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La Passione
- How Italy Seduced the World
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's summary
A jubilant celebration of Italy’s outsize impact on culture, from literature to art, music to movies, that “masterfully examines the multitude of reasons why so many people fall in love with Italy and the Italian lifestyle” (Forbes)
Can you imagine painting without Leonardo, opera without Verdi, fashion without Armani, food without the signature tastes of pasta, gelato, and pizza? The first universities, first banks, first public libraries? All Italian.
New York Times best-selling author Dianne Hales attributes these landmark achievements to la passione italiana, a primal force that stems from an insatiable hunger to discover and create; to love and live with every fiber of one's being. This fierce drive, millennia in the making, blazes to life in the Sistine Chapel, surges through a Puccini aria, deepens a vintage Brunello, and rumbles in a gleaming Ferrari engine.
Our ideal tour guide, Hales sweeps readers along on her adventurous quest for the secrets of la passione. She swims in the playgrounds of mythic gods, shadows artisanal makers of chocolate and cheese, joins in Sicily’s Holy Week traditions, celebrates a neighborhood Carnevale in Venice, and explores pagan temples, vineyards, silk mills, movie sets, crafts studios, and fashion salons. She introduces us, through sumptuous prose, to unforgettable Italians, historical and contemporary, all brimming with the greatest of Italian passions - for life itself.
A lyrical portrait of a spirit as well as a nation, La Passione appeals to the Italian in all our souls, inspiring us to be as daring as Italy’s gladiators, as eloquent as its poets, as alluring as its beauties, and as irresistible as its lovers.
Praise for La Passione
“[An] effervescent love letter to all things Italian.” (Newsday)
“In this sweeping account of la passione italiana from ancient to modern times, Dianne Hales shows once again why she is one the world’s foremost guides to the riches of Italian culture. Every page resonates with the author’s love for Italy and her joy in sharing its remarkable discoveries and exquisite pleasures with her readers.” (Joseph Luzzi, author of My Two Italies and In a Dark Wood)
Critic reviews
“What would we do without Italy and the treasures she has given to the world? Thank God we won’t have to find out. Dianne Hales exquisitely reveals how the passion of Italians - ancient and modern, famous and anonymous, unwavering even in the most difficult of circumstances - has given birth to an explosion of art and innovation unlike any other culture. Hales captures the spirit of Italy and makes us more grateful than ever for its ardent creators. La Passione takes us on a journey that you simply won’t want to end.” (Kathy McCabe, host of Dream of Italy on PBS)
"Hales takes us on an enriching and delightful journey, filled with fascinating characters, scintillating sensual details, and an authentic connection to the ever-inspiring Italian heart and soul that has given the world boundless pleasures." (Susan van Allen, author of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go)
“In this inquisitive celebration of the Italian spirit, Hales traverses the country, exploring its history and culture.... The chapters on food will delight readers.... Sure to inspire many vacations, this volume shows Italy’s many contributions to the world and captures the essence of the very things that make it such a wondrous place.” (Publishers Weekly)
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A compilation of essays from the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, this book provides a wealth of historical information from Roman Britain to early 20th-century England. Over 50 different authors share hundreds of real life stories and tantalizing tidbits discovered while doing research for their own historical novels.
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Historical Tidbits
- By Troy on 08-03-15
By: Debra Brown, and others
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Daughters of the Sun
- Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire
- By: Ira Mukhoty
- Narrated by: Shernaz Patel
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1526, when the nomadic Timurid warrior-scholar Babur rode into Hindustan, his wives, sisters, daughters, aunts and distant female relatives travelled with him. These women would help establish a dynasty and empire that would rule India for the next 200 years and become a byword for opulence and grandeur. In Daughters of the Sun, we meet remarkable characters like Khanzada Begum who, at 65, rode on horseback through 750 kilometres of icy passes and unforgiving terrain to parley on behalf of her nephew, Humayun....
