LIT EDIZIONI
Foreign Rights List
Spring 2014
CONTACTS:
Irene Pepiciello, Rights Manager
[email protected]
[email protected]
Chiara Rea, Rights Assistant
[email protected]
Lit Edizioni
Arcana – Castelvecchi – Elliot
Intento – Orme – Ultra
Via Isonzo 34
00198 Roma, Italy
Phone: +39 06 8844749
HIGHLIGHTS
Simona Rondolini
EVERYWHERE, ETERNALLY
Finalist at Calvino Prize 2013 with special
mention from the Jury
Publication Date: May 2014
Pages: 320
World Rights Available
Death, music, love in the story of a troubled family and its long process of reconciliation with life
Laura Paliani spent her whole youth trying to prove that she is on the same level as her parents: his
father Luigi is a world-famous conductor, her mother Olga is an equally famous opera singer. The Paliani
family is deeply complicated, sometimes even weird: they don’t talk very much to each other, music is
always the center of everything, and replaces words. Because of the music, they get closer but they also
take distance from each other.
After an intense series of concerts of Mahler’s symphonies, Luigi falls into a state of deep depression
that leads him to suicide. Wrecked by the loss and exhausted by the continuous conflicts with her
mother, Laura decides to leave home, covering her tracks and starting a new life in another city: a life
where she is no longer “Paliani’s daughter”, a life with no music and no passion, with a monotonous
and alienating job in a rabbit slaughterhouse. But when a telegram announces her the death of her
mother, Laura is forced to deal with everything she left behind: her father’s suicide, the conflicting
relationship with her mother, the unspoken love for doctor B. – a young therapist who tried to help
Laura and Olga right before Luigi’s death. But above all she has to deal with herself and music which –
as she finally gets – can connect separated worlds and show invisible but still true dimensions. Will
music help her finally find out where she really belongs?
«If perfect happiness exists, if is reachable by a human being, he is touching it right now with the tip of
his fingers. It won’t last, but who cares. Eternity is not an endlessly long time, but the endless absence
of time. Even a moment can be eternal, just like this one is. In this beaming happiness, my father lives.
Everywhere, eternally he lives».
Simona Rondolini was born in 1970 in Perugia, where she currently lives. She studied Philosophy. She’s
been always writing, especially short stories. This is her first novel.
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HIGHLIGHTS
Elisa Casseri
HYDRAULIC THEORY OF FAMILIES
Publication Date: September 2014
Pages: 250
World Rights Available
The funny and moving story of a bizarre family and a girl that has to come back in order to move forward
Iris is 30 and she spent the last ten years away from the small town where her family lives and to where
now – with many doubts and burdens – she is coming back. At this point of her life, she doesn’t know
who she really is anymore, the only certain things she knows about herself is what she has lost: a baby
that she didn’t even know to expect, the man she loved, her daily life and the willing to fight for getting it
back. In the hydraulic system of her family, she plays the role of a collection vessel where all the stories
end up, along with emotions and failures, mixed in a fluid that she can’t push back and that sometimes
almost stifles her. So her comeback is the occasion for her family to show up in all its peculiar and
tragicomic complexity: the great grandmother is waiting to die, her brother runs for mayor just for the
opportunity of coming out, her grandmother cooks potatoes and bakes angst, her great grandfather got
killed perhaps because he was a werewolf, her mother can love even if she is not loved, her father
cheats on his wife with affected demagogy, the imaginary aunt dies repeatedly.
Funny, moving, sometimes weird: Elisa Casseri’s debut is an enjoyable surprise that reveals a new and
original literary voice.
«Every family has a bulky burden of stories and advices, beliefs and impositions, traditions and
mutations that make of a bunch of people a cohesive group standing apart from the rest of humanity.
From time to time, it happens that the weight of time has the physical need to flow into a container. In
this particular case, the container was called Iris».
Elisa Casseri was born in Latina in 1984. She graduated in Mechanical Engineering. She published
several short stories on reviews and in 2012 took part in a program for young writers at the Mantua’s
Festivaletteratura. This is her first novel.
