Read Your Way Around the Word invites you to modern day Italy. For a hundred years Italians emigrated and large numbers of people can trace their Italian ancestry from Brazil, Argentina, the United States and Canada.
Today’s Italy is becoming increasingly ethnically diverse seeing with the arrival of immigrants from former Eastern European countries and northern Africa. Enjoy modern Italy in novels by Italians, in novels featuring a return to Italian roots and reflecting Italy’s diversity, and novels that are simply and happily set in beautiful Italy.
The Bay of Foxes (M) 
by Sheila Kohler
A famous french author, known as M., takes a beautiful Ethiopian refugee, Dawit, to her Sardinian villa. M had spent her childhood in a french African colony and there lost her Ethiopian lover. Dawit bears a strong resemblance to her lost over and as she eventually becomes more obsessed with him, he turns his attentions elsewhere.
Beautiful Ruins (M)
by Jess Walter
An obscure Italian villa finds in it self hosting American starlet Dee Moray who has fled from the chaotic set of Cleopatra. Proprietor Pasquale Tursi finds her to be quite engaging. Beautiful Ruins takes the reader from 1960s golden era Hollywood to modern day reality television.
The Venice Conspiracy (M)
by Sam Christer
Along the lines of the Da Vinci Code, ex-priest Tom Shaman travels to Venice to investigate a series of ritualistic killings that have occurred throughout the centuries which appear to be connected to an artifact, satanic rituals and a Vatican plot.
Swimming to Elba (M)
by Silvia Avallone
Two girls come of age in a provincial Italian town. Anna and Francesca are beautiful young girls who have been friends since childhood. Francesca has a violent home life and has fallen in love with Anna. Their friendship is threatened when a man enters the picture and distracts Anna.
Bella Fortuna (M)
by Rosanna Chiofalo
Valentina DeLuca runs a faux-couture bridal shop in Queens. DeLuca is planning her own dream wedding in Venice when her fiance suddenly calls off the relationship. Despite this she goes to Venice on her own where she falls in love on a moonlit gondola ride.
The Gilder (M)
by Kathryn Kay
Years ago Marina Nesmith learn the art of gilding in Florence. While there she met a bohemian couple who introduced her to the unconventional life of an artist. Her daughter Zoe is conceived and she spends the next decade lying to her daughter about her father. Zoe stumbles upon some photographs which force Marina to confront the truth.
Divorce Islamic Style (M)
by Amara Lakhous
Christian Mazzari, a translator with the Italian Secret Service, infiltrates a suspected Muslim terrorist group. Christian gets involved when Sofia, a young Egyptian immigrant who is unhappily married to an architect turned pizza cook.
Perlmann’s Silence (M)
by Pascal Mercia
At an academic conference in Genoa, linguist Philip Perlmann is so grief stricken by his wife’s death that he is unable to speak. He attempts to solve the problem by translating a colleague’s work, thereby committing the offense of plagiarism. Panic sets in when he realizes that this colleague is on his way to the conference in Italy.
