Che Bella Figura

Author : Gloria Nardini
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438414129
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Che Bella Figura! written by Gloria Nardini and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1999-04-23 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literally translated, fare bella figura means "to make a beautiful figure," and figuratively it refers to the act of putting on a good show, performance, or display. The author uncovers the "real rules" of an Italian "ladies'" club by analyzing their language and behavior. In so doing, she gives examples of the historical and linguistic importance of this concept, as well as its potential for cross-cultural misunderstanding.

Author : Gloria Nardini
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780791440919
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Che Bella Figura! written by Gloria Nardini and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A colorful ethnography of an Italian ladies' club, this book explores the historical and linguistic importance of the women's language and behavior.

Author : Beppe Severgnini
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307486877
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book La Bella Figura written by Beppe Severgnini and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-11-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join the bestselling author of Ciao, America! on a lively tour of modern Italy that takes you behind the seductive face it puts on for visitors—la bella figura—and highlights its maddening, paradoxical true self You won’t need luggage for this hypothetical and hilarious trip into the hearts and minds of Beppe Severgnini’s fellow Italians. In fact, Beppe would prefer if you left behind the baggage his crafty and elegant countrymen have smuggled into your subconscious. To get to his Italia, you’ll need to forget about your idealized notions of Italy. Although La Bella Figura will take you to legendary cities and scenic regions, your real destinations are the places where Italians are at their best, worst, and most authentic: The highway: in America, a red light has only one possible interpretation—Stop! An Italian red light doesn’t warn or order you as much as provide an invitation for reflection. The airport: where Italians prove that one of their virtues (an appreciation for beauty) is really a vice. Who cares if the beautiful girls hawking cell phones in airport kiosks stick you with an outdated model? That’s the price of gazing upon perfection. The small town: which demonstrates the Italian genius for pleasant living: “a congenial barber . . . a well-stocked newsstand . . . professionally made coffee and a proper pizza; bell towers we can recognize in the distance, and people with a kind word and a smile for everyone.” The chaos of the roads, the anarchy of the office, the theatrical spirit of the hypermarkets, and garrulous train journeys; the sensory reassurance of a church and the importance of the beach; the solitude of the soccer stadium and the crowded Italian bedroom; the vertical fixations of the apartment building and the horizontal democracy of the eat-in kitchen. As you venture to these and many other locations rooted in the Italian psyche, you realize that Beppe has become your Dante and shown you a country that “has too much style to be hell” but is “too disorderly to be heaven.” Ten days, thirty places. From north to south. From food to politics. From saintliness to sexuality. This ironic, methodical, and sentimental examination will help you understand why Italy—as Beppe says—“can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters or ten minutes.”

Author : Beppe Severgnini
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0767912365
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ciao, America! written by Beppe Severgnini and published by Crown. This book was released on 2003-05-13 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the wry but affectionate tradition of Bill Bryson, Ciao, America! is a delightful look at America through the eyes of a fiercely funny guest—one of Italy’s favorite authors who spent a year in Washington, D.C. When Beppe Severgnini and his wife rented a creaky house in Georgetown they were determined to see if they could adapt to a full four seasons in a country obsessed with ice cubes, air-conditioning, recliner chairs, and, of all things, after-dinner cappuccinos. From their first encounters with cryptic rental listings to their back-to-Europe yard sale twelve months later, Beppe explores this foreign land with the self-described patience of a mildly inappropriate beachcomber, holding up a mirror to America’s signature manners and mores. Succumbing to his surroundings day by day, he and his wife find themselves developing a taste for Klondike bars and Samuel Adams beer, and even that most peculiar of American institutions—the pancake house. The realtor who waves a perfect bye-bye, the overzealous mattress salesman who bounces from bed to bed, and the plumber named Marx who deals in illegally powerful showerheads are just a few of the better-than-fiction characters the Severgninis encounter while foraging for clues to the real America. A trip to the computer store proves just as revealing as D.C.’s Fourth of July celebration, as do boisterous waiters angling for tips and no-parking signs crammed with a dozen lines of fine print. By the end of his visit, Severgnini has come to grips with life in these United States—and written a charming, laugh-out-loud tribute.

