› › Ruins In Italy

Beautiful Ruins

Author : Jess Walter

Publisher : Harper Collins

Page : 310 pages

File Size : 38,78 MB

Release : 2012-06-12

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 006209808X

Get eBook

Book Description

“Why mince words? Beautiful Ruins is an absolute masterpiece.” — Richard Russo The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet: the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 . . . and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later. The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, deep in daydreams, looks out over the waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier. What unfolds is a dazzling roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion—along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.



Il Bel Centro

Author : Michelle Damiani

Publisher : Rialto Press

Page : 514 pages

File Size : 22,91 MB

Release : 2020-08-09

Category : Travel

ISBN : 8835880866

Get eBook

Book Description

A witty and warm-hearted memoir of abandoning fast-paced American days in favor of discovering the Italian secrets of food, community, and life. Moving across the globe meant Michelle Damiani soon found herself untangling Italian customs, delighting in glorious regional cuisine (recipes included), and creating lasting friendships. From grandmothers eager to teach the ancient art of pasta making, to bakers tossing bread into fiery ovens with a song, to butchers extolling the benefits of pork fat, Il Bel Centro is rich with captivating characters and cultural insights. Throw in clinking glasses of Umbrian red with the local communists and a village all-nighter decorating the cobblestone streets with flower petals; as well as embarrassing language minefields and a serious summons to the mayor’s office, and you have all the ingredients for a spellbinding travel tale. Exquisitely observed, Il Bel Centro is an intimate celebration of small town Italy, as well as a thoughtful look at raising a family in a new culture and a fascinating story of finding a home. Ultimately though, this is a story about how travel can change you when you’re ready to let it. With laugh-out-loud situations and wanderlust-inspiring storytelling, Il Bel Centro is a joyous and life-affirming read that will have readers rushing to renew their passports. “This is one of the most beautiful book I’ve ever read.” “I absolutely couldn’t get enough of this book.” “This book made me want to pack my bags.” “I loved, loved this book. Fabulously written, engaging, and entertaining.” “A magical read.”



Ten Caesars

Author : Barry Strauss

Publisher : Simon & Schuster

Page : 432 pages

File Size : 31,40 MB

Release : 2020-03-03

Category : History

ISBN : 1451668848

Get eBook

Book Description

Bestselling classical historian Barry Strauss delivers “an exceptionally accessible history of the Roman Empire…much of Ten Caesars reads like a script for Game of Thrones” (The Wall Street Journal)—a summation of three and a half centuries of the Roman Empire as seen through the lives of ten of the most important emperors, from Augustus to Constantine. In this essential and “enlightening” (The New York Times Book Review) work, Barry Strauss tells the story of the Roman Empire from rise to reinvention, from Augustus, who founded the empire, to Constantine, who made it Christian and moved the capital east to Constantinople. During these centuries Rome gained in splendor and territory, then lost both. By the fourth century, the time of Constantine, the Roman Empire had changed so dramatically in geography, ethnicity, religion, and culture that it would have been virtually unrecognizable to Augustus. Rome’s legacy remains today in so many ways, from language, law, and architecture to the seat of the Roman Catholic Church. Strauss examines this enduring heritage through the lives of the men who shaped it: Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Diocletian, and Constantine. Over the ages, they learned to maintain the family business—the government of an empire—by adapting when necessary and always persevering no matter the cost. Ten Caesars is a “captivating narrative that breathes new life into a host of transformative figures” (Publishers Weekly). This “superb summation of four centuries of Roman history, a masterpiece of compression, confirms Barry Strauss as the foremost academic classicist writing for the general reader today” (The Wall Street Journal).



Beautiful Ruins

Author : Jess Walter

Publisher : Penguin UK

Page : 352 pages

File Size : 46,95 MB

Release : 2013-04-02

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 0241963001

Get eBook

Book Description

The No. 1 New York Times Bestseller Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins is a gorgeous, glamorous novel set in 1960s Italy and a modern Hollywood studio. The story begins in 1962. Somewhere on a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and views an apparition: a beautiful woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away in Hollywood, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot searching for the woman he last saw at his hotel fifty years before. Gloriously inventive, funny, tender and constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a novel full of fabulous and yet very flawed people, all of them striving towards another sort of life, a future that is both delightful and yet, tantalizingly, seems just out of reach. 'Magic...A monument to crazy love with a deeply romantic heart' New York Times 'A novel shot in sparkly Technicolor' Booklist 'Hilarious and compelling' Esquire



