Italia Reading Challenge 2022

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Italy is such a historically and culturally rich country and there are/were so many great Italian authors – Alighieri Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolo Machiavelli, Alessandro Manzoni (The Betrothed), Cesare Pavese, Umberto Eco (Foucault’s Pendulum), Italo Calvino (The Baron in the Trees), to name just a few. Taking this into account and since I loved some Italian books I’ve read recently I’ve decided to make 2022 my year exploring Italian literature and set up the Italia (Italy) Reading Challenge (to run between January and December 2022). To make this challenge more manageable for myself, I have decided to limit my reading goal to just 10 books written by Italian authors. If we consider that these books all come from just one country, I don’t think it’s a bad start at all, and here is my selection for this year:

  • Alberto Moravia – Contempt/Boredom/The Time of Indifference
  • Antonio Tabucchi – Pereira Maintains
  • Primo Levi – If This is a Man/If Not Now, When?
  • Elena Ferrante – The Days of Abandonment
  • Leonardo Sciascia – To Each His Own
  • Giorgio Bassani – The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
  • Italo Svevo – Zeno’s Conscience
  • Dacia Maraini – The Silent Duchess
  • Elsa Morante – Arturo’s Island
  • Luigi Pirandello – The Late Mattia Pascal

Finally, if you want to join me on this journey this year (reading any number of books), you can grab the banner and leave links to your reviews throughout the year in the comments section on this permanent page – Italia Reading Challenge 2022 or below and I will add them to the general list, as well as do a summary post in December 2022 – #ReadItaliaChallenge.

25 thoughts on “Italia Reading Challenge 2022”

  2. This is so cool, Diana! Will try to join. This is a good reason for me to finally read Foucault’s Pendulum 😊 I loved Pereira Maintains. Want to read The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Thanks so much for hosting 😊

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  7. Excellent! As I have at least a couple of Eco reads or rereads, and some Levi or Calvino short stories on my shelves, I might well be joining you (Collodi’s Pinocchio has long been ony TBR list).

    I also read some Italian short stories in a parallel translation (Antonio Tabucchi was one of those in the collection) so I might seek out some more.

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  8. Sounds like an interesting challenge! I’ll look forward to hearing what you think of the books. I have The Betrothed on my Classics Club list, but I’m not sure whether I’ll get to it this year – I’ll try!

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  12. Pingback: The Italia Reading Challenge – Completed! – Thoughts on Papyrus

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