A New Book: “MALINTESO: Crazy Misunderstandings When Trying to Speak Italian”
Great News! I just published my second book about Italy, called MALINTESO: Crazy Misunderstandings When Trying to Speak Italian. Now with an (temporary) Introductory Promo-price of only $0.99!
Learning Italian in Practice
Without any pretence, this book is devoted to a number of amusing accounts and anecdotes about the Italian language. Ever since I moved to Italy, I have quite often come across words and phrases which I never knew existed and never learnt in my Italian lessons, probably because they seemed unimportant at the time. After all, grammar was the be-all and end-all of learning the language! However, it’s these finer points that make it so interesting. Using the alphabet as my guide, this book provides a miscellany of information, for each letter one or more short anecdotes.
A for Andrea
For example, the A is represented by a story about the name Andrea that confused me a lot:
“I couldn’t make head or tail of it. The question was about a ‘he’ and a ‘she’, but which one was the ‘he’? The conversation I had just listened to made no reference to a man, only to Roberta and Andrea. Nonplussed, I made a guess and placed a cross against one of the two possible answers. Probably wrong, but never mind. I was sitting the aural exam at the University of Utrecht in which I had to answer ten questions on short exchanges I’d just been listening to on the headphones. Although scant attention had been paid to listening skills on the Italian course I’d been following, I was confident about all my answers, except for that one question. After the exam, a number of us got together, discussing the possible stumbling blocks and pondering on whether we’d passed or not. Strangely, none of my fellow students mentioned the one impossible question I had slipped up on. Not wanting to embarrass myself in the group, I eventually summoned up the courage to take aside the student with whom I felt most comfortable and ask her how she’d tackled the question.” Continued in the book.
An interesting follow-up of my best-selling book Living in Italy: the Real Deal!
Living in Italy: the Real Deal - Expat Stories
Would you like to know how we found our house and moved to Italy? Then read our book!
The most popular of all homemade TV series in Italy is without a doubt Il Commissario Montalbano, a crime TV drama which has a ’share’ of 45% as the Italians call it. This means that half of the population watches each new episode.
The character of the moody Sicilian police investigator Salvo Montalbano was invented by writer Andrea Camilleri, now in his eighties. His books about the moody cop became so popular the Rai decided to start a series about him some 15 years ago. Each puntata, episode has the length of a full movie and every year only a few new ones are released. The stories all are situated in the ficticious city of Vigata in Sicily. The home of Montalbano plays an important role in the series and actually lies in the city of 
The series largely achieved its popularity, I think, as a result of the humor with which the author has spiced his stories. It is also a comedy of typically Italian customs and therefore very interesting for expats like me. Montalbano e.g. is a goloso, a food addict and considers his time for lunch and dinner as sacred, more important than his real work. And so in the series, of course, he is constantly disturbed while eating. When his single favorite restaurant has to close Montalbano isn’t sorry for the owner but angry because he denies him his holy lunch. „E adesso, che faccio? And now what am I to do?” he asks the owner in an accusing tone.
And of course all male characters in the series are womanizers, Montalbano’s colleague Augello (Mimì) being the expert. Although engaged he has affairs with lots of women, sometimes with those under investigation! His crisis arrives when his fiancee is expecting him to ask her to marry her. What should he do? He doesn’t want to lose her but once married he cannot possibly continue having affairs. Or at least not that many … a moral dilemma! In panic he consults Montalbano who as a man that recognizes the problem takes it seriously but also makes fun of it.
Italian television is infested with big shows, quizzes and melodramatic series. This does not only hold for 
The name suburra nowadays denotes any city quarter of ill repute, but originates from the ancient Roman Suburra zone, the current Quartiere Monti. A piazza Suburra still exists. The name seems to originate from the lower position of the quarter with respect to the rest of the city: sub urbe. It was a very dangerous zone in ancient Roman times, but nevertheless a man like Caesar was born there. The Subarra zone remained a bad area till modern times but now the gentrification has set in. The quarter has become popular, also because of its central position.
The now world famous tourist attraction Cinque Terre along the coast of Liguria is not far from 
Avoid the crowd!
There is, however, a lesser known village that you cannot visit. It is ominously called Porto Vergogna (as this where the whores resided) and it is the sixth village of the Cinque Terre. The one that missed out on all the fame and glory, the ugly little sister. Jess Walter describes it with a lot of humor in his very enjoyable novel Beautiful Ruins. Of course, it does not exist in reality, only in the imagination of the author and the readers of the book. If you go and visit the Cinque Terre, please bring this book along, you are sure to like it.
Well, he finally died then, one day after is 87th birthday, in his prison cell where he lived since his capture in 1993. Sentenced for life 26 times he wasn’t ever going to be free again. Salvatore Riina, better known as Totò Riina or il capo dei capi, the boss of the bosses. Riina was responsible for the torture aand murder of uncountable people. His most famous deed, the one that degusted the whole of Italy was the murder of Falcone and Borsellino. The killing of the two most important antimafia men in 1992 finally did him in. How did a simple boy from a small town in the countryside of Sicily, Corleone, manage to become the most feared man of Italy?
Il Capo dei Capi – Riina the mafia boss of all bosses
Three years ago I read the beautiful and moving novel Call me by your name by Andre Aciman, a writer I did not know by then. His book turned out to be a delight and had me laughing, nail biting and almost crying consecutively. Reading it was thrilling adventure and I could not but give it a five stars 
A few weeks ago I heard to my excitement that the novel was turned into a motion picture movie. To my delight I read that the role of Elio was performed by Timothée Chalamet. He is a young handsome actor I saw perform in the Homeland tv-series. A perfect choice! I cannot wait to go and see the movie, also as it is situated in the Italian summer residence of the family. Consequently, all the scenes were filmed in Italy as well. I am happy that the title of the book was taken as the movie title. Please note the beauty of it. Instead of the more common phrase ’call me by my name’ it reads ’call me by your name’, one of the most beautiful things Oliver says to his young lover. An expression of true, deep love and a longing to become one. Go and see this magnificent love story and read the book as well.