We all know people who love to read about Rome, whether they’re actually in the Eternal City of not. It can be challenging to buy gifts for such experts–those who seem to know everything about Rome but who are always in search of a bit more knowledge.
So, if you’ve got a Rome-antic Reader on your Christmas list (or if you’re looking for a book to enjoy yourself over the holidays), here’s our 2008 list of best books about Rome. Some of these are newly published, others are old classics. And there’s something for readers of every age:
1) Mary Beard & Keith Hopkins, The Colosseum, Harvard University Press, 2005. Over and over we recommend this book to friends, relatives, students, and visitors, and so it earns the #1 place on our list. If you haven’t got a copy yet, make sure someone puts one in your stocking this year. As Robert Harris, author of Pompeii and Imperium said, it’s “a wonderful book, worthy of its subject: horrifying, impressive, blood-soaked, occasionally very funny and always entertaining.”
2) Gillian Riley, The Oxford Companion to Italian Food, Oxford University Press, 2007. Admit it. One of the reasons for visiting Rome (or even for living here) is the food. Settle onto the couch with a glass of wine, open this mega-reference book (at some point you’ll start to smell the compelling scent of bucatini all’amatriciana or some other Italian favorite wafting through your house) and you’ll everything you ever wanted to know about Italian food.
3) Mirslav Sasek, This is Rome, Universe, 2007. This is Rome, first published in 1960 (and now updated), traces the history of Roman civilization to bring the city to life. Sasek navigates Rome’s busy, winding streets to visit such glorious historical landmarks as the statues of Michelangelo, Vatican City, the Pantheon, and the Fontana di Trevi-and to show us the eccentricities of modern Roman life, from its colorful trains, trams, and taxis to its chic espresso bars and pasta houses. (For more about his book, see our blog entry from last year). Great for ages 4-8.
4) Amara Lakhous, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, Europa Editions, 2008. Lakhous’s prize-winning second novel is a social satire and murder mystery concerning an immigrant-filled apartment complex in Rome. After the murder of a man known as Gladiator in the building elevator, each occupant of the Piazza Vittorio apartment building—among these, Parviz Mansoor Samadi, an Iranian chef who detests pizza; Benedetta Esposito, an aging concierge from Naples; Iqbal Amir Allah, a Bangladeshi shopkeeper—gets a chapter to relate the truth as he or she knows it (or wants it known), apparently to the police. The odd man out, and the main suspect, is Amedo, a man believed by his neighbors to be a native Italian. The tenants are by turns outraged, disillusioned, defensive and afraid, and their frequently wild testimony teases out intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot, exposing the power of fear, racial prejudice and cultural misconception to rob a neighborhood of its humanity.
5) Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, Belknap, 2008. In a grand synthesis, one of our most distinguished classicists relates all that we know–and don’t know–about ancient Pompeii, devastated by a flood of lava and volcanic ash from Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Beard splendidly recreates the life and times of Pompeii in a work that is part archeology and part history. She examines the full scope of life, from houses, occupations, government, food and wine to sex, and the baths, recreation and religion…Beard’s tour de force takes the study of ancient history to a new level.
6) William Murray, City of the Soul. A Walk in Rome. Crown, 2003. “Rome is so many things, but most of all, perhaps, a city of ghosts, of memories, of visions, of time remembered and faithfully honored,” writes Murray in this highly evocative, largely personal guide to the Italian capital.
7) David Maraniss, Rome 1960. The Olympics that Changed the World. Simon & Schuster, 2008. The same Games that announced the greatness of icons like Cassius Clay, Wilma Rudolph, and Rafer Johnson, also exposed a growing unrest between East and West, black and white, and male and female. Even the host city of Rome, Maraniss recounts, was “infused with a golden hue…an illuminating that comes with a moment of historical transition, when one era is dying and another is being born.” For more on this book and photos of the 1960 Olympics in Rome, click here.
8) Angela Nickerson, A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome, Roaring Forties Press, 2008. From St. Peter’s Basilica to the Capitoline Hill, this unique resource—part biography, part history, and part travel guide—provides an intimate portrait of the relationship between Michelangelo and the city he restored to artistic greatness.
9) Roberto Pazzi, Conclave, Zoland Books, 2003. A rodent infestation of biblical proportions overcomes the Vatican City at the start of this hilarious, sophisticated novel by renowned Italian poet and novelist Pazzi, just as cardinals from around the world are assembled in an isolated conclave at the Vatican to choose a new pope. While different factions plot to elect their own favorite or political ally, a limousine with Vatican diplomatic plates cruises Rome’s seedy alleyways searching out the solution to the rat problem-the Eternal City’s notorious feral cats. But what will happen when they can no longer be controlled? Pazzi deftly straddles the genres of fantasy and verismo, laying a meticulously researched foundation for a plot with twists and turns as serpentine as those of any Roman catacomb.
