On a walking holiday there is no better way to bring an area to life than by reading.  On the tours we often read aloud short passages from books relating to the areas we are travelling in, and people appreciate the extra colour this adds to the walk.   The following is a selection of fictional and non-fictional novels set in the regions of the tours and some are general background reading which you may enjoy:    

A Week in Tuscany, The Palio of Siena, Volterra & the Tuscan Maremma                                                                                  

Vanilla Beans and Brodo - Isabella Dusi                                                                                                                                                                            
A beautiful autobiographical account of Isobel’s hard-won acceptance into the tempestuous, warm-hearted and proudly independent community of Montalcino. The locals’ passion for home grown wine and Tuscan cuisine, for football and ancient traditions and festivals is intertwined with the fascinating history of this medieval town.

War in Val d’Orcia – An Italian War Diary 1943-1944 - Iris Origo
A classic of the Second World War, War in Val d’Orcia is a first-hand account of daily life in southern Tuscany during the final years of the conflict, years which were, in Italy, blighted by German occupation, Allied invasion and civil war.

Too Much Tuscan Sun – Confessions of a Chianti Tour Guide - Dario Castagno
A light-hearted account of the region and its visitors written by an Italian tour guide living near Siena.

Etruscan Places – D H Lawrence
Published in 1932, D H Lawrence charts his visit to Etruria in present-day Tuscany and Lazio and gives his impressions of the tombs and of the Etruscan Civilisation.

Daughter of Siena - Marina Fiorato
Set in 1723, this is a fictional account to two women whose involvement in the famous Palio horse race will change their lives forever.    Rich in historical detail and local colour.
 

Florence and Eastern Tuscany, Medieval Umbria

The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici - Christopher Hibbert
Charting the history of the powerful Florentine family from the 1400s to the 18th century Hibbert provides a well-researched and readable account of the Medici set against the tumultuous history of the time.

April Blood – Florence and the Plot against the Medici - Lauro Martines
In April 1478, a plot to murder the two heads of the powerful Medici family dramatically miscarried. The younger of the two brothers was killed, but Lorenzo the Magnificent, the brilliant poet and connoisseur, escaped. A blood-bath followed and all of Italy was at once affected.

The Stones of Florence and Venice Observed - Mary McCarthy
Wonderfully vivid and perceptive descriptions of two great Italian cities, told through their history and art, making Mary McCarthy  a great literary travelling companion.

Death in Tuscany - Michele Giuttari
One of the series of fictional thrillers featuring Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, head of the Squadra Mobile in Florence, following his investigation into the murder of a girl.

Parma, Tuscany and the Cinque Terre

Love and War in the Apennines -  Eric Newby
After the Italian Armistice in 1943, Eric Newby left the prison camp in which he’d been held for a year and evaded the advancing Germans by going to ground high in the mountains and forests south of the River Po.

A Small Place in Italy -  Eric Newby
In 1967 Eric Newby and his wife Wanda fulfilled a long-cherished ambition when they acquired I Castagni, a small and excessively ruined farmhouse near Fosdinovo in the foothills of the Apuan Alps on the borders of Liguria and northern Tuscany. This book is a brilliant memoir of a house and a magnificent re-creation of a forgotten time and era.

A Tuscan Childhood - Kinta Beevor
Kinta Beevor was five when she fell in love with her parents’ castle at Aulla facing the Carrara mountains in northern Tuscany. The freedom and beauty of life at the castle attracted poets, writers and painters, including D.H Lawrence and Rex Whistler. The other side to Kinta’s childhood was very different. It was spent with her famously formidable great aunt, Janet Ross, outside Florence in a grand villa where Boccaccio set part of The Decameron. But soon, the old way of life and Kinta’s idyllic world were threatened by war.

Extra Virgin - Annie Hawes and Ripe for the Picking - Annie Hawes
A modern autobiographical novel which tells of Annie’s experiences when she buys a house near the coast in Liguria. Light reading telling of daily life in this beautiful region and introducing some fascinating, and amusing, local characters.

Jewels of Piedmont,  The Italian Alps

Johnny the Partisan - Beppe Fenoglio (Translated by Stuart Hood)
A semi-autobiographical account of an episode in the war when the partisans briefly, and against all logic, 'liberated' a mountainous zone in Northern Italy.

The Twenty Three Days of the City of Alba - Beppe Fenoglio (Translated by John Shepley)
The Classic Tales Of Italian Wartime Resistance. Two thousand Italian partisans took the city of Alba on October 10, 1944, and two hundred lost it to the fascists on November 2 of the same year. Among the bedraggled fighters in this historic 23 day siege was Beppe Fenoglio. This collection of short stories is based on his experiences as a soldier in the resistance movement.

The Moon and the Bonfires - Cesare Pavese (Translated by R.W. Flint)
A foundling abandoned on the cathedral steps, the narrator was brought up, for a fee, by a destitute farmer, who treated him more like a workhorse than a person with a soul. Eventually escaping as a youth to the United States, he worked his way to California but later returns to his village in the Langhe, where he confronts the harsh memories of his childhood and the even harsher wartime events which traumatized the town after he left.

The Long Finish - Michael Dibdin
One of the series of Inspector Zen mysteries, this novel is set in the vineyards of Piedmont as Zen tries to penetrate a traditional culture in which family and soil are inextricably linked.

The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the secret of the Resurrection - Thomas de Wesselow
A fascinating new book written by a Cambridge University art-historian revealing a new theory linking the famous cloth of Turin to the story of the Resurrection.                       

Slovenia and Friuli

A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
A semi-autobiographical novel concerning events during the Italian campaigns of the First World War.   It is the story of an affair between an English nurse and an American soldier on the Italian front - a tale of love and pain, loyalty and desertion.

The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato
A fictional account, set in Venice in 1681, of the glassblowing community on the island of Murano.   It is tale of intrigue and betrayal, but gives an evocative insight into the historical life-blood industry of the city.

The Stones of Florence and Venice Observed - Mary McCarthy
Wonderfully vivid and perceptive descriptions of two great Italian cities, told through their history and art, making Mary McCarthy one of literature's greatest travelling companions.

General Reading on Italy and the Italians

The Italians - Luigi Barzini                                                                                                                        
First published in 1964, this remains a classic account of the Italian people. A fascinating and entertaining portrait, celebrating both the virtues and the vices of the Italians.

Italian Neighbours - Tim Parks
The author is an Englishman living in Verona and he describes this book as "an attempt to say and savour everything I’d learned in ten years in Italy by way of an account of our life with the neighbours in our small palazzo."   Warm and well-observed.

The Dark Heart of Italy -  Tobias Jones
In 1999 Tobias Jones emigrated to Italy, expecting to fall in love with the beautiful Italy described by centuries of foreign visitors. Instead, he discovered some darker undercurrents, political intrigues and paranoias.   This book is his account of a three-year voyage across the Italian peninsula.

La Bella Lingua - Dianne Hales
La Bella Lingua tells the adventurous tale of how the Italian language became Italian and follows its path through the realms of history, art, literature, manners, music, cooking, cinema and, of course, amore.

La Bella Figura - Beppe Severgnini
Beppe Severgnini is a columnist for the Corriere della Sera daily newspaper but has lived between England and Italy.  In this book he takes a tour around his country and amusingly observes what really goes on inside the Italian mind.