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Repetitive Content
- By Sharmistha on 07-18-22
By: Ira Mukhoty
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Natasha's Dance
- A Cultural History of Russia
- By: Orlando Figes
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 29 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Beginning in the 18th century with the building of St. Petersburg - a 'window on the West' - and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself - its character, spiritual essence and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works - by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall - with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world.
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A Kaleidescopic panorama of an enigmatic culture.
- By Tarquin on 02-13-19
By: Orlando Figes
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Mademoiselle
- Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History
- By: Rhonda Garelick
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Little black dresses. Fake pearls. Jersey knit. Blazers. Ballet flats. Today - and for nearly the last hundred years - we all see some version of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel every time we pass a woman on the street. But few among us realize that Chanel’s role in the events of the twentieth century was as pervasive as her influence on fashion, or how deeply she absorbed and then brilliantly reimagined the historical currents around her.
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An Unlikable Portrait
- By Sara on 09-25-16
By: Rhonda Garelick
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After the Romanovs
- Russian Exiles in Paris from the Belle Époque Through Revolution and War
- By: Helen Rappaport
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris has always been a city of cultural excellence, fine wine and food, and the latest fashions. But it has also been a place of refuge for those fleeing persecution, never more so than before and after the Russian Revolution and the fall of the Romanov dynasty. For years, Russian aristocrats had enjoyed all that Belle Époque Paris had to offer, spending lavishly when they visited. It was a place of artistic experimentation, such as Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. But the brutality of the Bolshevik takeover forced Russians of all types to flee their homeland.
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Well written and researched- A Romanov PostScript
- By Pita on 07-24-22
By: Helen Rappaport
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The Banished Immortal
- A Life of Li Bai (Li Po)
- By: Ha Jin
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In his own time (701-762), Li Bai's poems - shaped by Daoist thought and characterized by their passion, romance, and lust for life - were never given their proper due by the official literary gatekeepers. Nonetheless, his lines rang out on the lips of court entertainers, tavern singers, soldiers, and writers throughout the Tang dynasty. The Banished Immortal is an extraordinary portrait of a poet who both transcended his time and was shaped by it and whose ability to live, love, and mourn without reservation produced some of the most enduring verses.
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Bold and unstoppable, like an overflowing river
- By Joselo on 02-09-19
By: Ha Jin
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Sudden Death
- By: Álvaro Enrigue
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Sudden Death begins with a brutal tennis match that could decide the fate of the world. The bawdy Italian painter Caravaggio and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo battle it out before a crowd that includes Galileo, Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw Europe into the flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII behead Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into the most sought-after tennis balls of the time.
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So erudite, so many good images and juxtapositions
- By Alnia Perpoz on 08-17-19
By: Álvaro Enrigue
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Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City", but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city but a global story.
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A daunting undertaking pulled off superlatively
- By SGS on 12-24-17
By: Bettany Hughes
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The Unfinished Palazzo
- By: Judith Mackrell
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Commissioned in 1750, the Palazzo Venier was planned as a testimony to the power and wealth of a great Venetian family, but the fortunes of the Venier family waned, and the project was left abandoned and unfinished. Yet in the early 20th century, it attracted three fascinating women: Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim.
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Nostalgia At Its Best
- By Dan on 01-09-18
By: Judith Mackrell
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Swoon
- Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them
- By: Betsy Prioleau
- Narrated by: Holly Fielding
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Swoon is a glittering pageant of charismatic ladies' men from Casanova to Lord Byron to Camus to Ashton Kutcher. It challenges every preconceived idea about great lovers and answers one of history's most vexing questions: what do women want? Contrary to popular myth and dogma, the men who consistently beguile women belie the familiar stereotypes: satanic rake, alpha stud, slick player, Mr. Nice, or big-money mogul.
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Excellent treatise on seductive etiquette for men
- By Prometheus Worley on 11-18-16
By: Betsy Prioleau
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Paris to the Past
- Traveling Through French History by Train
- By: Ina Caro
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In one of the most inventive travel books in years, Ina Caro invites listeners on 25 one-day train trips that depart from Paris and transport us back through 700 years of French history. Whether taking us to Orléans to evoke the visions of Joan of Arc or to the Place de la Concorde to witness the beheading of Marie Antoinette, Caro animates history with her lush descriptions of architectural splendors and tales of court intrigue. "[An] enchanting travelogue" (Publishers Weekly), Paris to the Past has become one of the classic guidebooks of our time.
