Good Italian books for intermediate level students

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Spoonary
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby Spoonary » Sun Nov 27, 2016 11:04 am

shandra wrote:
dampingwire wrote:
Spoonary wrote:If anyone has anything else to share that hasn't been mentioned yet, I would be extremely grateful.
I read Giulio Leoni's I Delitti Della Luce a few years ago and I definitely enjoyed it. It's set in the 1300s.
Delitti della luce is a book from a series (I read two of them) that isn't simply set in the 1300s. It has as main character Dante Alighieri (author of Divina Commedia) solving mysterious murders and political conspiracies! :)

Great! It sounds like fun. It doesn't have the best reviews on Goodreads, but that has never stopped me giving a book a chance before so it won't stop me now. Thanks :)
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby paz » Sun Nov 27, 2016 11:23 am

You could try with Italo Svevo (La coscienza di Zeno, Senilità, Una vita), Dino Buzzati (Il deserto dei tartari) and maybe also Edmondo de Amicis (Cuore) and of course Collodi (Pinocchio).

It depends if you prefer reading italian literature or just books in italian :)
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby reineke » Sun Sep 24, 2017 1:10 am

paz wrote:You could try with Italo Svevo (La coscienza di Zeno, Senilità, Una vita), Dino Buzzati (Il deserto dei tartari) and maybe also Edmondo de Amicis (Cuore) and of course Collodi (Pinocchio).

It depends if you prefer reading italian literature or just books in italian :)


Weren't you trying to fine tune your reading to make it as enjoyable as possible according to the n+1 principle?

Pinocchio is maybe not the best second choice after the Little Prince. It might be a good third book. I don't know. Svevo is much easier than he seems but he's certainly not "easy". Cuore is possibly the easiest book in your list if the reader can resist the author's style of writing. Some readers may need an insulin shot in order to finish this book.

Marcovaldo is a very enjoyable and approachable book. The abridged, easy reader version is labeled A2. Calvino's other books are a lot more challenging. I also like Pavese. It's been a long time since I read something in Italian and I can't recall any more if a particular work was easy or simply engaging. Some short stories by Verga and Pirandello can be considered easy.

Check out Robierre's log for some ideas. See also here:

Letture consigliate per studenti di italiano L2/LS

"Due di due di Andrea De Carlo. Secondo me è leggibile anche a partire da un livello B1; il tempo della narrazione è il passato prossimo e la storia (amicizia, viaggio, amore, problemi giovanili) è abbastanza semplice, lineare e presenta temi che possono piacere a studenti giovani.

Le città invisibili di Italo Calvino. Un libro di cui non si può fare a meno; se ne trovano traduzioni in tutte le lingue, il che può tornare utile a chi non ha un livello abbastanza alto di conoscenza dell’italiano; il libro è breve, diviso in piccoli capitoli, ma abbastanza difficile. "

A uno studente a cui semplicemente piace leggere, che cosa consigliereste? Qual è un libro obiettivamente interessante oppure relativamente facile che fareste leggere? Mi rivolgo soprattutto ai colleghi insegnanti di italiano L2/LS: che cosa suggerite ai vostri studenti e perché? "

"... spesso consiglio Calvino, altre volte Sciascia, altre ancora Buzzati, pur essendo consapevole che i livelli che possono cominciare ad affrontare letture simili non sono più bassi del B2. Di solito mi oriento verso raccolte di racconti o romanzi brevi perché non stancano eccessivamente chi legge e permettono di approfondire... "

"Concordo con quanto detto sopra, consigliare un libro non è facile. Eppure, mi sono trovata studenti che si sono appassionati di Calvino (da Marcovaldo a Le città invisibili), Dacia Maraini (Il treno dell’ultima notte, La lunga vita di Marianna Ucria), Ammanniti con “Non ti muovere” e Paolo Giordano con “La solitudine dei numeri primi”. Abbiamo fatto alcuni passi di questi testi a scuola, durante il corso, traendo spunto per lezioni di grammatica e lessico, e poi da lì molti hanno deciso di sfidare i loro timori…Sono tutti titoli che consiglio caldamente a partire dal B2, ma anche il B1 (per esempio con Marcovaldo), se adeguatamente motivato e preparato, può affrontare tranquillamente letture già “colte”.