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HIGHLIGHTS
Giovanna De Angelis
THE RIFT
Publication Date: January 2014
Pages: 192
Translation Rights with Laura Ceccacci Agency
A blunt narrative of an evil that chokes, but doesn’t succeed in damaging the beauty of the voice that
speaks to us.
Diego De Silva
This is the story of a battle against an illness, but above all against cowardice. From both within and
beyond the hospital in which the story partly takes place, Giovanna de Angelis’ voice drives hard and
sure against diffidence, hypocrisy, fear and emotional clichés.
She reaches to the very heart of things, like one who can only get there if, perhaps, they are willing to
risk everything. Francesca is a young woman with an outwardly peaceful life: she has a husband,
Cosimo, whom she’s been with since university; a job as a translator that she loves; a mother who’s not
around very much but is affectionate in her own way; and friends of both sexes who are very fond of her.
Then one day Diego, a brilliant researcher at the university and the same age as her, enters her world.
Slowly, everything starts to shift: in a confused, flawed and dangerous way, her life changes direction.
Then, as her relationship with her husband falters and Francesca passes her days in a suspended
state, there comes the illness that puts her in hospital and in pain. Suddenly her body becomes
something else, and her story no longer has a future except for one that is revealed through
chemotherapy sessions. And yet it is right then that something does happen: Francesca now has a plan
and she knows that she will survive if she’s able to put it into practice.
In this poetic and moving tale, emotions such as love, betrayal, revenge, madness and fear are skilfully
interwoven with levity, with irony, courage, the hope of tomorrow; feelings that belong to free spirits, like
our protagonist, and like our author.
Giovanna de Angelis was born in Benevento in 1969. She was one of the most talented Italian literary
critics of recent years. She wrote several essays, edited anthologies and worked for many years as an
editor of Italian and foreign fiction. The Rift is her only novel.
In this book that puts the capacity for emotion to the test, sickness removes certainties and uncovers
unknown strengths.
«Corriere della Sera»
A moving, posthumous work by a woman who knew how to tell simultaneously of love and sickness.
«Il Sole 24 Ore»
4
HIGHLIGHTS
Susan Dabbous
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE?
Diary of a Kidnapping in Syria
Preface by Paul Wood
Publication Date: March 2014
Pages: 192
World Rights Available
English Manuscript Available
The shocking memoir of a journalist kidnapped during the Syrian conflict
This book is the diary of Dabbous’ imprisonment, but it is also a tribute to the people of Syria, who have
never given up hope despite the horror that surrounds them. On April 3, 2013, Susan Dabbous, a
Syrian-born journalist, was kidnapped along with three other Italian reporters in the Christian village of
Ghassanieh, Syria by Jabhat al-Nusra, a branch of al-Qaeda. They were captured in front of a desecrated
church where they were shooting a documentary for RAI TV. After being taken to a prison-house,
Dabbous was subsequently separated from her colleagues and moved to a flat with Miriam, the wife of
one of the Jihad, who was to be her new prison warden. It was up to Miriam to see to Dabbous’
“Islamicisation”, and with her, she prayed and listened to speeches given by Osama bin Laden. It was
also with Miriam that Dabbous was made to reflect upon a question asked of her during her
imprisonment, “What is your favorite way to die?” Dabbous’ answer to this question was sincere,
“because when you are a hostage you do not lie. So I spoke to her woman-to-woman, using a language
that was mainly made up of emotions.” After eleven days, they were set free after an agreement was
reached with the Italian secret service. After a brief stay in Italy, Susan set off again for Lebanon, where
she has been living for more than a year. It was during this time in Lebanon that she discovered that her
friend in the village of Atme, Syria had been tortured solely to extract information about her.
Susan Dabbous is an Italian-Syrian journalist who has contributed to several different Italian
newspapers, such as Avvenire. In 2012, along with director Alessio Cremonini, she authored the
screenplay for Border, a film based on the true story of two sisters that escape from Syria. She lives in
Beirut and Jerusalem and has been reporting on the situation in the Middle East since March 2011. Her
June 2011 articles written as a correspondent on the border between Turkey and Syria were the first in
the Italian news media to provide an account of the opposition to the Damascus regime . In August
2012, she reported on the radicalization of the conflict after the arrival of al-Qaeda affiliated Jihad
regimes.