Five-Finger Discount

Author : Helene Stapinski

Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks

Page : 274 pages

File Size : 44,24 MB

Release : 2002-03-12

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0375758704

Get eBook

Book Description

Now a PBS documentary, this astonishing memoir of growing up in rough-and-tumble Jersey City “will steal your heart” (People) With deadpan humor and obvious affection, Five-Finger Discount recounts the story of an unforgettable New Jersey family of swindlers, bookies, embezzlers, and mobster-wannabes. In the memoir Mary Karr calls “a page-turner,” Helene Stapinski ingeniously weaves the checkered history of her hometown of Jersey City—a place known for its political corruption and industrial blight—with the tales that have swirled around her relatives for decades. Navigating a childhood of toxic waste and tough love, Stapinski tells an extraordinary tale at once heartbreaking and hysterically funny. Praise for Five-Finger Discount “By turns hilarious and alarming, [Helene Stapinski’s] book reads on the surface like something by Damon Runyon and Elmore Leonard, with a dark undertow of real-life pain and disillusion.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “It’s a brilliant book, a darling book. It is the blessedly modest chronicle of a magical consciousness that seems to have been born pulling diamonds out of the muck, hearing angels’ voices in the fiercest thunder. . . . I adored every word of this wondrous book. Get it. Read it.”—Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun “In the tradition of . . . Rita Mae Brown and Amy Tan, Ms. Stapinski is an exciting writer, unabashedly candid, and at the same time unashamedly self-contained. Five-Finger Discount is a must-read.”—Victoria Gotti, The New York Observer “What [Frank] McCourt did for Limerick, Ireland, Helene Stapinski does for Jersey City.”—The Star-Ledger “Hugely entertaining.”—The Sunday Times (London)



Roads and Ruins

Author : Paul Baxa

Publisher : University of Toronto Press

Page : 249 pages

File Size : 38,6 MB

Release : 2010-01-01

Category : History

ISBN : 0802099955

Get eBook

Book Description

In the 1930s, the Italian Fascist regime profoundly changed the landscape of Rome's historic centre, demolishing buildings and displacing thousands of Romans in order to display the ruins of the pre-Christian Roman Empire. This transformation is commonly interpreted as a failed attempt to harmonize urban planning with Fascism's ideological exaltation of the Roman Empire. Roads and Ruins argues that the chaotic Fascist cityscape, filled with traffic and crumbling ruins, was in fact a reflection of the landscape of the First World War. In the radical interwar transformation of Roman space, Paul Baxa finds the embodiment of the Fascist exaltation of speed and destruction, with both roads and ruins defining the cultural impulses at the heart of the movement. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including war diaries, memoirs, paintings, films, and government archives, Roads and Ruins is a richly textured study that offers an original perspective on a well known story.



