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Celebrate Italian-American Heritage Month |
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Little boy
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Autobiographical reminiscences of the author's childhood, service in World War II, and vagabond life in Paris are accompanied by ruminations and reflections on the future of the human race.
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The volunteer
by Salvatore Scibona
"A long-awaited new novel from a National Book Award Finalist, the epic story of a restless young man who is captured during the Vietnam War and pressed into service for a clandestine branch of the United States government. A small boy speaking an unknown language is abandoned by his father at an international airport, with only the clothes on his back and a handful of money jammed in the pocket of his coat. So begins The Volunteer. But in order to understand this heartbreaking and indefensible decision,the story must return to the moment, decades earlier, when a young man named Vollie Frade, almost on a whim, enlists in the United States Marine Corps to fight in Vietnam. Breaking definitively from his rural Iowan parents, Vollie puts in motion an unimaginable chain of events, which sees him go to work for insidious people with intentions he cannot yet grasp. From the Cambodian jungle, to a flophouse in Queens, to a commune in New Mexico, Vollie's path traces a secret history of life on the margins of America, culminating with an inevitable and terrible reckoning. With intense feeling, uncommon erudition, and bracing style, Scibona offers at once a pensive exploration of how we are capable of both inventing and discovering our true families and a lacerating interrogation of institutional power at its most commanding and terrifying. An odyssey of loss and salvation ranging across four generations of fathers and sons, The Volunteer is a triumph in the grandest traditions of American storytelling"
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The saint of lost things : a novel
by Christopher Castellani
In a 1953 Italian neighborhood in Delaware, Maddalena Grasso, her husband Antonio, and Guilio Fabbri live in the shadows of St. Anthony's Church, where their prayers are heard and fate and circumstances intervene to answer them in unforeseeable ways.
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The fortunate pilgrim
by Mario Puzo
Follows one family of Italian immigrants who settle in New York in the late 1920s through World War II, a family dominated by a defiant matriarch who struggles to raise six children and preserve Old World values in a new land.
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The Italian Americans : a history
by Maria Laurino
In a companion book to the four-hour PBS series, stereotypes and nostalgia are stripped away to tell the complicated, centuries-long story of the Italian-American experience and to explore and celebrate the rich legacy of Italian-American life.\
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Our Italian summer
by Jennifer Probst
"From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst comes a new women's fiction novel featuring three generations of Ferrari women who need to heal the broken pieces of their lives...and one trip of a lifetime through Italy. Workaholic, career-obsessed Francesca is fiercely independent and successful in all areas of life except one: family. She struggles to make time for her relationship with her teenage daughter, Allegra, and the two have become practically strangers to each other. When Allegra hangs out with a new crowd and is arrested for drug possession, Francesca gives in to her mother's wish that they take one epic summer vacation to trace their family roots in Italy. What she never expected was to be faced with the choice of a lifetime. . . . Allegra wants to make her grandmother happy, but she hates the idea of forced time with her mother and vows to fight every step of the ridiculous tour, until a young man on the verge of priesthood begins to show her the power of acceptance, healing, and the heartbreaking complications of love. Sophia knows her girls are in trouble. A summer filled with the possibility for change is what they all desperately need. Among the ruins of ancient Rome, the small churches of Assisi, and the rolling hills of Tuscany, Sophia hopes to show her girls that the bonds of family are everything, and to remind them that they can always lean on one another, before it's too late"
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White noise
by Don DeLillo
The story of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and four ultramodern offspring as they navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event," a lethal black chemical cloud floats over their lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys-radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings-pulsing with life, yet suggesting something ominous"-- Provided by publisher
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Tony's wife : a novel
by Adriana Trigiani
Falling in love during a mid-20th-century Jersey Shore summer, two aspiring singers find their marriage tested when they must decide which of them will pursue career opportunities while the other stays at home to raise a family.
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Hero of the Pacific : the life of Marine legend John Basilone
by James Brady
"Can a single night define a man's life? From the summer of 1943 to early 1945, John Basilone was one of the most famous and admired people in America. As the first enlisted man to be awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II, for extraordinary bravery under fire at Guadalcanal, he toured the nation with movie stars, shared podiums with mayors and governors, shook the hands of thousands of citizens, and was even rumored to have made a romantic connection with a beautiful young actress. Why would a man who had proven his courage beyond any doubt, who had gone above and beyond the call of duty, and was reaping the rewards of his sacrifice beg his commanding officers to break with tradition and send a Medal of Honor winner back into combat? Legendary columnist James Brady explores this and many other puzzling questions in this thrilling and surprising biography. Hero of the Pacific tells the dramatic and compelling life story of a small-town boy who became one of World War II's greatest and best-known heroes, only to be forgotten after his death during another famous and hellish battle on Iwo Jima. You may never have heard of John Basilone, but once you read this powerful tale, you'll never forget him"--Publisher's description
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Fauci : expect the unexpected : ten lessons on truth, service, and the way forward
by Anthony S. Fauci
"Compiled from hours of interviews drawn from the eponymous National Geographic documentary, this inspiring book from world-renowned infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci shares the lessons that have shaped the celebrated doctor's life philosophy, offering an intimate view of one of the world's greatest medical minds as well as universal advice to live by"
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Were You Always an Italian? : Ancestors and Other Icons of Italian America
by Maria Laurino
A thoughtful, candid, and gently humorous look at third-generation ethnic identity combines personal memoir, social and cultural history, and journalism as it explores Italian-American stereotyptes and the influence of ancestral Italian attitudes toward family, faith, and work on modern Italian Americans.
