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Books
About Calabria
 Deeply
Rooted
in faith & family
by Ginda Ayd Simpson ($20.00)
Deeply Rooted is a book to enter with care. From her gallery of
word pictures, author and painter Ginda Ayd Simpson lays out a richly
tinted panorama of the Italian countryside, its land, people, and natural
bounty. There’s a thoroughly engaging surface texture. Yet within this
brilliant parade of scenes, a complex chronicle of faith and family
unfolds, as Simpson and her husband seek to take hold, and root in a
new life.
When
a corporate merger in Cairo leaves Ginda’s husband Mike jobless, the
couple faces a challenge familiar to today’s global market worker. Due
to downsizing, and Mike’s age, suddenly there’s no employment, no new
address circled as next layover on the map. The Simpsons have no place
of their own to return to. Where to go? Most of all: why? Ginda and
Mike set out in pursuit of answers.
After the nightmare complications of leaving Cairo, the couple’s first
stop in their journey is along the southeast Italian coast, in Calabria.
It’s both a reuniting with kin and return to a country that has signified
much for both of them. Almost a century ago Ginda’s Grandfather Giuseppe
Corasaniti emigrated to America from his father’s lands. Across the
wide Atlantic and the many decades, through visit and reunion, the American
and Italian Corasaniti relations have never ceased bonding. Though time
has passed since Mike’s temporary Naples residence, and Ginda’s last
family contact, they still mutually celebrate the rich experiences and
life values they each found during their Italian stays. They agree:
it’s a common heritage and building-point. CONTINUE...
 A
Sweet and Glorious Land: Revisiting the Ionian Sea
by John Keahey ($23.95)
From train rides through the lush countryside to the crisp mountain
air of Catanzaro, Keahey paints a beautiful and compelling picture of
one of the lesser known parts of the country. Reminiscent of Under the
Tuscan Sun, A Sweet and Glorious Land is not only a wonderful travelogue
but also an intriguing story of southern Italy and its people.
 Stolen
Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria
by Mark Rotella (17.50)
The
jacket copy defines PW Forecasts editor Rotella's narrative as a "model
travelogue," but it's much more. Even without a conventional conflict
and plot, the author's intensity and personal commitment to a country
and its inhabitants cast a spell. Anecdotes range from comedic-a long
unseen relative scolds Rotella's father, "Thirty years and you
don't write!"-to curiously romantic, as when the author's wedding
ring slips off his finger while swimming and a "crazy aunt"
exclaims, "That's good luck. Now you will have to return!"
Descriptions of delicacies such as soppressata, capicola, fettucine
and rag— simmered with pepperoni incite a desire to be there just for
the luscious, succulent meals, supporting Rotella's belief that you
simply can't get a bad meal in Italy. Calabria is a particularly vivid
character; readers learn how much the region has been through: spoiled
by drought, destroyed by earthquakes and plundered by barons and kings.
Rotella points out the effects of Mafia control in Bianca, a small,
decrepit city, and the economic destruction it causes, without belaboring
or stereotyping the Italian-Mafia connection. Playful moments are equally
memorable, detailing petty fig heists from trees belonging to unknown
farmers. Such likable protagonists as Rotella's loving father, his wife,
and guide Giuseppe are woven unobtrusively through the tale of a culture
that counts among its children Tony Bennett, Phil Rizzuto and Stanley
Tucci. The book is a love letter, and Rotella reinforces that feeling
when he writes, "I am a romantic. With each trip back to Calabria,
I've felt myself becoming not only more Calabrese but more Italian."
Readers, whether Italian or not, will find themselves captivated by
so much meticulously drawn history and enchanting terrain.
 Calabrian
Tales
by Peter Chiarella ($20.00)
"Calabrian Tales" is a unique story of inexplicable injustice
and poverty, avarice and survival based on true family incidents that
were revealed to the author in his youth.
The book's chief character is the author's great aunt, Marianna, who
became the mistress of a wealthy noble. The lifestyle she adopted repeatedly
shamed her relatives until living in Italy became unbearable for them.
Eventually, the author's father, Raffaele, fled his beloved Italy in
the face of constant shame, and settled in the United States. His son,
author Peter Chiarella, grew up in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of
Brooklyn. There, he heard the stories about life in Calabria from his
grandmother, a principal character in the book. After her death, the
stories kept coming, both from his father, also a character in "Calabrian
Tales", and from his mother, who had listened in on Nonna's recollections
over a period of fifteen years.
The
stories of people who lived in what may have been Italy's poorest region,
blend with the historical struggles of the times, in a combination reminiscent
of certain aspects of "The Godfather" and the ignoble humanity
of "Angela's Ashes".
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Enjoy
La Dolce Vita
(the good life)
in your own Historical Palazzo in Calabria!
Click here
for a virtual tour of historical palazzos & villa
apartments available in Badolato, Torre di Ruggiero
and more
ROOM
WITH A VIEW
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how you can own a home in Southern Italy. It's easy
and even the prices are still traditional!
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