DESTINATION: ITALY
Sunday, July 19th, 10AM to 11:30AM (We'll have tea + coffee!)
FREE, but RSVP is helpful!
Postcard Bookshop | 81 SE Yamhill St, PDX 97214
Parking lot located in back, off of Water Ave
Our Word Travel Book Club meets every-other-month to read books from a common country. We pick the destination and you choose what book to read! When we gather, we’ll all be introduced to a broader survey of a country’s writing, and have the chance to explore connections and themes across books.
Translated literature is so famously under-appreciated in the US that the University of Rochester created their "Three Percent Project" to track authors that make it into the English-language market. But every so often, a writer breaks through with a true sensation, and few foreign authors have found more acclaim than Italy's Elana Ferrante. Her Neapolitan quartet vaulted her to bestseller status, was adapted into a lavish HBO miniseries, and its first novel—My Brilliant Friend—was declared the "Best Novel of the 21st Century" by The New York Times. It's a beautiful story of a complicated friendship and a stirring coming-of-age tale, all against the romantic backdrop of working class midcentury Naples.
And yet...
Italian literature is so much more than gritty post-war historical fiction. As author Vincenzo Latronico has noted, the very qualities that make Ferrante's novel so transporting also satisfy a lot of our preconceptions about Italy. So while you absolutely should read Ferrante (she truly is a great writer), I encourage you to make this book club an excuse to find other Italian stories. There are immigrant tales, contemporary satires, modernist stories, crime novels, and and rediscovered classics. And I certainly won't fault you for leaning into the romance of the Mediterranean as we head into summer!
I'm always happy to make some recommendations (and have done so at the links below!), but you can choose ANY book from our featured country. Read a long-overdue classic, or try out a new genre — read what catches your attention!
Looking for suggestions of what to read? We've curated collections of great Italian books on our website, or on our Bookshop.org page.