8 summer reads about Italy

From the heyday of the Grand Tour to the arrival of railways and air travel, writers have been drawn to Florence. In recording their experiences they have left a wealth of writing, which is explored in Florence Has Won My Heart: Literary Visitors to the Tuscan Capital, 1750-1950. Himself a Florentine who knows the city inside out, Mark Roberts tells the stories of over 100 English and American writers who have lived in Florence since 1750. The inspiration they drew from the city’s landscapes, art and people shows that Florence was as much part of English literature as Oxford or Cambridge.

Alba Donati’s charming memoir Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop recounts her personal experience. Used to her hectic life as a book publicist, Donati decided to return to Lucignana, the Tuscan village where she was born. There she opened a tiny bookshop on a hilltop, surrounded by gardens filled with roses and peonies. With fewer than 200 residents year-round, the shop seemed unlikely to succeed, but it soon sparked the enthusiasm of book lovers nearby and across Italy. Formatted as diary entries, this inspirational story celebrates reading as well as book lovers and booksellers.

The calendar. The senate. The university. The piano, the heliocentric model, and the pizzeria: it’s hard to imagine a world without Italian influence―and easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from a strong peninsula, sure of its place in the world. In The Shortest History of Italy, bestselling author Ross King dismantles this assumption, uncovering the story of a land rife with inner uncertainty even as its influence spread.

Amber Guinness travels from the Tuscan coast down through Lazio and Campania via Naples and the Amalfi Coast and on to northern Sicily in her second book Italian Coastal: Recipes and Stories from Where the Land Meets the Sea. Amber delves into the history, stories and flavours that have come home to her kitchen and shaped her food philosophy. Inspired by the markets and food of summer holidays by the beach, Italian Coastal is a fusion of recipe book, travelogue and memoir with sumptuous photography.

Paula Bacchia’s Italian Street Food takes you behind the piazzas, down the back streets and into the tiny bars and cafes to bring you traditional local recipes that are rarely seen outside Italy. Learn how to make authentic polpettine, arancini, piadine, cannoli and crostoli, and perfect your gelato-making skills. With beautiful stories and photography throughout, Italian Street Food brings an old and much-loved cuisine into a whole new light.

Florence, 1584. Rumours are spreading about the virility of a prince marrying into the Medici family. Orphan Giulia is chosen to put an end to the gossip. In return she will keep her life and start a new one with a dowry and her own husband. Cloistered since childhood, Giulia reluctantly agrees, only to be drawn under the control of the Medici’s lecherous minister. Years later, married and with a growing family, Giulia hopes she has finally escaped the legacy of her past. But when a threat arrives from a sinister figure from her youth, she must finally take control of events and become the author of her own story. The Maiden of Florence by Katherine Mezzacappa gives a charismatic voice to a woman cast aside by history.

Known as the Lions of Sicily, the Florios have officially arrived. Once rich only in ambition, the family has amassed a fortune beyond measure. Sicily admires, honors and, above all, fears them. Ignazio was destined to rule since birth, a fearless drive that pulses through his veins, but his heart is black as ice. To seize Casa Florio, he abandoned the love of his life. Barely 20, his son Ignazziddu stands to inherit all, yet he is nothing like Ignazio. Despite his fears, he embraces Ignazio’s legacy and faces a world that changes too quickly. Ignazziddu realizes that it’s not enough to have Florio blood to become the force his grandfather and father were. Bringing the Belle Epoque into stunning relief, Stefania Auci’s The Triumph of the Lions dives deeper into the history of a family that sat high above Italian society for decades.

If there’s one book you read this summer, it has to be Kacie Rose’s You Deserve Good Gelato. The former professional dancer left her life in New York City and moved to Florence in 2021, quickly becoming a social media star and travel content creator. In this book published by DK Eyewitness Travel, Kacie reflects on the trials of speaking a new language and the beauty of a slower pace of life in her trademark relatable and joyful style. By sharing her personal stories of life under the Tuscan sun, Kacie explains how travel is a privilege, why cultural differences are the coolest things in the world, and how there’s a positive you can take away from literally any situation.