll leave that up to the men to decide.

There was one part of the book that had me shaking my head: the main premise. The reason Rick is in Orvieto in Umbria seems very implausible to me. His family wants him to convince a male cousin to stop having an affair with a mature married woman.

Really? In Italy?

From my experience in Italy, the male cousin would more likely have been congratulated on his luck at capturing a lucrative bit of tussle between the sheets. It seemed very Breakfast at Tiffany, to be honest, and none of Rick's business. But I suppose for the story's sake there had to be a reason for his leaving Rome and going to beautiful Orvieto.

Book One in the Series

The writing is smooth, generally, but the dialogue feels a bit stilted mainly because the author shows a reluctance to use contractions. Rick's entry into the police case feels natural, however, since he has worked with the policeman in this book in an earlier story, and he works regularly with the police as an interpreter.

There is no explicit sex and no swearing in the book, but there is some violence. Fans of the series should enjoy this one. New readers might want to start with the series at the beginning, but it's not really necessary.

The books in the Rick Montoya Italian Mystery Series:

1. Cold Tuscan Stone
2. Death in the Dolomites
3. Murder Most Unfortunate (reviewed on this site)
4. Return to Umbria

Book Two in the Series

From the book's description (spoilers!):

Orvieto—its very name brings to mind priceless art, colorful ceramics, and straw-colored wine. And the most famous cathedral façade in Italy, a structure of gothic spires, arches, statues, and mosaics. But as Rick Montoya discovers, this jewel of Umbria can have an ugly side as well.

When Rick Montoya moved to his mother’s Italy from his father’s Santa Fe, New Mexico, to work as a freelance translator using his dual heritage, he didn’t expect to be helping the Italian police. His maternal uncle, a high-level commissioner in Rome, however, sees no reason not to use the resources at hand.

Rick’s fourth investigation should not have involved crime. It begins when Rick is asked by his uncle to go to Orvieto to talk some sense into his cousin Fabrizio, whose fling with an older married woman is embarrassing the family. Rick agrees to give it a try, and plans a short but romantic weekend in Orvieto with Betta Innocenti, the woman he met in Bassano. What could go wrong?

Less than a day after their arrival, his language skills draw him into the brutal murder of an American visitor. He finds that he knows the policeman in charge, but Inspector LoGuercio has changed since the time they met in Volterra. The murdered woman had studied art in Italy decades earlier—why has she returned now? And why was she dumped at night on a dusty road?

Through her traveling companions, her devastated daughter and best friend, as well as a growing list of those who knew her from her student days, they realize she had come to Orvieto to face the past. And then a second murder occurs in a public park, with Montoya so close that he wonders if he could have been the intended target. Is all this connected to Fabrizio and his affair, or to the American’s death?

More violence erupts, some of it definitely directed at Rick himself. Strong suspects, tantalizing secrets, concealed motives, and risky behaviors tie to a fascinating landscape and layers of Orvieto’s past.

Book Three in the Series

(reviewed on this site)

Here is a link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website where he blogs and provides information on the locations in the books and their regional dishes.  Visit the Poison Pen Press page for the Rick Montoya series.

Giulia Goes to War (Legacy of Honor Series) by Joan Leotta

Looking for a gift for a hyphenated Italian tween or teen? Or know an adult who enjoys clean historical fiction featuring hyphenated Italians? If yes, then this series of novellas may be for you. The author has four books in her Legacy of Honor Series, each featuring hyphenated Italians serving in a war effort for the United States of America.

Volume One: Giulia Goes to War is about a young first generation Italian-American during World War II. She wants to join in the war effort just like her two brothers who are in the military, and her parents who work on the home front collecting resources for the military equipment factories.

Giulia gets what she wants when she starts work at a plant near home, but then she gets much more than she bargained for with a love interest and an adventure that involves national security.

The love story between two people from very different backgrounds shows up the conservatism of the era (1943+) when like married like, and the twain did not mix. Other social elements of the era come through too, like the sexism, segregation, patriotism, entertainments, communication, and marriage traditions.

The book is rich with historical detail but it never bogs the story down. The author has a clear, clean and polished writing style. Her warmth and understanding of the immigrant experience shines through. She has a clear loves of Italian culture.

This book, and the others in the Legacy of Honor Series, should appeal to tweens, teens and adults who like clean romances set in the past, enlivened by some intrigue and adventure. If you are a hyphenated Italian, you should enjoy these books even more. I think they would make a great gift for young ladies who like to learn more about history through fiction.

