In this prophetic allegory about artificial intelligence by a renowned figure of twentieth-century Italian literature, a modest university professor becomes involved in a remote and enigmatic project in the middle of the Cold War.

At the beginning of Dino Buzzati's The Singularity, Ermanno Ismani, an unassuming university professor, is summoned by the minister of defense to accept a two-year, top-secret mission at a mysterious research center, isolated from the world among forests, plunging cliffs, and high mountains. What's he supposed to do there? Not clear. How long will he be there? No saying. Still, Ismani takes the mystifying job and, accompanied by his no-nonsense wife, Elisa, heads to the so-called Experimental Camp of Military Zone 36, wondering whether, in the midst of the Cold War, it's some sort of nuclear project he's been assigned to.

But no, the colleagues the couple meets on arrival assure them, it's nothing like that. It's much, much more powerful. At the center of the research complex is a strange, shining, at times murmurous, white wall. Behind it, a deep gorge drops away, full of wires and radio towers and mobile sensors and a host of eccentric structures. A question begins to dawn: Could this be the shape of consciousness itself? And if so, whose?

Buzzati's novella of 1960, a pioneering work of Italian science fiction, is published here in a brisk new translation by Anne Milano Appel. In it, Buzzati explores his favorite themes of love and longing while offering a startlingly prescient parable of artificial intelligence.

From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation's Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, The Hypocrite is a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father's fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter's voice.

August 2020. Sophia, a young playwright, awaits her father's verdict on her new show. A famous author whose novels haven't aged as gracefully into the modern era as he might hope, he is completely unaware that the play centers around a vacation the two took years earlier to an island off Sicily, where he dictated to her a new book. The play has been met with rave reviews but Sophia's father has studiously avoided reading any of them. But when the house lights dim, he understands that his daughter has laid him bare, used the events of their summer to create an incisive, witty, skewering critique of the attitudes and sexual mores of men of his generation.

Set through one staging of the play, The Hypocrite seamlessly and scorchingly shifts through time and perspective, illuminating an argument between a father and his daughter that, with impeccable nuance, examines the fraught inheritances each generation is left to contend with, and the struggle to nurture empathy in a world changing at lightning-speed.

Rome—metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multi-faceted and metaphysical—is the protagonist, not the setting, of these nine stories. This collection marks the first short story compilation by the Pulitzer Prize–winning master since the number one New York Times bestseller Unaccustomed Earth, and is heralded as a major literary event.

In “The Boundary,” a family vacations in the Roman countryside, yet we glimpse their lives through the perspective of the caretaker’s daughter, who harbors a scar from her family’s immigrant history. “P’s Parties” recounts how a Roman couple, now without children at home, discover solace and fellowship with internationals at their friend’s annual birthday celebration—until the husband oversteps a boundary. “The Steps” introduces us to a public staircase bridging two communities and the individuals traversing it, showcasing Italy’s capital in its full social and cultural spectrum, brimming with the dynamics of an evolving city: visibility and invisibility, spontaneous acts of aggression, the dilemma of navigating different worlds and cultures, and the essence of home.

These are magnificent, inquisitive tales, penned in Jhumpa Lahiri’s chosen language of Italian and impeccably translated by the author alongside Knopf editor Todd Portnowitz. The stories are imbued with the atmospheres of Italian virtuoso Alberto Moravia and in the final narrative, are led by the unavoidable spirit of Dante Alighieri, whose verses steer the protagonist towards an altered path of life.

One of E. M. Forster's most celebrated novels, A Room With a View is the story of a young English middle-class girl, Lucy Honeychurch. While vacationing in Italy, Lucy meets and is wooed by two gentlemen, George Emerson and Cecil Vyse. After turning down Cecil Vyse's marriage proposals twice, Lucy finally accepts. Upon hearing of the engagement, George protests and confesses his true love for Lucy.

Lucy is torn between the choice of marrying Cecil, who is a more socially acceptable mate, and George, who she knows will bring her true happiness. A Room With a View is a tale of classic human struggles such as the choice between social acceptance or true love.

Bella Figura: How to Live, Love, and Eat the Italian Way is one woman's story of finding beauty, and herself. Beyond being a captivating narrative, it serves as a practical guide to living a better life, the Italian way. Kamin Mohammadi, a magazine editor in London, was ostensibly living the dream. Yet, heartbreak and loneliness compounded with the stress of her demanding career were detrimental to her physical and mental well-being.

Fortune smiled upon her in the form of a redundancy package and the offer of a friend's apartment in Florence, prompting Kamin to take a transformative leap. In Italy, she quickly noticed the stark contrast in lifestyle: her new Italian neighbors prioritized enjoyment, indulging in leisurely meals and drinks, embracing a slower pace of life. This narrative is peppered with delightful encounters, from the local bartender who doubles as a love advisor, to the plumbers who not only fix her heating but also teach her the art of making pasta al pomodoro.

This book is an homage to the Italian mantra of savoring the beauty of every day—a philosophy that has been cherished by generations. It's a tale of finding love and self-love in the most unexpected of places, and an intimate portrayal of a year spent embracing the Italian way of life.

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption.

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice, including La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. He died in Ravenna in 1321.