Gabe's Guide to Budget Travel

Author : Gabriel Morris

Publisher : Createspace Independent Pub

Page : 108 pages

File Size : 35,43 MB

Release : 2012-03-06

Category : Travel

ISBN : 9781470155148

Get eBook

Book Description

"'Gabe's Guide to Budget Travel' provides a step by step guide on the how and why of budget travel. His hassle-free approach to budget travel is ideal for first time and seasoned travelers. The book provides resources that will help any traveler in the planning stage or on the road. With over twenty years first-hand experience, Gabriel's knowledge for traveling on the cheap and making the most of it is priceless." Sean McKenna, Untoldroads.com "Gabe's Guide to Budget Travel: Travel Tips, Tricks, Things to Bring and Places to Go" is a comprehensive guide book for anyone preparing for a budget traveling trip. It's jam-packed with information for both travel newbies as well as seasoned wanderers, addressing subjects such as: determining your budget (and where you can go on it!); finding cheap flights; booking hotel rooms; planning your itinerary; getting packed (including a complete list of virtually EVERYTHING you might want to bring on your trip, big and small); voltage converters, socket adapters and other electrical issues; visas; carry-on items when flying; currency exchange; travel insurance; and LOTS more. And that's just in Part 1! In Part 2 of the book, Gabriel Morris reviews his favorite places around the world based on more than 20 years of budget travel experience (with a specific focus on more obscure, less touristy places). Countries included are: India, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, the Philippines, Nepal and Singapore. (See the Table of Contents below for specific places covered.) Additionally, the book includes tons of links to useful travel websites; PLUS links to 40 short travel movies and video clips taken by the author in many of the places reviewed. "Gabe's Guide to Budget Travel" will help you get ready for your trip, save you money, provide some great new ideas for places to go, and get you inspired to travel the world with a new perspective, armed with tons of useful information to make it a smooth, fun, affordable and adventurous trip. Gabriel Morris is a world traveler, outdoors enthusiast and travel writer. He is author of "Kundalini and the Art of Being" (Station Hill Press, 2008); as well as "Following My Thumb: A Decade of Unabashed Wanderlust" (Soul Rocks Books, 2012), a collection of 26 autobiographical travel stories from around the world. He has also been published in numerous travel compilation books; and is a regular contributor to online travel websites such as Travmonkey.com and Untoldroads.com. Visit his website for more info at: Gabrieltraveler.com Following is the Table of Contents for "Gabe's Guide to Budget Travel" Introduction. Part 1: Preliminary Preparations Chapter 1. Where should I go? Chapter 2. Buying a flight Chapter 3. Planning your itinerary Chapter 4. Booking hotel rooms Chapter 5. Getting your passport and visa Chapter 6. Equipment list Chapter 7. Socket adapters and voltage converters Chapter 8. More info on things to bring Chapter 9. Carry-on items when flying Chapter 10. Travel insurance Part 2: Favorite Places in the World Chapter 11. India -Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Pushkar, Almora, Joshimath, Rishikesh, Mussoorie, Keechen, Jaiselmer, Kuri, Orchha, Mandu, Omkareshwar, Pachmarhi, Gokarna, Tirupati, Rameswaram Chapter 12. Greece and the Greek Isles -Mainland: Athens, Delphi, Meteora, Mt. Olympus, Pelion Peninsula; Greek Isles: Santorini, Rhodes, Anafi, Milos, Patmos, Lipsi, Leros, Nisyros, Naxos, Aegina Chapter 13. Turkey -Istanbul, Pamukkale, Termessos, Kabak, Oludeniz, Lycian Way trek, Cappadocia Chapter 14. Egypt -Cairo, Great Pyramids, Aswan, Luxor, Dakhla Oasis, Bahariya Oasis Chapter 15. Thailand -Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, Pai, Ko Mak, Ko Kood, Ko Phayam Chapter 16. The Philippines -Palawan Island: Puerto Princesa, Sabang, El Nido Chapter 17. Nepal -Pokhara, Annapurna Base Camp trek Chapter 18. Singapore



Fame Amid the Ruins

Author : Stephen Gundle

Publisher : Berghahn Books

Page : 384 pages

File Size : 21,7 MB

Release : 2019-11-04

Category : Performing Arts

ISBN : 1789200024

Get eBook

Book Description

Italian cinema gave rise to a number of the best-known films of the postwar years, from Rome Open City to Bicycle Thieves. Although some neorealist film-makers would have preferred to abolish stars altogether, the public adored them and producers needed their help in relaunching the national film industry. This book explores the many conflicts that arose in Italy between 1945 and 1953 over stars and stardom, offering intimate studies of the careers of both well-known and less familiar figures, shedding new light on the close relationship forged between cinema and society during a time of political transition and shifting national identities.





The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity

Author : Gregor Kalas

Publisher : University of Texas Press

Page : 247 pages

File Size : 12,45 MB

Release : 2015-04-15

Category : Architecture

ISBN : 0292760787

Get eBook

Book Description

In The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity, Gregor Kalas examines architectural conservation during late antiquity period at Rome's most important civic center: the Roman Forum. During the fourth and fifth centuries CE—when emperors shifted their residences to alternate capitals and Christian practices overtook traditional beliefs—elite citizens targeted restoration campaigns so as to infuse these initiatives with political meaning. Since construction of new buildings was a right reserved for the emperor, Rome's upper echelon funded the upkeep of buildings together with sculptural displays to gain public status. Restorers linked themselves to the past through the fragmentary reuse of building materials and, as Kalas explores, proclaimed their importance through prominently inscribed statues and monuments, whose placement within the existing cityscape allowed patrons and honorees to connect themselves to the celebrated history of Rome. Building on art historical studies of spolia and exploring the Forum over an extended period of time, Kalas demonstrates the mutability of civic environments. The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity maps the evolution of the Forum away from singular projects composed of new materials toward an accretive and holistic design sensibility. Overturning notions of late antiquity as one of decline, Kalas demonstrates how perpetual reuse and restoration drew on Rome's venerable past to proclaim a bright future.