Legacy of Honor Series:

• Volume One: Giulia Goes to War
• Volume Two: Letters from Korea
• Volume Three: A Bowl of Rice
• Volume Four: Secrets of the Heart

Volume One: Giulia Goes to War

From the book's description:

Wartime work draws Giulia DeBartolo out of her close Western Pennsylvania family into a world of intrigue, spies and new friends in Wilmington, North Carolina's shipyard building Liberty ships. Giulia soon discovers supporting the war effort can include fun evenings like dancing with young servicemen at the local USO. It is at one of these dances she meets John O'Shea, an unsuitable suitor according to her old-fashioned parents.

As they grapple with the problems of their own budding relationship, John and Giulia encounter a Nazi spy tasked with blowing up part of the Wilmington shipyard. Saving the shipyard from the spy may prove easier than convincing her parents to let her marry John. Giulia must decide what it means to be a good daughter while still following her own heart.

Volume Two: Letters From Korea

From the book's description:

Sal sends Gina (Giulia's sister) newsy letters from Korea and in turn, Gina's talk about Matt's daily flower gifts. Will her ploy make Sal realize he loves her, or backfire on her and discourage him?

The situation becomes more complex when Sal meets a Korean widow with a young child who offers to teach Sal, a pharmacist, the herbal cures of Korea. Of course, Gina is jealous. The relationship between Gina and Sal is about to take a turn for the worse when Sal loses his leg in a bombing attempt to free one of the North Korean prisoners.

At home, Gina finds that someone has made her the scapegoat for stolen files from the Salk polio research project where she works. Fortunately for the two of them, they have a Legacy of Honor in their families they can rely on to help them overcome their difficulties and maybe their own stubbornness about each other as well.

Volume Three: A Bowl of Rice

From the book's description:

Anna Maria O'Shea (Giulia's daughter) became a nurse to continue her family's Legacy of Honor.

In choosing to stick to her commitment to service she looses her long-time college love. The pain of war is stronger than her private heartache.

Is Mark, the handsome physician, the balm her soul needs? Or is it George who will claim heal her wounds with a love that transcends war and the pain she sees all around her?

Volume Four: Secrets of the Heart

From the book's description:

In the middle of the night in January, 1865, two Union soldiers set out on a reconnaissance mission just before the battle of Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Rinaldo DeBartolo wants to finish the mission and to return to Italy and his sweetheart, Emilia. When he and his partner, Walter discover hidden gold, a trail of secrets begins.

That trail winds through the Italian unification, two world wars and a tangle of immigration to reach into Rome Italy in the 1990s at the time of Desert Storm. There the descendants of the American De Bartolo family meet Rinaldo's descendants.

Kathy Ann, the youngest of the clan is working a gap year as a journalist. Her writing endeavors and the family's reunion become complicated by romance, stolen art, and the discovery that not all secrets, even family secrets, are good ones.

Please visit the author's website/blog.

For information on Italians in Pennsylvania. 

This book is available for those who want to know more about Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania (by Stephanie Longo)

From the book's description:

Every Labor Day weekend, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Courthouse Square in Scranton for the largest ethnic festival in northeastern Pennsylvania: La Festa Italiana. The Italians of this region have been proudly celebrating their heritage since their arrival in this country with traditional festivals, including La Corsa dei Ceri in Jessup and Dunmore’s procession in honor of St. Rocco. Using vintage and recent photographs, Italians of Northeastern Pennsylvania shows how the Italian immigrants to this area, some of whom arrived with little more than the clothes on their back, became well-respected community leaders. Through hard work and dedication, they have made northeastern Pennsylvania into an area that defines the term “ethnic pride.”

In the Name of Gucci by Patricia Gucci and Wendy Holden

In the Name of Gucci is a heartfelt recounting of several lives and one iconic business through the lens of Patricia Gucci, the daughter of the family-firm Gucci's powerhouse behind the company's growth into an international luxury goods firm, Aldo Gucci.

Aldo Gucci's daughter by his second wife Bruna, Patricia is now a mature woman with a mature understanding of human nature, and is informed by her mother's strong memories.  The author sets out to do three things:  to honor her father, to honor her mother, and:

to give my children a unique and truthful memento

There are some omissions to spare feelings, and to avoid lawsuits, no doubt, and there is spin on things that could be viewed from a very different, unsympathetic perspective.  If you set those things aside, the book is highly readable, often fascinating, fluidly written, and gives the reader a close-up view of people who filled the newspapers for decades.  That many members of the Gucci clan would not be out of place in a recent book about psychopaths in boardrooms, makes the book compelling reading.

