7 Of The Best Novels Set In Italy
7 Of The Best Novels Set In Italy
These are some of the best novels set in Italy to inspire wanderlust and travel. I’ve made a selection of the top 7, with a healthy mix of genres, including history, crime, romance, and thriller. All have in common a superbly crafted landscape over which your imagination can roam.
Firenze - the setting for A Room with a View
A Room with a View, EM Forster
No list of Italian novels in English is complete without this classic. Set in the early 1900s, it follows the mishaps and adventures of a young woman, Miss Lucy Honeychurch, who is touring Italy with her overly-fussy spinster chaperone, Miss Charlotte Bartlett. Forster sketches a humorous critique of upper-class Edwardian society. The city of Firenze is an unforgettable character in this novel, and the way in which Italian culture shocks, fascinates and confuses Honeychurch and Bartlett is amusing and whimsical. There is, of course, a juicy romance to add spice and energy to the tale.
The City of Falling Angels, John Berendt
An intricately drawn non-fiction account of Venetian society following the dramatic fire that destroyed the Fenice Opera House in 1996. Arriving just three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a sharp witted observer - and in some ways, detective - who makes a study of the minute details of life in this charismatic city. Through his investigations, Berendt introduces a vibrant cast of characters, including poets, wealthy expats, painters, hustlers, and Henry James. This is a fascinating depiction of the chaos, corruption, crime, romance, and splendour of Venice.
Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Mark Sullivan
This is a close-to-truth historical fiction novel of Italian Pino Lello during the German occupation of Italy during WWII. Pino Lello was still alive when Mark Sullivan wrote this epic tale of good and evil, politics, and everyday human bravery, so he was able to conduct extensive interviews with him. Set in Milan, Pino becomes the chauffeur for General Leyers, a top German commander in Italy and close associate of Adolph Hitler. Pino navigates a dangerous line between duty and morality as he attempts to serve the fight against the Nazis.
The Wedding Officer, Anthony Copella
This is what you could call a ‘beach read’, but is not corny, or too sweet to swallow. It is a beautifully written tale, with evocative imagery that stays with you for year afterwards. It is the perfect book to read before travelling to Italy because it prepares your senses - and heart - for the perfumed, heady awakening to come. Think Chocolat, but in WWII Italy. Captain James Gould arrives in Naples to discourage marriages between Allied officers and their Italian lovers/girlfriends. Of course, James is swept up in romance himself, and the aromas of la bella vita are too much to resist.
From the 2017 film adaption of Call me by Your Name.
Call me by Your Name, André Aciman
This is novel that inspired the 2017 award-winning film of the same title by Luca Guadagnino. Set in a sultry Lombardi in the high of summer in the 1980s, it is a coming of age gay fiction work that has recieved much literary acclaim. The novel is distinct from the film, so well worth reading even if you have already watched the film. It is just as evocative and sensual, but with more vivid character portrayal, and it is a longer tale; the film cuts the story short, and it could be said that the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful aspects are in its ending, that continues 20 years after the story begins.
Ratking, Michael Dibdin
Crime novel set in Umbria’s capital city Perugia. Police commissioner, Aurelio Zen, is unexpectedly transferred from his cushy posting in Rome to the forgotten, crumbling Perugia in the 1980s. He is quickly swept up in the intrigue and politics of Perugian society as he is put on a kidnapping case involving one of Italy’s most powerful and wealthy families. Zen navigates through the murky underworld of Perugia, as well as it’s stuffy, aristocratic elite ballrooms and boardrooms. Beneath the page-turning ‘who done it’ is an unforgettable meditation on this gorgeous and totally underrated city.
Pompeii - the city of tragedy, and tourism.
Pompeii, Robert Harris
A thrilling blend of historical fiction and the real-life eruption of Mount Vesuvius on 24 August 79 AD, which brought the southern Italian coastal town of Pompeii to its knees. Robert Harris is a master storyteller and keen researcher, so the novel is renowned for its volcanology and use of the Roman calendar, as much as it is known for the colour depictions of Roman figures. There are intricately drawn details woven into the narrative that unearth traces of Roman society and life in Italy at this time. Harris does not shy away from intrigue, corruption and deceit, and his historical research balances perfectly with the page-turning human story of tragedy and triumph.
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