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HIGHLIGHTS
Carla Cohn
MY NINE LIVES
Publication Date: January 2014
Pages 336
World Rights Available
A lucid and passionate memoir
of an Auschwitz survivor
«I always thought that I’ve been living nine lives, like the cat from that old proverb: it doesn’t matter how many cruelties it
suffered, if it survives it keeps its dignity and its grace. Cats can’t be enslaved for a long time»
Born in Berlin, deported to Auschwitz and later “wandering Jew” from Palestine to United States and then to Italy, Carla Cohn
traveled around the world and across the 20th Century: she had to cross the extreme border of pain and self-losing and
eventually she was able to tell her story. Nine lives – like cats – nine chapters of the existence of a woman who had to deal
with the biggest and unspeakable horror of History and with all the ordinary life little horrors generated by ignorance,
indifference and lack of understanding. These are not only memories of a survivor – escaped the gas chamber thanks to a
fortuitous case of mistaken identity – but the story of the painful and brave reconstruction of an identity. Thanks also to her
professional experience as a child psychiatrist, Carla Cohn went through a process of self-analysis and struggled against the
repression of memory and the guilt felt by those who survived the Shoah.
Carla Cohn born in 1927, she grew up in Berlin and in 1942 she has been deported with her family to the Theresienstadt
concentration camp. Later she was moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to Mauthausen. With the liberation, she begins an
odyssey that brought her to Italy, Palestine, USA and again to Italy, where she currently lives. She worked for many years as a
psychiatrist, focused on child trauma therapy.
Nando Tasciotti
MONTECASSINO 1944
Publication Date: January 2014
Pages 328
World Rights Available
Mistakes, lies and provocations:
behind the scenes of diplomacy,
the story of one of the most
controversial events of WWII
Roosevelt said he read about it on an evening newspaper, Churchill refused to talk about it for years. But was the decision of
bombing Montecassino Abbey on February 15th 1944 made exclusively by the allied armies on the field? This book is an
investigation – rich in direct testimonies of survivors and documents from London National Archives, Cambridge Churchill
Archives Centre and Vatican Archives – that not only analyzes the plot of the battle that for five months involved soldiers from
more than twenty nations, but also examines in depth the political-diplomatic scenarios of this event. Why – once the
monastery was destroyed – Hitler rejoiced, Roosevelt lied, Pio XII kept silent and Churchill hid?
Apparently the Prime Minister couldn’t know what was happening on the Gustav Line. From January 26th to February 14th
1944, Churchill exchanged with generals Alexander and Wilson at least ten telegrams regarding the Cassino front and the
activity of the New Zealander corps. The last telegram – perhaps the crucial one – was sent twenty hours before the bombing:
was Churchill aware that the Montecassino attack was imminent? Seventy years after that tragic battle, Nando Tasciotti
discloses news points of view on the event that the Germans called “a crime”, the English “a military necessity” and the
Americans, a few years later, “a tragic mistake”.
Nando Tasciotti is a investigative reporter. He worked for several newspapers and has been special correspondent for «Il
Messaggero» for 25 years, in Italy and abroad. Basing on a direct knowledge of the places and the survivors of the
Montecassino bombing, Tasciotti spent the last few years studying the events, especially from a diplomatic perspective.
6
HIGHLIGHTS
Paolo Leon
STATE AND CAPITALSIM
Publication Date: January 2014
Pages: 292
World Rights Available
The capitalist system has been able to recover after the crack of 2007, but it is still far from overcoming its
consequences. Yet neither the leading economic thought nor the governments have left behind the principles, the
theories and the actions that characterized, for almost thirty years, the period before the crisis. The experts
haven’t explained yet why it is so difficult to abandon these old theories, even in the evidence of their failure. The
transformations in the economic policies recently introduced originate more from the pragmatism than from a
complex thinking.