The spinning in the book generally relates to 53 year-old Aldo Gucci's sexual harassment of a 20 year-old employee.  What makes the egotistical assault by the old-man-with-an-infatuation on the young woman most damning is that the young woman was very immature, and emotionally and psychologically weak and vulnerable.  Hounded into a relationship with a married man old enough to be her grandfather, left the fragile woman scared for life.  She is the author's long-suffering mother.

Other spinning in the book involves the disgusting wealth that went to the Gucci family from their luxury goods business, rather than to their employees or the tax authorities, to the former for their hard work and long hours and having to put up with the vicious abusive tantrums of the company's owners, and to the latter what was their due by law.  The conspicuous consumption, of especially the 1980s, turned this reader's stomach.

If you are someone who prefers non-fiction reading to fiction reading, like me, you'll enjoy every word in the book.  Truth is stranger than fiction, and the truth of the Gucci family is especially strange.

From the book's description:

The gripping family drama—and never-before-told love story—surrounding the rise and fall of the late Aldo Gucci, the man responsible for making the legendary fashion label the powerhouse it is today, as told by his daughter.

Patricia Gucci was born a secret: the lovechild whose birth could have spelled ruination for her father, Aldo Gucci. It was the early 1960s, the halcyon days for Gucci—the must-have brand of Hollywood and royalty—but also a time when having a child out of wedlock was illegal in Italy. Aldo couldn't afford a public scandal, nor could he resist his feelings for Patricia's mother, Bruna, the paramour he met when she worked in the first Gucci store in Rome. To avoid controversy, he sent Bruna to London after she became pregnant, and then discretely whisked her back to Rome with her newborn hidden from the Italian authorities, the media, and the Gucci family.

In the Name of Gucci charts the untold love story of Patricia's parents, relying on the author's own memories, a collection of love letters and interviews with her mother, as well as an archive of previously unseen photos. She interweaves her parents' tempestuous narrative with that of her own relationship with her father—from an isolated little girl who lived in the shadows for the best part of a decade through her rise as Gucci's spokesperson and Aldo's youngest protégé, to the moment when Aldo's three sons were shunned after betraying him in a notorious coup and Patricia—once considered a guilty secret—was made his sole universal heir. It is an epic tale of love and loss, treason and loyalty, sweeping across Italy, England and America during the most tumultuous period of Gucci's sixty years as a family business.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website. Here is a direct link to the photo page at that website.

Under the Lion Sun by Michael Caputo

An Italo-Canadian recalls his life in Calabria before his family emigrated to Canada.  His advanced education in Canada, along with several return visits to his family's home town of Capistrano, have given him a perspective that is rich with insights about Calabria of the past and present.

I believe that Indie publishing really comes into its own with these sorts of accounts, so I'm more than willing to overlook the handful of typos that come with them (hopefully they will be weeded out soon in this quality book).

The description of the book is overly negative, in my opinion.  Most of the author's recollections are positive.  Like every life, there are bad remembrances too, but not much that is out of character for a small agricultural community in the 50s and 60s, in an area with depleted soil and a baking sun.  They were not wealthy, but:

simple joys made life in Calabria worth living

The author covers the area's traditions and way of life in great detail, including the food, festivals and superstitions.  He also presents vignettes of local bigwigs, interesting people, and his family members. 

Like all emigrants to other lands, his remembrances of food and tastes are the strongest, and luckily they can be renewed in visits to Italy, and even in some delicatessens in Canada.

The overly negative description is deceptive.  Agricultural societies in the 50s and 60s in Calabria and Canada suffered from rural accidents, violent quarrels, preventable deaths, and untreated mental illness. 

The unique elements in Calabria were the criminal sociopaths who thrived in an area with weak governmental institutions compounded by a passive fate-believing populace, and the lack of jobs that encouraged friends to help friends to jobs while excluding talented people from the workforce, and the paternalism that excluded women from societal decision-making and jobs.  Those three elements continue to hamper economic development in Calabria, where the author admits:

the civil rules of life do not always apply

One custom in particular is described briefly in the book, and I know that it continues to this day in many towns in Southern Italy:  the public slaughter of the family pig and the festival that surrounds it.  The slaughter is gruesome and prolonged, causing suffering to the animal, and untold psychological suffering to those who witness it and participate in it.

