Il Bel Centro, Michelle Damiani
Il Bel Centro, Michelle Damiani
List: $23.99 | Sale: $16.79
Club: $11.99

Il Bel Centro
A Year in the Beautiful Center

Author: Michelle Damiani

Narrator: Nicol Zanzarella

Unabridged: 20 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/20/2018

Synopsis

When Michelle Damiani dreamed of living in Italy, she imagined her family as it was in Virginia—her husband filling every moment with work, her teenage son experimenting with sarcasm, her daughter smiling at the scent of lilacs, her baby-cheeked son methodically clicking Legos together, and herself hovering over the happiness of them all—only surrounded by ancient cobblestone alleys and the sound of ringing Italian.

What she didn't know was how Italy would work to change them all.

About Michelle Damiani

Michelle Damiani is a freelance writer, clinical psychologist, and food lover currently living in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her heart, however, is in Spello, Italy, where she and her family spent a year growing accustomed to being fish out of water, grappling with the hardships of parenting on foreign soil, and ultimately cleaving into the soul of Italian village life. Before that year abroad, Michelle wrote short fiction-one of her stories was awarded first place in the Hook Short Fiction contest, juried by author John Grisham. While in Italy, she used the time that her children were in Italian public schools to write a blog about their experiences. The blog, Il Bel Centro, was awarded the bronze award for best Italian blog by Expatsblog.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Cara on July 01, 2015

Il Bel Centro is at once full of mystery and simplicity. I so enjoyed reading Michelle Damiani's tumbling expedition into the heart of Italy which brought her and her family into the heart of their own evolving lives. For me, the arrangement of days taken from her blog postings lent authenticity to......more

Goodreads review by Atul on July 08, 2015

This is ultimately a book about self-discovery. In our all-too-hectic lives, it is easy to get caught up in dealing with the mundane and not realize what we're taking for granted. How are the systems around us - the people, the organizations, the food, the language - actually a part of our very fabr......more

Goodreads review by Stacey on August 04, 2017

Fascinating read. Great read!! I just loved this book. The writing was spectacular and the way Spello, the people and thus family came alive through these words was just amazing!!......more

Goodreads review by Myles on July 08, 2015

Why do we think ‘travel’ is a magician…one that will transform or conjure up a better, truer more authentic self? Cut loose from the shackles of birthplace, the 'real' us will out, reveal, revel and blossom in this [usually warmer] parallel universe. Perhaps more than any other country, Italy has for......more

Goodreads review by Nell on July 24, 2015

Absolutely fantastic! I've read quite a lot of books of this genre--fish out of water in Europe, I guess you could call it--and Il Bel Centro does what few of them manage: it made me feel as though I were right there, living the incredible year in Spello right along with the Damiani family. Are you i......more

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