In the nonfiction tradition of John Berendt and Erik Larson, New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston presents a gripping account of crime and punishment in the lush hills surrounding Florence, Italy.

In 2000, Douglas Preston fulfilled a dream to move his family to Italy. Then he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence. Preston, intrigued, meets Italian investigative journalist Mario Spezi to learn more.

This is the true story of their search for—and identification of—the man they believe committed the crimes, and their chilling interview with him. And then, in a strange twist of fate, Preston and Spezi themselves become targets of the police investigation. Preston has his phone tapped, is interrogated, and told to leave the country. Spezi fares worse: he is thrown into Italy's grim Capanne prison, accused of being the Monster of Florence himself. Like one of Preston's thrillers, The Monster of Florence, tells a remarkable and harrowing story involving murder, mutilation, and suicide—and at the center of it, Preston and Spezi, caught in a bizarre prosecutorial vendetta.

Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Ferrante’s four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its protagonists, the fiery and unforgettable Lila, and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflictual friendship. Book one in the series follows Lila and Elena from their first fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence.

Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists.

Ferrante is one of the world’s great storytellers. With My Brilliant Friend she has given her readers an abundant, generous, and masterfully plotted page-turner that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight readers for many generations to come.

Inferno, the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy, is one of the most elusive and challenging works to render into English verse. In this translation, Anthony Esolen tackles the daunting task with finesse, striving for a marriage of sense and sound, poetry and meaning. Esolen's translation captures the poem's line-by-line vigor while remaining faithful to its allegorically and philosophically exacting structure. This rendition of Inferno is designed to be as popular with general readers as it is with teachers and students, reflecting Dante's unyielding insistence on the absence of sentimentality or intellectual compromise—even Hell, as depicted by Dante, is a work of divine art.

Esolen's critical Introduction and endnotes, along with appendices containing Dante’s most important sources—from Virgil to Saint Thomas Aquinas and other Catholic theologians—definitively illuminate the religious universe the poet inhabited, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the spiritual context of Dante's epic journey.

In this immensely powerful, lyrical and skillfully narrated novel, set in southern Italy, nine year-old Michele discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he daren’t tell anyone about it. The hottest summer of the twentieth century. A tiny community of five houses in the middle of wheat fields. While the adults shelter indoors, six children venture out on their bikes across the scorched, deserted countryside.

In the midst of that sea of golden wheat, nine year-old Michele Amitrano discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he daren’t tell anyone about it. To come to terms with it he will have to draw strength from his own imagination and sense of humanity. The reader witnesses a dual story: the one that is seen through Michele's eyes, and the tragedy involving the adults of this isolated hamlet. The result is an immensely powerful, lyrical and skillfully narrated novel, its atmosphere reminiscent of Tom Sawyer, Stephen King's Stand By Me and Italo Calvino's Italian Fairy Tales. This is Ammaniti's third book, but his first to be published in the USA.

Il Virginian era un piroscafo. Negli anni tra le due guerre faceva la spola tra Europa e America, con il suo carico di miliardari, di emigranti e di gente qualsiasi. Dicono che sul Virginian si esibisse ogni sera un pianista straordinario, dalla tecnica strabiliante, capace di suonare una musica mai sentita prima, meravigliosa. Dicono che la sua storia fosse pazzesca, che fosse nato su quella nave e che da lì non fosse mai sceso. Dicono che nessuno sapesse il perché.

Set in the 1860s, Silk weaves a tale of Hervé Joncour, a French silkworm merchant, as he travels to Japan—a country closed to foreigners—to acquire silkworm eggs amidst an epidemic threatening France's silk trade. The journey is not only a commercial venture but also a personal odyssey, leading to an illicit and silent affair with a concubine who has "eyes that are not Oriental."

As Joncour makes his clandestine deals with a local baron, the passion between him and the concubine unfolds through subtle, clandestine messages across his visits. Alessandro Baricco's narrative, as smooth and lustrous as the silk in question, spins a story of love that is both enigmatic and intense, highlighting the complexities of connection and desire.

The Leopard is a story of a decadent and dying aristocracy threatened by the forces of revolution and democracy. Set against the political upheavals of Italy in the 1860s, it focuses on Don Fabrizio, a Sicilian prince of immense sensual appetites, wealth, and great personal magnetism. Around this powerful figure swirls a glittering array of characters: a Bourbon king, liberals and pseudo liberals, peasants and millionaires.

Italo Calvino's extraordinary imagination and intelligence combine here in an enchanting series of stories about the evolution of the universe. He makes his characters out of mathematical formulae and simple cellular structures. They disport themselves among galaxies, experience the solidification of planets, move from aquatic to terrestrial existence, play games with hydrogen atoms, and even have a love life.

During the course of these stories, Calvino toys with continuous creation, the transformation of matter, and the expanding and contracting reaches of space and time. He succeeds in relating complex scientific concepts to the ordinary reactions of common humanity.

William Weaver's excellent translation won a National Book Award in 1969. "Naturally, we were all there," old Qfwfq said, "where else could we have been? Nobody knew then that there could be space. Or time either: what use did we have for time, packed in there like sardines?"