Invisible Cities / by Italo Calvino > “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” When you open the book, you can discover that the writer changed the way we read, also discovering what is possible in the balance between poetry and prose. You can discover a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo (Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler). As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear. https://www.amazon.it/Invisible-Cities-Italo-Calvino/dp/0156453800/279-0911581-0997646?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
Across the River and into the Trees / by Ernest Hemingway > A poignant homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, beauty and majesty of Venice. The War is just over. In the fall of 1948, Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years, and his reacquaintance with Venice provided the inspiration for that special novel. Page after page you can know the story of Richard (a war-ravaged American colonel, stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War), and his love for Renata, a young Italian countess. Richard is overwhelmed by the selflessness and freshness of the love she is offering, but the wounds of war have not yet healed. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Across-River-Trees-Arrow-Classic/dp/009990960X
