Babelguides: Books

On this page is a selection of recommended books. To browse by language or conduct a search, use the links on the left.

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The Fall [Buy Direct]

by Albert Camus

The Outsider [Buy Direct]

by Albert Camus

Under the Jaguar Sun [Buy Direct]

by Italo Calvino
Translated by William Weaver
Original title: Sotto il sole giaguaro

A short unfinished work but nevertheless a fabulous descent into the world of the senses. This book comes from the period when Calvino was such an established artist that he could experiment and still command an audience. As with Invisible Cities, this is the kind of writing, (more...)

Castle of Crossed Destinies [Buy Direct]

by Italo Calvino
Original title: Castello dei destini incrociati

Marcovaldo: or, The Seasons in the City [Buy Direct]

by Italo Calvino
Translated by William Weaver
Original title: Marcovaldo

This is one of Calvino’s chronicles of a changing Italy. Marcovaldo is a Candide-like naïf observer of urban life. He has the heart of a countryman but, to make a living, has to live in an ugly and polluted Northern city. In a gentle, humorous way, (more...)

Invisible Cities [Buy Direct]

by Italo Calvino
Translated by William Weaver
Original title: Città invisibili

Difficult Loves [Buy Direct]

by Italo Calvino
Translated by W et al Weaver
Original title: Amori difficili

Mr Palomar [Buy Direct]

by Italo Calvino
Translated by William Weaver
Original title: Palomar

Cosmicomics [Buy Direct]

by Italo Calvino
Translated by William Weaver
Original title: Cosmicomiche

Good Girls Don’t Wear Trousers [Buy Direct]

by Lara Cardella
Translated by Diana di Carcaci

Lara Cardella, a writer born in 1969, describes here a present-day Italy stuck in the Middle Ages, characterised by the violence and abuse of an apparently everyday Southern Italian family. The protagonist and narrator, Anna, (more...)

Appearances [Buy Direct]

by Gianni Celati
Translated by S Hood
Original title: Quattro novelle sulle apparenze

Like his other translated book Voices From the Plains, Celati’s Appearances speaks of the flat North Italian plain and so is set far from the Tuscan idyll of cypresses and dark Signorine sighing in shuttered bedrooms of picture-book Italy. (more...)

Voices from the Plains [Buy Direct]

by Gianni Celati
Translated by Robert Lumley
Original title: Narratori delle pianure

A man chooses to spend some weeks travelling across the North Italian plain, going town by town through precisely the sort of landscape no-one ever chooses to travel in. (more...)

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