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Day Trip From Paris?... Look No Further!
- By Simone on 11-19-13
By: Ina Caro
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The Stories of Eva Luna
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Pena
- Length: 2 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
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Immerse yourself in a world of love, vengeance, compassion, and irony with the evocative stories of Eva Luna. Author Isabel Allende introduced this well-loved character to audiences in her earlier novel, Eva Luna. Listen to Allende talk about the role of writing in her life in Giving Birth, Finding Form. This program also features Alice Walker and Jean Shinoda Bolen.
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Better some Allende than no Allende
- By Perschon on 12-04-14
By: Isabel Allende
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Life in Ancient Rome
- By: Lionel Casson
- Narrated by: John Glouchevitch
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Lionel Casson paints a vivid portrait of life in ancient Rome - for slaves and emperors, soldiers and commanders alike - during the empire's greatest period, the first and second centuries AD.
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A good listen about early Rome.
- By Harry on 08-13-23
By: Lionel Casson
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Proust's Duchess
- How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siecle Paris
- By: Caroline Weber
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 29 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style."
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Enthralling, entertaining and brilliant
- By Uli Baer on 01-14-19
By: Caroline Weber
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Leonardo and the Last Supper
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.
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Informative yet creative
- By Isabellabasil on 05-27-15
By: Ross King
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National Book Award-winning biographer Deirdre Bair explores her 15 remarkable years in Paris with Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir, painting intimate new portraits of two literary giants and revealing secrets of the biographical art. Drawing on Bair's extensive notes from the period, including never-before-told anecdotes and details considered impossible to publish at the time, Parisian Lives gives us an entirely new perspective on the all-too-human side of these legendary thinkers.
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Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
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On the night of February 17, 1864, the tiny Confederate submarine HL Hunley made its way toward the USS Housatonic just outside Charleston harbor. Within a matter of hours, the Union ship’s stern was blown open in a spray of wood planks. The explosion sank the ship, killing many of its crew. And the submarine, the first ever to be successful in combat, disappeared without a trace. For 131 years the eight-man crew of the HL Hunley lay in their watery graves, undiscovered.
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Stockholm, 1968. A thousand American deserters and draft resisters are arriving to escape the war in Vietnam. They’re young, they’re radical, and they want to start a revolution. Some of them even want to take the fight to America. The Swedes treat them like pop stars - but the CIA is determined to stop all that.
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On the fourth of July, 1942, four Allied ships traversing the Arctic separated from their decimated convoy to head further north into the ice field of the North Pole, seeking safety from Nazi bombers and U-boats in the perilous white maze of ice floes, growlers, and giant bergs. Despite the risks, they had a better chance of survival than the rest of Convoy PQ-17, a fleet of 35 cargo ships carrying $1 billion worth of war supplies to the Soviet port of Archangel - the limited help Roosevelt and Churchill extended to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to maintain their fragile alliance.
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A lot of chaff
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Agent Jack
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June 1940: Europe has fallen to Adolf Hitler’s army, and Britain is his next target. Winston Churchill exhorts the country to resist the Nazis, and the nation seems to rally behind him. But in secret, some British citizens are plotting to hasten an invasion. Agent Jack tells the incredible true story of Eric Roberts, a seemingly inconsequential bank clerk who, in the guise of “Jack King”, helped uncover and neutralize the invisible threat of fascism on British shores.
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interesting for sure, not what I expected
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The Unidentified
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In a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational - in fringe - is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on. It seems the more our maps of the known world get filled in, the more we crave mysterious locations full of strange creatures. Enter Colin Dickey, cultural historian and tour guide of the weird.