Paolo Leon – one of the leading contemporary economists of the Keynesian School – deals with the
transformation of capitalism: from the Roosevelt model, entirely aimed at the profit, to the models inclined to
accumulation typical of the conservative reforms such as Reagan’s and Tatcher’s, Leon analyzes the relationship
between capitalism and State in a macroeconomic perspective. His goal – much needed and finally possible after
decades of theoretical blackout – is to read economic actions with a deep and wider vision analyzing their
complexity and their relations, in order to predict also their consequences.
Paolo Leon is Emeritus Professor of Public economics, at University of Rome 3. He has been research student at
Cambridge, under Richard Khan (1959-60), assistant Professor at Rome “La Sapienza” University. He worked as
economist in ENI, the Italian State oil company, the World Bank in Washington and for the Italian Government. Full
Professor since 1968, he taught at the Universities of Bologna, Catania, Venice, Rome “La Sapienza”.
Ruggero Giacomini
THE JUDGE AND THE PRISONER
The detention of Antonio Gramsci
Publication Date: March 2014
Pages: 350
World Rights Available
«Mr. Gramsci, some of your friends surely want to see in you in prison for a long time»: these are the terrible words
of a letter sent from Moscow by Italian communist leader Ruggero Grieco to the chief of the Italian Commust Party
Antonio Gramsci, detained in San Vittore Prison in Milan. It’s Enrico Macis – investigative judge of the fascist
Special Court for State Security – who shows and reads to Gramsci the letter that will raise in him the fear and
suspect that a provocation against him could come directly from the head of his party: After that, journalists and
historians started to denounce the betrayal and to search for someone to blame – often pointing the finger at
Palmiro Togliatti. Around the prisoner, Macis started an infernal machinery of insinuations and lies. But who really
was this magistrate who claimed to be an independent and honest justice professional? What was his role in the
fascist system of power? Was his judgment honest? Giacomini’s historical reconstruction tries to answer to these
questions that have been ignored for a long time: by his researches, largely based on unpublished sources, he
outlines the portrait of a dictatorship dark soul with excellent chameleon skills, the creator of a mechanism of
physical and psychological terror that the regime used to weaken and destroy Gramsci.
Ruggero Giacomini is PhD in History of Political Parties. He published several essays on Italian history of the first
half of the Twentieth Century, especially focusing on the life and the historical and political role of Gramsci.
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HIGHLIGHTS
Sara Bigatti
THE YOGA MONKEY
Happy and Fit with Yoga
Publication Date: June 2014
Pages: 192 (in color)
World Rights Available
The Yoga Monkey teaches how to find happiness and serenity inside yourself getting in great shape
Sara Bigatti is one of the most followed Yoga teachers on the Italian web: right after its launch, her
website “The Yoga Monkey” soon became an important online space for yoga lovers.
With her fresh and joyful method, simple but effective, “The Yoga Monkey” brings a revolution in one of
the most ancient practices in the world, starting from the assumption that Yoga is not just for few
selected people, but can be for everybody and can be practiced also as a joyful path, a healthy
“exercise” that tone muscles up, relax and harmonize both body and mind.
Yoga means union: union of body and mind, muscles and feelings, ligaments and emotions, organs and
thoughts. A union that can really make every aspect of life more intense and positive.
This book is an invitation to find happiness, to reach inner serenity and to improve body shape.
Structured as a real class, with a series of sequences that can be done alone or together, The Yoga
Monkey goes deep into practice and offers advices and solutions to live with more energy and in a good
mood, beautiful and brilliant, to smile again and be more dynamic and – why not! – to get a good sleep.
A simple and useful book to discover the unlimited possibilities of our bodies and minds.
Sara Bigatti is a Yoga Alliance accredited teacher. She approached Vinyasa Yoga thanks to Ellen de
Jonge. She is currently living and teaching in Mexico, where she also organizes training camps and
Karma Yoga groups with free donation in order to make Yoga accessible for everyone.
Her project “The Yoga Monkey” has been very successful both amongst experts and beginners: with a
blog, a website (www.lascimmiayoga.com) and a YouTube channel, “The Yoga Monkey” spreads the
teaching of Vinyasa Yoga mostly thanks to a direct, clear and lively approach.
