Book description
Calabria is the toe of the boot that is Italy -- a rugged peninsula where grapevines and fig and olive trees cling to the mountainsides during scorching summers. Calabria is also a seedbed of Italian-American culture; in North America, more people of Italian heritage trace their roots to Calabria than…
Why read it?
1 author picked Stolen Figs as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
When I first read Mark’s book, I was jealous of the access he had to his own Southern Italian family. Over the decades, his father had kept strong bonds with the relatives back in Calabria, and so Mark goes with him on a journey that uncovers family secrets and the history of the region.
His beautifully wrought prose brings the landscape, the food, and its people to vivid life. Though it’s labeled a travelogue, it’s much more: a deeply felt story of family and what binds us together.
From Helene's list on why your family left Southern Italy a century ago.
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A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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