Italian Days is one of the richest and most absorbing travel books
ever written"a journey down the Italian peninsula that immerses us in
the inexhaustible plenty of that culture and the equally bountiful
intelligence and sensibility of its author.
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, noted essayist, journalist, and fiction
writer, brings us a fascinating mixture of history, politics, folklore,
food, architecture, arts, and literature, studded with local anecdotes
and personal reflections. From modern, fashionable Milan; to beautiful,
historic Rome with its modern traffic and, even today, its sudden
displays of faith; to primitive, brooding Calabria, Barbara Grizzuti
Harrison reveals in all its glory and confusion her Italy, the country
of her origins, where the keys to her past are held by those who never
left.
Beautifully and eloquently rendered, Italian Days is a deeply engaging
travelogue, but it is much more as well. It is the story of a return
home"of friends, family, and faith"and of the search for the good life
that propels all of us on our journeys wherever we are.