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HIGHLIGHTS
Marco Deambrogio
WHEN I MET GOD ON A
BYCYCLE
From the Alps to Rome on
the Way of Pilgrims
Marco tells us how he faced the
road that can’t be avoided from
those who are in search of
themselves and who measure
with the perpetual changes of
life.
Nicolai Lilin
Publication date: May 2014
Pages: 192
World Rights Available
He brought humanitarian aids to Afghanistan, rode through the world on his motorbike and walked the Way of St.
James on foot: but all of this wasn’t enough, so he got ready for a new adventure. This time he chose the steel
spokes of a bicycle, the point of view of freedom and silence, the rapid dash merging with the rhythm of nature:
travel as a way to listen to himself, to find a new sense of his dreams. An ideal itinerary for such a trip is the
ancient via Francigena, the holy road that Medieval pilgrims walked heading to Rome to visit the Pope.
Marco decided to hit the road during a boiling summer without any previous training: he climbed dizzy slopes on
his two heels and rode for hours under the sun, waiting for the precious moments of quiet meditation in the
evening. But the trip was also an occasion to meet new people: the generous monks that offered him shelter and
the devoted people intrigued by this lonely traveler who chose to meet God on a bicycle.
Once again, Marco Deambrogio portrays his own experience in a vivid and passionate book that moves us,
touching the deepest part of our souls.
LIVING BY ADVENTURE
Around the World in my Motorbike
Living by Adventure is the diary of a total passion: travel as a way of living. A passion born from the books that
Deambrogio read when he was just a child – Salgari, Stevenson, London – and that pushed him to his first
“getaway”: a fourteen years old boy riding on his scooter through the Po Valley and dreaming to reach Beijing.
But Deambrogio kept chasing his dream even as an adult, when he decided to ride for thousands of miles with
every possible mode of transportation: by sky, by car, on foot, but mostly by motorbike. An outstanding choice that
made him live breathtaking adventures. His stories are a gallery of incredible people, extreme conditions and
adrenaline-loaded adventures: guerrillas and snow storms, corrupted policemen, mysterious sighting and
Japanese tattooers in Tokio’s strip clubs. A journey that has the sense of an illumination.
Publication Date: November 2013 | Pages 192 | World Rights Available
THE THREE WAYS OF LIFE
The Inner Path of a Modern Pilgrim
After travelling around the world on a motorcycle, Marco Deambrogio walked five hundred miles from the
Pyrenees to the Atlantic Ocean, an extraordinary journey towards Faith. As the ancient pilgrims did, he walked
through the impervious routes of the Way of Saint James, on foot. The Way gave him the strength he needed, after
a troubled life, for changing his destiny, and restoring his faith in life. This book is a vivid travel journal and a
confession without filters, which will inspire those who wish to follow his way, metaphorically or practically, and get
on the road.
Publication Date: April 2012 | Pages 192 | World Rights Available | More than 10.000 copies sold
The solitary challenges of Marco Deambrogio are becoming legend – also thanks to the books he wrote. In 2001,
he rode his motorcycle around the world driving for 40.000 miles. The following year, he traveled to Kabul during
the war to send a message for peace, building a hospital for helping the victims of war. He also crossed the
Australian desert, the virgin forests in Africa and went to Beijing through the Silk Road.
9
HIGHLIGHTS
Nicola Longo
THE POLICEMAN
Publication Date: October 2013
Pages: 192
World Rights Available
Six short stories written by Longo and Federico
Fellini that were meant to be pictured in Fellini’s
unrealized movie
Nicola Longo is a poet with a gun
Federico Fellini
When the Maestro and the Policeman met, Nicola Longo was already well known and Federico Fellini
followed his adventures on the newspapers thrilled by his career full of undercover operations, shoot
outs and solved cases. The two got in touch and immediately felt a mutual attraction, and decided to
work together on a project. The first attempt – a movie from Longo’s autobiographical novel The
Butterfly Valley – failed because of contrasts with the producer Renzo Rossellini. But the director
wanted to try again: he knew that Nicola could be the perfect key for decoding the complicated present
of the beginning of Eighties: an anti-rhetoric hero, proud of his role but secretly embittered and
conscious of evil and its undefined borders.