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Italian American : red sauce classics and new essentials
by Angie Rito
The chefs of critically acclaimed Don Angie in NYC’s West Village reimagine Italian American cooking by presenting family classics passed down through generations side by side with creative spins and riffs inspired by old and new. Illustrations.
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Christ in Concrete
by Pietro Di Donato
Studs Terkel provides the preface to this classic examination of the American experience for hardworking Italian immigrants who lived in New York's lower East side shortly before the Great Depression.
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Eternal
by Lisa Scottoline
"Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy's Fascists with Hitler's Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear--their families, their homes, and their connection to one another--is tested in ways they never could have imagined. As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city's Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer. Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war--all set in one of the world's most beautiful cities at its darkest moment. This moving novel will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of readers"
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In a glass house
by Nino Ricci
A sequel to the novelist's universally acclaimed debut, The Book of Saints, follows young Vittorio Innocente from Italy to America, where he begins the passage to adulthood in the house of a father he hardly knows.
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If you eat, you never die : Chicago tales
by Tony Romano
A evocative collection of short stories centers around the Comingos, members of a first generation Italian-American family living in a small neighborhood outside of 1950s Chicago, interweaving the dreams, aspirations, and experiences of Italian immigrants Fabio and Lucia Comingo and their sons, Michelino and Giacomo.
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Vita : a novel
by Melania G. Mazzucco
After arriving at Ellis Island, two poor children from Southern Italy, Diamante, age twelve, and Vita, age nine, struggle to survive in New York City amid the poverty, opportunity, and crime of Little Italy.
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The seven or eight deaths of Stella Fortuna : a novel
by Juliet Grames
Believed cursed in her rugged Italian village, a tough, intelligent teen protects her younger sister when the family emigrates to America just before World War II, enduring challenges that transform her views about survival and independence.
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Elizabeth Street : a novel based on true events
by Laurie Fabiano
"In Elizabeth Street, Laurie Fabiano tells a remarkable, and previously unheard, story of the Italian immigrant experience at the start of the twentieth century. Culled from her own family history, Fabiano paints an entrancing portrait of Giovanna Costa,who, reeling from personal tragedies, tries to make a new life in a new world. Shot through with the smells and sights of Scilla, Italy, and New York's burgeoning Little Italy, this intoxicating story follows Giovanna as she finds companionship, celebrates the birth of a baby girl, takes pride in a growing business, and feels a sense of belonging on a family outing to Coney Island. However, these modest successes are rewarded with the attention of the notorious Black Hand, a gang of brutal extortionists led by Lupo the Wolf. As the stakes grow higher and higher, readers share with Giovanna her desperate struggle to remain outside the fray, and then to fight for--and finally to save--that which is important above all other: family. "
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The family
by Naomi Krupitsky
Pushing against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fighting to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship, Sofia Colicchio and Antonia Russo, who live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community until Antonia’s father disappears, find their loyalty tested on one fateful night.
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The Black Madonna
by Louisa Ermelino
Three mothers from New York's Little Italy struggle to maintain their traditions while their sons chafe under the oppressive weight of their ethnic community.
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All this talk of love : a novel
by Christopher Castellani
The American-born daughter of an immigrant plots to bring her entire family back to Santa Cecilia, Italy, so that her grandmother can make amends with her estranged sister in this new novel from the author of A Kiss from Maddelena.
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Born round : the secret history of a full-time eater
by Frank Bruni
A hilarious and touching memoir from New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni traces the unlikely path to his profession and offers a searingly honest exploration of this lifelong struggle with food.
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The wine of youth : selected stories
by John Fante
Stories tell of secret family photographs, an idle bricklayer, a first communion, a boy's mischief, a confirmed bachelor, Catholic school, a cousin's funeral, and the arrival of a new parish priest.
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East Liberty
by Joseph Bathanti
A fatherless boy is conflicted by his Catholic upbringing and his dreams in this coming-of-age novel
East Liberty is a poetic, passionate coming-of-age novel spanning 1955 to 1963, set in an Italian-American neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Roberto (Bobby) Renzo, the novel's fatherless narrator and main character, lives with Francene Renzo, his beautiful, mysterious, and unconventional mother who gave birth to him out of wedlock. Together the two habitually watch vintage Hollywood movies on TV. Orbiting Bobby and Francene are the Catholic Church; Francene's gothic, judgmental, Neapolitan parents; and the dramatically shifting culture at large hurtling toward them.
While urged by the nuns at his school to pursue the priesthood — though his dream is to be a big-league baseball player — Bobby is drawn toward the temptations of the secular world, and finds himself involved in petty crimes and seduced by his awakening sexuality. As he emerges from his childhood cloud of innocence, his desire to know about his father becomes acute, and he is forced to confront the confusion and contradictions that rule his life.
First published in hardcover in 2001, East Liberty won the Carolina Novel Award and was named a finalist for Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Award in Literary Fiction. This paperback edition features a new foreword by Fred Gardaphé, a distinguished professor of English and Italian American Studies at Queens College/CUNY and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute.
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