"Ho letto “Per questo mi chiamo Giovanni” di Garlenda con un gruppo di studenti di livello B1/B2 e ne siamo rimasti tutti quanti molto soddisfatti. Lo consiglio vivamente."

http://www.adgblog.it/2008/05/21/lettur ... iano-l2ls/

I have updated the Italian resources page. In a few clicks a learner can sample a bunch of books and audiobooks.

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =19&t=2912
Last edited by reineke on Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby Robierre » Sun Sep 24, 2017 12:11 pm

Thanx reineke. Alessandro Baricco might be easy as well (at least in French he was). Emilio Salgari and his books about Sandokan are very nice. Gianni Rodari for stories. Gianrico Carofiglio in the genre romanzi polizieschi; quite a good writer. Fabio Volo for trash fiction*. Etc.

Svevo, Pavese, Buzzati, Calvino**, Moravia are all nice, but for higher levels.

--
EDIT:
* "trash" might be exaggerated; he's nice, just don't expect high quality literature
** I read just Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno and I wouldn't call it "easy". Maybe Marcovaldo is a bit easier.
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby dampingwire » Tue Sep 26, 2017 10:12 pm

Robierre wrote:** I read just Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno and I wouldn't call it "easy". Maybe Marcovaldo is a bit easier.


Marcovaldo is (IMO) a good deal easier ... and as it's a series of short episodes, it requires less tracking of happenings and so on by the reader. It's also pretty funny.
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby Neurotip » Tue Dec 26, 2017 1:41 pm

Sorry to come to this late - very helpful suggestions. If it's any help, I'm no expert on literature of any sort and Italian literature much less, but I recall when I was first learning Italian in my late teens I successfully made it through some of Guareschi's Don Camillo stories, as well as Se questo è un uomo by Primo Levi.

I've started one of Camilleri's Montalbano books a couple of times now and would really like to get further with them, but I keep running aground on the Sicilianisms as I haven't managed to find a convenient place to look them up - many don't show up in standard Italian references (OK I know some of them are swear words!). Does anyone know of a suitable website or book?
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby dampingwire » Tue Dec 26, 2017 5:57 pm

Neurotip wrote:I successfully made it through some of Guareschi's Don Camillo stories,


I still re-read some of those every now and then ...

Neurotip wrote:I've started one of Camilleri's Montalbano books a couple of times now and would really like to get further with them, but I keep running aground on the Sicilianisms as I haven't managed to find a convenient place to look them up - many don't show up in standard Italian references (OK I know some of them are swear words!). Does anyone know of a suitable website or book?


Does this help at all? If you jump up to the home page there's quite a lot of related other stuff there.
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby Neurotip » Tue Dec 26, 2017 6:06 pm

@dampingwire: oh for goodness' sake*, how did I miss that?! Thank you! It almost feels like cheating :)

* Really this should be replaced by a Sicilian oath but that would be to violate forum rules on two counts simultaneously :o
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby Cavesa » Thu Dec 28, 2017 4:41 pm

Thanks for reviving this thread!

Licia Troisi is a very good author for an intermediate learner. Most books of hers (perhaps all of them, I am not sure) are fantasy for older kids. Accessible but rather fun. I wouldn't put her on the golden list of fantasy authors you cannot live without, nor would I put Italian on the "languages for fantasy/scifi lovers" list for her. But she knows the craft, some of the ideas are rather original, and the books are a pleasure to read before you are ready for grown up books.
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Re: Good Italian books for intermediate level students

Postby William Camden » Thu Dec 28, 2017 6:49 pm

Italian translations of well-known novels in the English language. Studying German, I read German translations of Alistair Maclean and John le Carré novels.
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