The Policeman is a collection of six stories that Fellini and Longo wrote together in the summer of 1983.
Longo, unflappable, told his adventures with cold, impersonal, hypnotic voice. Fellini listened and took
note, in his mind these stories became the fresque of a world harassed by a blind violence. Episodes of
daily struggle and crime from the underworld with the constant shadow of hidden higher powers: from
this amazing material –cruelly real and extremely visionary at the same time – Fellini wanted to shoot a
movie but his enthusiastic project was suddenly stopped for mysterious reasons: was Longo revealing a
too thorny truth?
This book – which can be read as a crime story or as the memoir of an extraordinary person – collects
the stories that were meant to be pictured in Fellini’s unrealized movie.
Nicola Longo joined the national police force when he was only seventeen. He practiced boxing and
freestyle wrestling at competitive level. In 1970 he was moved to the Flying Squad and later he worked
for the American DEA in the biggest anti-drug operation of the Seventies. His name became popular on
the press – he was called the Italian 007 or Serpico – and many Italian crime movies shot in those
years were inspired by his life.
After becoming chief, Longo quit the police in 2004 and started to teach Investigation Techniques at
University La Sapienza in Rome. He currently manages an Investigative Agency.
10
FICTION
Massimo Bisotti
BLUE MOON
The Opposite Way of Dreams
Pubblication Date: March 2013
Pages 192
World Rights Available
«I think love has a breaking point and once you get through it you can’t go back. It’s that very moment
when you get out of your rational clothes and you jump into the sea, forgiving to put on the heart
preserver even if you can’t swim. And perhaps that moment is the most precious recklessness of your
life.»
One night, after a party, Meg meets George and immediately feels that something important is
happening, as if George unlocked a room in her heart that has always been closed. Everything is so
overwhelming and beautiful that it takes a while for Meg to realize an incredible truth: George is with
her only in dreams, he is a dream himself, a lucid dream, so vivid that it becomes a second reality.
Meg desires to live only in this parallel world and she passes all her days waiting for the moment she
will fall asleep and meet her true Love. But things are not so simple, and the vision, day after day, night
after night, begins to fade into something confused until one day George tells her about a book: Blue
Moon by Damien Sinclair. A book which – as Meg soon discovers – really exists and whose author fell
into a coma right after publishing it. Meg doesn’t hesitate and flies to find him. Will the girl who wants to
live in dreams wake up the man who sent her such a powerful and dreamy love messenger? Will
dreams go backwards, in the opposite way?
Blue Moon was first published in spring 2012 by a small publisher and, thanks to an amazing word of
mouth, it has been reprinted seven times, selling much more than 15.000 copies. We had good reason
to think this was just the beginning of a bigger event, that’s why we decided to republish it in our imprint
ULTRA: sales continue to grow, everyday on Facebook and Twitter thousands of users post quotes and
passages from the book. Blue Moon is a growing cult.
Massimo Bisotti was born in Rome, where he currently lives. He studied Literature and piano and has a
deep interest in psychologies. When he writes, he hopes that words will heal his wounds and turn them
into scars.
More than 40.000 copies sold all thoroughly
11
FICTION
Donatella Di Pietrantonio
MY MOTHER IS A RIVER
Publication date: January 2011
Pages: 200
World Rights Available
An amazing debut, marking the discovery of a new writer, with a unique style.
A poetical tale of a “love, soon to be wrong” between mother and daughter.
One of the most powerful debuts of the last few
years. Amazing
«La Repubblica»
A clean, sharp and strong voice
«Corriere della Sera»
Esperia, an old woman, is struggling with the first signs of a disease which is taking her memories away, along
with the very meaning of life. It’s time her daughter took care of her, and helped her telling her story, their story.
