The Sons of Italy Book Club is dedicated to the fiction and non-fiction works of Italian American writers who focus on Italian American issues, themes and history.

Preference is given to books published by the major publishing houses (Random House, Harper Collins, Penguin Books, etc.) because such titles are widely available through bookstores nationally and on amazon.com.

The Sons of Italy Book Club will choose three to four titles each quarter for a total of 12 to 16 titles a year. The selections will be announced to the press, posted on the Sons of Italy Web site (www.osia.org) and published in the Sons of Italy magazine, Italian America, the most widely read cultural publication for Italian Americans in the United States.

All books can be bought at the Lodge Book Store or any local book store.

Current Book we are reading: Franca's Story: Survival in WWII Italy By Diane Kinman

ITALIAN VOICES: Making Minnesota Our Home
By Mary Ellen Mancina-Batinich

By 1915, an estimated 2 million Italian immigrants had entered the U.S., but only about 10,000 went to Minnesota to work in its iron ore mines; lumber, steel and flour mills; and farms where they routinely put in 10-hour days, six days a week.

The late Mary Ellen Mancina-Batinich spent 20 years interviewing these Minnesotans about their everyday life in the Italian communities of the Iron Range, Duluth, and the Twin Cities between 1900 and 1960. Her book offers their stories in their own words, making it a "must read" for anyone interested in Italian American history. Foreword by the respected immigration historian, Rudolph J. Vecoli.

THE CIELO: A Novel of Wartime Tuscany
By Paul Salsini

During World War II, the beautiful countryside of Tuscany became a battlefield as Hitler's troops invaded the region and its terrified villagers fled to the hills.

The Cielo, (The Heaven,) powerfully describes how the villagers of Sant' Antonio cope as the war rages around them. While hiding together, they learn to overcome petty differences, confront a neighbor's betrayal, protect an escaped prisoner and survive a Nazi raid.

Based on the wartime experiences of the author's relatives, The Cielo is both a fact-filled history lesson and an inspiring story of the human spirit.

THE HOUSE THAT GIACOMO BUILT: History of An Italian Family, 1898-1978
By Donald S. Pitkin

Pitkin, an anthropologist, spent more than 30 years documenting the lives of the Savo family and how three generations of this Calabrese family overcame huge obstacles of poverty, illiteracy and class prejudice over nearly a century.

By turns horrifying in its description of the family's sub-human living conditions yet inspiring because, no matter what, they stay united, the book proves graphically that for poor Italian families, "togetherness" is not just a greeting-card sentiment, but vital for survival. Together they face many hardships until one day they win some land in a lottery, build their house and slowly climb out of poverty and into the working class.

AN ITALIAN AMERICAN ODYSSEY: THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND AND BEYOND
By B. Amore

With words and images, author Amore tells the story of the journey to America across seven generations of one Italian American family, based on her multimedia exhibit, Lifeline: filo della vita, which has been mounted at New York's Ellis Island Museum and to sites in Boston, Rome, and Naples.

The book version, in full color and bilingual in Italian and English, includes numerous interviews, documents and historic photographs from the Ellis Island archives. It includes essays by Fred Gardaphè, Edvige Giunta and Robert Viscusi, who explore Italian Americans' cultural memory, ethnic identity, issues of gender, race, and generational change.

BRAZZÁ, A LIFE FOR AFRICA
By Maria Petringa

This is the first English language biography of Pierre Savorgnan de Brazzá, a late 19th century Italian nobleman who admired Africa and fought to protect its native populations from the excesses of European colonialism. Brazzá bought slaves and set them free, collected African tribal art, documented African plants and animals and recorded for history the daily life of many African tribes.

As colonial governor of French Equatorial Africa, he tried unsuccessfully to help Europeans and Africans understand each other. In gratitude, the Republic of the Congo named the city he founded in his honor. Today the capital, Brazzaville, remains the only African city named for a European. [$19.99; paperback; 276 pages; Authorhouse]

Winter 2007 Selections from OSIA:

Home to Big Stone Gap
By Adriana Trigiani

Welcome back to the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia and its heroine, Ave Maria MacChesney in Adriana Trigiani's fourth novel in the series. Life is changing for Ave Maria: her daughter has married an Italian and lives in Italy and her husband, Jack is seriously ill. These woes, along with directing the town play and a rift with a close friend, take Ave on an emotional roller coaster ride. As always Trigiani has populated her novel with the memorable characters and magic of small-town life fans have come to expect of this series, launched over six years ago.

The Humble and the Heroic: Wartime Italian Americans
By Salvatore J. LaGumina

Italian Americans have a stellar World War II record: 13 Medal of Honor recipients as well as the heroic Don Gentile, "the highest scoring fighter pilot in American history." Now historian and author, Salvatore J. LaGumina examines the war's impact on Italian Americans on the battlefield, at home and especially on those first-generation Americans when the country of their birth declared war on the country of their choice. With this book, we learn how ordinary people did the extraordinary while enduring history's most devastating war.

Our Roots are Deep with Passion: Essays by Italian American Writers
Edited by Lee Gutkind & Joanna Clapps Herman

With a foreword by actor Joe Mantegna, this essay collection showcases 21 authors of Italian heritage writing on subjects ranging from food and wine to religion, immigration and language. Louise DeSalvo recalls that her grandfather always drank wine instead of water because in his native Puglia, water was often home to malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Laura Valeri tackles the mystical side of life with an account of a childhood séance in Sardinia that goes eerily awry, and Stephanie Susnjara charts the history of garlic in society and in her own kitchen.

Blue Guide: Sicily
By Ellen Grady

This comprehensive overview of Sicily covers everything from what to see and where to eat to how to appreciate museum artworks. What makes this guide book stand apart from the rest? It includes a short history of each city and town on this island that has been invaded by the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Normans, who all left their mark on it. Each of Sicily's nine provinces has a chapter listing where to stay, local transportation and the best restaurants for local cuisine along with color photographs, maps and diagrams.

Franca's Story: Survival in WWII Italy
By Diane Kinman

Biographer Diane Kinman tells the true story of her neighbor, Franca Mercati‚s experiences as a fourteen year old girl in war-torn northern Italy from 1937 to 1945. Whether she is rescuing a downed British pilot, visiting the Pope's quarters or risking her life to feed her starving family, Franca shows a streak of courage throughout her ordeal.