Those kinds of rituals are not the norm in civilized societies because they make citizens too familiar with how to take life, and they destroy compassion for the suffering of other living beings.

In Northern Europe, they have never been the norm.  Families would signal the local butcher with a special flag flown outside their home when it was time to butcher an animal.  The butcher travelled the local roads regularly, and stopped where a slaughter was needed.  He did it quietly in the barn, minimizing the suffering of the animal as much as possible, and sparing the family from suffering seeing the killing of an animal that was often more of a pet by then.

The governments in Muslim countries are trying to stop people from the ritual slaughter of lambs for a religious festival because they recognize the psychological harm it does to people.  The arrogant superiority shown by those who find killing easy, is reason enough to ban those sorts of festivals, in my opinion.

The author succeeds in giving the reader a good idea of what life was like in the 50s and 60s in a small Calabrian town, and telling why a few hundred Capistranesi moved to Canada in those decades.  They were in search of greater prosperity and a better future for their children, like migrants today.

But the first-world's culture has moved forward since then, and the rural communities of many of today's migrants are very similar to what the author left behind in the 50s and 60s.  That growing cultural gap does not bode well for the integration of new poor rural immigrants into the societies of first-world nations.  The importance of understanding the life a newcomer left behind, in order to help them adapt to their new home, is made all the more clear by this book written by an earlier immigrant.

From the book's description:

Join the author on a journey back through time to his beloved town in Calabria, in Southern Italy.  Accompany him through a painful mental journey to the fifties and sixties, as he was growing up in a location which could be simultaneously a blissful heaven and a brutal hell.

In this book you will meet very loving people whose whole existence was self-sacrifice, and others who had no conscience and did the unthinkable, without a hint of guilt.  The author will also dissect and expose beliefs, customs and traits which both ennoble and limit the very energetic and intelligent people of Calabria.

This book is especially of interest to people whose roots are in that special region of Italy. Anyone whose interest is anthropology will find this work very enlightening as well.

"...this book is not just an autobiography by someone who wants to share a joyful past; this is the autobiography of someone who witnessed the most wonderful acts of kindness from people who justly deserved the title of saints, juxtaposed with incomprehensible acts of violence by people who acted like devils and left behind incomprehensible pain."` (M. Caputo)

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the Capistrano-Canadian website.

Silence of the Lamps (Caprice de Luca Mysteries) by Karen Rose Smith

The amateur sleuth in this cute cozy mystery series is an Italian-American small business owner, Caprice de Luca.  She stages homes for sale, so the book includes much about furniture and lifestyle, and even recipes and cooking, thanks to Caprice's sister Nicoletta's catering career (third sister, Bella, runs a sewing business).

Book One in the series.
Click the cover to visit the book's Amazon.com page.

Being a cute cozy, along with the light mystery story we get lots of sweet interaction by Caprice with charming and amusing family members, a best girl friend, a desirable chaste boyfriend, and various adorable cats and dogs.  There is the requisite small town setting and conservative values, along with an odd dash of new-age thinking and mantras.

Book Two in the series.
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The narrative style is the genre's usual 3rd person limited mixed with some 3rd person omniscient at times.  The genre's elements are faithfully followed.  The recipes are clearly made for U.S. American readers, not terribly original, and not all Italian inspired.

Book Three in the series.
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This cute cozy mystery novel is clean and simple, making it suitable for tweens, teens and adults.  The cute pastel covers of the series' books are cartoonish, showing that the stress is on sweet entertainment rather then the crimes that set Caprice investigating.

Book Four in the series.
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The books in the Caprice de Luca Mystery Series to date:

1. Staged to Death
2. Deadly Décor
3. Gilt by Association
4. Drape Expectations
5. Silence of the Lamps
6. Shades of Wrath (coming soon)

From the book's description (beware, there are spoilers):

Business has never been better for home stager Caprice De Luca, but her personal life could stand a few renovations.  Just when she thought things were getting serious with her boyfriend Grant, his pretty ex-wife swoops into town and nabs his attention.

Uncle Dom is living with her parents and desperately needs a new job.  And her sister Nikki's catering business is threatened when rival Drew Pierson starts eating away at her share of the market.  Things could not possibly get more chaotic when Drew is found bludgeoned to death by one of his grandmother's antique Tiffany lamps--and Nikki is the number one suspect.

Now, Caprice must act fast to illuminate the truth and clear her sister's name--before a cold-blooded killer puts her lights out next…

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website.