Author : Kamin Mohammadi
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0385354002
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bella Figura written by Kamin Mohammadi and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “My ideal type of armchair travel: immersive, insightful, seductive. In Bella Figura, Kamin Mohammadi takes us to the year in Florence that changed her life, and gives us the tools to bring the grace of the Italian lifestyle to our own lives.” —National Bestselling Author Stephanie Danler “She walks down the street with a swing in her step and a lift to her head. She radiates allure as if followed by a personal spotlight. She may be tall or short, slim or pneumatically curvaceous, dressed discreetly or ostentatiously—it matters not. Her gait, her composure, the very tilt of her head is an ode to grace and self-possession that makes her beautiful whatever her actual features reveal.” This is the bella figura, the Italian concept of making every aspect of life as beautiful as it can be, that Kamin Mohammadi discovered when she escaped the London corporate media world for a year in Italy. Following the lead of her new neighbors, she soon found a happier, healthier, and more beautiful way of living. The bella figura knows: • That the food that you eat should give you pleasure while eating it. Pause for meals, and set a place, even if you are eating alone. • To seize any opportunity to get moving—be it taking the stairs, doing a coffee run at work, or dancing with abandon. • To drink a spoonful of excellent-quality extra-virgin olive oil four times a day. • To seek out nature, be it a city park, a tree on your street, or some wild place. • And to love yourself. The bella figura—occupies her space, emotionally and physically, with style and entitlement.

Author : Louise Fili
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 1892145545
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Italianissimo written by Louise Fili and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it about Italy that inspires passion, fascination, and utter devotion? This quirky guide to the Italian way of life, with its fifty witty mini-essays on iconic Italian subjects, will answer that question as well as entertain and delight both real and armchair travelers. Topics range from expressive hand gestures to patron saints, pasta, parmesan, shoes, opera, the Vespa, the Fiat 500, gelato, gondolas, and more. History, folklore, superstitions, traditions, and customs are tossed in a delicious sauce that also includes a wealth of factual information for the sophisticated traveler:• why lines, as we know them, are nonexistent in Italy• why a string of coral beads is often seen around a baby’s wrist• what the unlucky number of Italy is (it’s not thirteen, unless seating guests at a table, when it IS thirteen–taking into account the outcome of the Last Supper)• why red underwear begins to appear in shops as the New Year approaches In addition to the lyrical and poetic, Italianissimo provides useful and indispensable information for the traveler: deciphering the quirks of the language (while English has only one word for “you,” in Italy there are three), the best place to find balsamic vinegar (in Modena, of course), the best gelato (in Sicily, where they first invented it using the snow from Mount Etna). There are also recommendations for little-known museums and destinations (the Bodoni museum, the Pinocchio park, legendary coffee bars).This is a new kind of guidebook overflowing with enlightening and hilarious miscellaneous information, filled with luscious graphics and unforgettable photographs that will decode and enrich all trips to Italy–both real and imaginary.

Author : Salvatore J. LaGumina
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135583331
Total Pages : 733 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Italian American Experience written by Salvatore J. LaGumina and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 733 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Author : Harriet Luria
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 0805855009
Total Pages : 427 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Language and Linguistics in Context written by Harriet Luria and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook, designed for courses in first-and-second language education, provides a "big picture" view of basic linguistics through readings organized in 3 thematic units-"What is Language and How is it Acquired?"; "How Does Language Change?"; and "Wh

Author : Mario B. Mignone
Publisher : Peter Lang
ISBN 13 : 9781433101878
Total Pages : 492 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Italy Today written by Mario B. Mignone and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2008 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italy Today is a concise narrative of the nation's stunning transformation from the ashes of World War II to the leading economic and cultural power it is today. This book provides insights into the dynamics of Italy's progression from the Second World War, through the anthropologically revolutionary 1970s and '80s, and into the complexities of a postindustrial nation, negotiating the challenges created by industrial, economic, and cultural globalization. Encompassing the cultural, political, and economic spectrums, topics include: communism; socialism; foreign relations; terrorism; industrial and social transformations; education; emigration and immigration; family tradition; feminism; the transformation of class and gender roles; political favoritism and corruption; popular culture; culture and civil society; the broader problems of the development of civil society and the rule of law in southern Italy; and the role of politics in shaping contemporary Italy. The book devotes particular attention to the controversial issues of the role of the family in Italian society and economy, the insidious presence of the Mafia, the lasting influence of Catholicism, the impact of television, and the country's often unstable politics, framing all these as the result of a complex and unique relationship between the individual and the state, with the family acting as intermediary. Four major sections analyze politics, the economy, society, and mass culture, and comprise a portrait of contemporary Italy that will appeal to a broad range of scholars, students, and general readers.

Author : Sophie Minchilli
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
ISBN 13 : 0008366500
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Sweetness of Doing Nothing: Live Life the Italian Way with Dolce Far Niente written by Sophie Minchilli and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2021-04-29 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s time to embrace the Italian way of life...