An Italian Book Reading Resource

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PfifltriggPi
Green Belt
Posts: 486
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:44 pm
Location: Amerique du Nord
Languages: Uses daily : Français (heritage) English
Reads : Castellano, Català, Italiano, Lingua Latina
Studying: Українська мова, Ελληνικά
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4860
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An Italian Book Reading Resource

Postby PfifltriggPi » Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:06 am

Pardon me if this already exists, but I did not find it when I searched for it. I have for a long time found Carmody's thread of French books quite useful, and have been a frequent contributor to it.

Italian literature is widely respected in the rest of the world, but, at least in my Anglophone and Francophone experience, much of its particulars are not as well known as they ought to be, and, as such, learners of Italian may find themselves in the situation of having learned the language because they wished to drink of this wellspring of beauty, but, after having completed a course of study, they do not know exactly where to go next to bridge the gap between their capabilities and the glory days of the Renaissance. This is a situation in which I have found myself in several languages, Italian included. Thence came the inspiration to make this thread.

To start, then, I shall write of the book I just finished Penguin Parallel Texts : Italian Short Stories I. This is, as one would expect, a collection of short stories from the 20th century, in bilingual Italian-English format. The stories contained within are : "Lo sgombero" by Vasco Pratolini, "Le case" by Cesare Pavese, "I poveri" by Carlo Cassola, "Pesci grossi, pesci piccoli" by Italo Calvino, "Le cenere delle battaglie" by Carlo Emilio Gadda, "La madre" by Natalia Ginzburg, "L'angoscia" by Alberto Moravia and "I passi sulla neve" by Mario Soldati.

All of them were at a good level of difficulty for an intermediate student, and really only "Pesci grossi, pesci piccoli" and "I passi sulla neve" posed any trouble for me : the former because of the vast number of fish-words within it whereas the latter was more genuinely difficult.

As you all probably know, I have rather specific and un-apologetically snobbish tastes when it comes to literature, although I do admit that sometimes the autodidactic uses are more important than literary quality. For those ends, these are excellent. My vocabulary, grasp of syntax and grammar certainly improved from reading this, and, despite what I said earlier, most of these stories were good enough to hold my interest and entertain, although only one, the last one, really moved me. However, in my opinion, the book is worth getting if only for that story.

At some point I shall get more of these books, since I know of the existence of another in this series. Until then, I eagerly await your additions.
9 x
Please correct my errors in any tongue.

"Зброя - слово." - Леся Українка

PfifltriggPi
Green Belt
Posts: 486
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:44 pm
Location: Amerique du Nord
Languages: Uses daily : Français (heritage) English
Reads : Castellano, Català, Italiano, Lingua Latina
Studying: Українська мова, Ελληνικά
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4860
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Re: An Italian Book Reading Resource

Postby PfifltriggPi » Fri Nov 27, 2020 10:55 pm

Niccolò Machiavelli : Il principe :

As I said in my log, I have been reading The Prince, which I just finished today. All in all, it was less difficult than I was afraid of it being, although much more difficult than the previous things I have read in Italian. The age of the text was less of an issue than I had expected, although there were some orthographic differences between Machiavelli's Italian and today's.

Unlike most of Machiavelli's works, this one is actually rather short : in my anthology of Machiavelli it consists of only 100 pages (along with an introduction which is about a third the length of the entire work). As a result of all of this, it is not that difficult of a work or important of a commitment to make, although, in my opinion, learning about the context of the work within Machiavelli's larger Weltanschauung is quite important. What I honestly found to be the most difficult thing was the repeated references to various events and figures of Renaissance Italy which would have been either well known history or current events to Machiavelli's readers, but are now historical details. These historical references tend to diminish as one progresses through the work, however, and as a result the book gets more interesting as it goes on, in my opinion.
3 x
Please correct my errors in any tongue.

"Зброя - слово." - Леся Українка

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lingua
Blue Belt
Posts: 951
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Maintaining: italiano (B2/C1ish)
Studying: português, Latina
Dabbling: siciliano, Deutsch, français, piemontèis
Abandoned: ไทย, español
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12257
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Re: An Italian Book Reading Resource

Postby lingua » Mon Sep 05, 2022 10:05 pm

A reading resource for Italian books came up in another thread and I thought I'd start one but found this already existed. What authors do you recommend for various levels of Italian learners?

For non-fiction I highly recommend the Lampi di genio series by Luca Novelli. Each book is written in autobiographical form by the person being featured. It covers their early life, their major contributions and includes a glossary of terms. Sometimes there'll be an extra component like a puzzle or or faux interview. Most but not all are people in science. People like Volta, Newton, Ippocrate, Einstein, Edison, Tesla, Hawking, Marie Curie, Galileo, etc. Reading age is 9-12 but they are appropriate for learners of the language. They are available as ebooks.
1 x
Super Challenge 2022-23:
DE: books: 0 / 2500 film: 1654 / 4500
IT: books: 3065 / 5000 film: 5031 / 9000
PT: books: 2921 / 5000 film: 5010 / 9000

Output Challenge 2023:
IT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 84 / 3000
PT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 0 / 3000

PT: Read 100 books: 28 / 100


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