10) Anthony Majanlahti, The Families Who Made Rome, Random House UK, 2006. Rome is famous for its buildings and architecture, but just who built its noted and beautiful structures? This distinctive account—part history and part travel guide—explores the families and individuals who built Rome from the ground up. Each of the districts dominated by the fabulously rich families of the Popes—including the Colonna, della Rovere, Farnese, Borghese, Barberini and others—are explored and paired with a vivid account of the family’s history, including their scandals and intrigues as well as their relationships with artists like Bernini and Michelangelo. An itinerary with maps and engravings provides a detailed guide to each family’s monuments. Famous sites such as the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and St. Peter’s Cathedral take on new significance as the history of the Roman nobles who placed their stamp on the city is unveiled.
11) David Hawacock, Peter Riley, and Dr. Opper Thorston, The Pompeii Pop-Up Book, Universe 2007. The Pompeii Pop-Up is a sumptuous, six-spread pop-up book that builds a three-dimensional picture of Pompeian life before the disaster; it examines the events of that fateful day and the resultant destruction; and it shows how the innovative archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli unveiled the hidden city. Pop-ups include a bustling Pompeii street scene, a reproduction of a Roman villa with a cutaway to its interior, Mount Vesuvius in full eruption, and a view into how an excavation is conducted. Booklets, gatefolds, and a pull-out tray of Pompeii collectables and recreations, such as a wearable gladiator mask and a Roman amphitheater allow the reader to enjoy the intriguing aspects of Ancient Roman culture, and Pompeii and its political, commercial, and cultural climate under Roman rule.
12) Janet Pederson, Pino and the Signora’s Pasta, Candlewick, 2005. The cats roaming around Rome have one thing in common–they all love the Signora’s pasta. Each day she brings it, fresh and spicy. But Pino is bored with the pasta. How about some fish? A chop? Some stew? Taking a literal leap, he lands in a cafe, but the waiter shoos him away. He gets a few crumbs at a pizzeria; at a trattoria, he knocks over a bowl of stew that he gobbles before he is pushed out. As Pino wanders through the lonely alleyways, he realizes that, despite all his efforts, he is not full and he is not content. Then he catches the aroma of the Signora’s pasta and winds his way home. Great for Rome lovers ages 4-8.
13) John Bemelmans Marciano, Madeline and the Cats of Rome, Viking Juvenile, 2008. The Paris skies are gray, so Miss Clavel and the twelve little girls are leaving for brighter weather— spring in Rome. Rome has wonderful sights to see and delicious things to eat, but Madeline also finds an unexpected adventure, involving a thief, a chase, and many, many cats. The first all-new Madeline book in close to fifty years combines a lively story with luminous gouache and watercolor illustrations. Beloved Madeline returns, as brave and irrepressible as ever!
14) Elsa Morante, History: A Novel, Zoland Books, 2000 (first published in 1974). History was written nearly thirty years after Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia spent a year in hiding among remote farming villages in the mountains south of Rome. There she witnessed the full impact of World War II and first formed the ambition to write an account of what history – the great political events driven by men of power, wealth, and ambition – does when it reaches the realm of ordinary people struggling for life and bread. The central character in this powerful and unforgiving novel is Ida Mancuso, a schoolteacher whose husband has died and whose feckless teenage son treats the war as his playground. A German soldier on his way to North Africa rapes her, falls in love with her, and leaves her pregnant with a boy whose survival becomes Ida’s passion. Around these two other characters come and go, each caught up by the war which is like a river in flood. We catch glimpses of bombing raids, street crimes, a cattle car from which human cries emerge, an Italian soldier succumbing to frostbite on the Russian front, the dumb endurance of peasants who have lived their whole lives with nothing and now must get by with less than nothing.
15) Steven Saylor, The Triumph of Caesar, St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2008. At the start of bestseller Saylor’s stellar 10th novel in his Roma Sub Rosa series featuring Gordianus the Finder, Gordianus is at first reluctant to accept a commission from Julius Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, to discover which of the general’s many enemies may be plotting her husband’s assassination soon after his victory in the Roman civil war. When Calpurnia reveals that the first man she’d hired for the job, Hieronymous, was murdered, the sleuth agrees to help because Hieronymous was an old friend of his. The suspects in Hieronymous’s death, who include such prominent figures of the period as Cleopatra and Marc Antony, may well be the ones seeking to kill Caesar. Since the action takes place two years before Caesar’s actual death in 44 B.C., there’s little suspense about the outcome, but Saylor ably rises to the challenge. The convincing backdrop of daily life in ancient Rome helps make this compelling whodunit a triumph. To read our interview with Steven Saylor, click here.
16) Tracy Barrett, On Etruscan Time, Henry Holt and Company, 2005. Eleven-year-old Hector would rather spend the summer in Tennessee with his friends, but, as usual, no one listens to him. Instead, with the rest of his family involved in different projects, Hector will travel to Italy with his mother, an ancient-language specialist invited to assist an archaeological dig of an Etruscan village. Hector becomes more enthusiastic once he is allowed to apprentice on the dig, where he unearths a mysterious stone that propels him, through dreams, to Etruscan times. Through terrifying time-warp trips between now and then, he meets and tries to save a young boy from possible execution. Some readers may get bogged down with the time-travel logistics and the sophisticated background history, but Hector’s frustration about being “invisible” to grown-ups will reverberate with most kids, and Barrett’s vivid details, particularly the day-to-day work of archaeologists, will capture readers interested in ancient civilizations. Great for archaeologists in grades 5-8.