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Skeptic's Analysis of Weird America
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What listeners say about La Passione
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- JudaJuda
- 12-21-22
Awesome story on Italians🍷
Dianne Hales story and Cassandra Campbell narrations are very very enjoyable listening about Italians and Italy ❣️🍷
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- Anthony
- 05-28-22
Good take on a hackneyed subject.
However, many Italians now lack this mythic passion that is ground down by modern commerce.
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- Joni
- 08-05-19
Brava!
Fantastico! 🎉A wonderful clear historical detailed love story to all that is Italian. I envy the author's passion!
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3 people found this helpful
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- D. Maurillo
- 07-14-21
A terrific read for anyone who loves Italy
This is my second book by this author. The first one was La Bella Lingua. I also enjoyed that book, so I looked forward to this one. I learned so much about my ancestral country which I have grown to love more and more each time I visit. My Italian relatives are always impressed with how much I know about Italy and its history and its culture. This book will enable me to impress them even more. I enjoyed all the aspects of the Italian art, opera, fashion, automobiles, and everything else. The author has a wonderful way of going deep into a topic and coloring it with personal stories about the people behind the brands that we know so well. I had no idea that one of the songs I love so much was called Caruso. I would hear it on the radio or on television, but I had no idea what the title was, and I did not know the backstory. When reading this book, I am compelled to go into Google and look up even more information. The woman who is the narrator is also excellent. She is very light with her Italian accent when imitating speakers, which I find to be refreshing. Sometimes a reader will go overboard in trying to imitate an Italian accent and they don’t always succeed. In this case, it added to the story rather than detracting from it. I intend to read this book again.
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- Lisa M. Petrusa
- 11-21-22
Un meraviglioso libro
Dianne Hales has written an intriguing description of the life force that consumes the people of Italy. It is seen in the way they approach life, love, art and food.
Ms.Hales has guided us to the conclusion that the historical events that shaped Italy and what it has shared with the world was mostly done with an obsession that has chosen the participants. Passion itself being the muse.
This book delves into the family histories and back stories of the people who helped shape the country. Dante, Michelangelo, Caravaggio to the artisans of Venice, the wines of Piedmont, Roman films and Ferrari sports cars. I finished this book in one sitting (a lovely Saturday afternoon). I laughed and even cried at times while reading this book. A perfect way to learn about a country and its people, whom I adore.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-25-19
A beautiful encapsulation of all things Itallian!
Equal parts informative, entertaining, and inspiring. A guided tour through Italy's rich culture and the nation's widely scoped zest for life and craft.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Daphsam Photography & Art
- 08-02-21
A trip to Italy
This is a lovely book that takes you through all the things that makes Italy is wonderful! Starting from ancient history, to religion to the highlights of food, opera, movies, fashion and race car driving. The narrator was wonderful as she weaves you through the story. I had a blast learning about Italian fashion designer Armani, the first formula one driver, Maria Antonietta Avanzo, the background story of composer Giuseppe Verdi. Dianne Hales gives some much fun historical information in this book! When traveling is so hard these days, this takes you to Italy and it's magical. I will definitely listen to this again and again. So much fun!
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- Lu Pei Yi
- 03-08-22
Brilliant voice rendition of a beautiful culture
The author wrote the stories, hers and that od Italy, with such passion it's as if she brought you with her on her journey around Italy.
I don't know if the narrator speaks Italian but if she didn't I wouldn't know. A beautiful story told by a beautiful voice. I was in love the entire time.
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- Steve Adams
- 07-06-23
Giving Italy mad props
I love this book. If you have some great history for those Americans, who may not have had much Italian history. The author does a really good job of leading the ancient with the modern. Ms Hales reinforces why everybody loves Italy, it’s people, it’s cuisine, fashion, and history. I thought Cassandra Campbell did an excellent job reading this book.
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- Glenn
- 01-10-24
Passion, squared
What a fun and fabulous read. Even for topics I was not already interested in (motor cars. opera!), the author managed to beguile me into seeing how the beautiful and expressive Italian spirit was reflected in that facet. Perfectly casual yet animated reader. Very fun. Learned a lot and reminisced about Italian visits past and dreamed of future trips
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