So the journey begins. Small and big events are recounted: Esperia’s birth, the story of her parents - a veteran of
the First World War who turned himself into a Communist and his wife, a peasant, sleek and elegant
notwithstanding the hardness of the country life. The narration starts in the Forties and ends in the present, and
it’s settled in Abruzzo, a harsh region but full of light, which emerges as a mythological and distant land. Day by
day, we meet the members of the family, the inhabitants of the small village where people still live without
electricity or running water, people who belong to their arid region so much that they suffer once they’re far from
home. A distant school or a job in the city are destinations of a journey in which the only possible salvation is going
back.Sweet and cruel memories, full of life and truth, that bring to life the story of a relationship between mother
and daughter and, at the same time, portrays a country which is distant in time, but still very tangled into our
roots.
Donatella Di Pietrantonio was born in a small village in the Abruzzo region, very similar to the places she writes
about. She started writing tales and poems when she was 9 years old.
More than 20.000 copies sold
Tropea Award winner for 2011
Rights sold: Germany (Antje Kunstmann)
BELLA MIA
Publication Date: February 2014
Pages: 192
Translation Rights with Kylee Doust Literary Agency
The story of a woman who – after the tragic death of her twin sister in the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake – has to take
care of her nephew, a silent and surly teenager. A poetic and powerful novel about love, loss and the strength of
rebuilding something after you’ve lost almost everything.
Bella mia – Donatella Di PIetrantonio’s second novel – is not just the portrait of a troubled family, but also the
story of a town and its people trying hard to overcome one of the most tragic events of the recent Italian past.
12
FICTION
Marilù Oliva
LA GUERRERA SERIES
Salsa, murder and Santeria mingle in a
funny, original, impossible to put down crime series
With this beautiful series, la Guerrera enters the Hall
of Fame of Italian noir.
Massimo Carlotto
¡TÚ LA PAGARÁS! |Publication date: June 2010 | Pages: 288
FUEGO | Publication date: June 2011 | Pages: 256
MALASUERTE |Publication date: September 2012 | Pages: 256
The Salsa scene in Bologna is shattered by a series of ferocious murders: La Guerrera – a young and impulsive girl
with a passion for Dante and for trouble – get involved in the investigation without knowing that she will have to
deal with cruel killers and very dangerous situations. But handsome inspector Gabriele Basilica will be at her
side… Music, homicides and intrigues in a page-turner series of crime novels.
Marilù Oliva lives in Bologna. She writes for literary magazines and websites. Hers is one of the most interesting
new voices of Italian crime fiction.
Pierpaolo Vettori
THE SISTERS
Publication date: January 2012
Pages: 192
World Rights Available
The corrupted Italy of
Tangentopoli narrated by Alice
in Wonderland:
will innocence survive in such a
crooked world?
Finalist in the 2011 edition of
Premio Calvino
An ambitious debut, rich in literary references, with a fresh style.
«TTL – La Stampa»
Between dream and reality, a dark fable and a psychological story, in a continuous metaphor of life.
«la Repubblica»
Veronica is a very special girl. She talks to dead writers which haunt the private library in her house, eats apples
with cloves and feels she’s the only one who can protect her sister Cecilia from worldly or unworldly dangers. Her
wealthy family built its fortune on the secret ingredient of their jam, a product famous all over the world. But times
are changing for them as well, and failure is casting a shadow on their family business, while the first Tangentopoli
scandals start appearing in the newspapers. Help could come from a shady character, an ambiguous doctor who’s
promising the family a way out, but somebody will pay the price of redemption with their death.Day by day in her
journal, Veronica writes about memories, visions, images, along with sudden changes that subvert the family’s
everyday life, while speculators struggle to get their share of the Soffici family’s estate. Veronica needs to organize
her resistance and start playing a cruel game with the world. Poetic and fascinating, this novel is a cry of war in
defense of innocence against the barbarity of soul corruption.
Pierpaolo Vettori was born in a small town near Turin in 1967. He worked as a music critic and fought against his
demons. Some of them were caught and turned into stories.
13
FICTION
Andrea Giovene
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
GIULIANO DI SANSEVERO
With a preface by Emanuele Trevi
Publication date: May 2012 | Pages: 960
English manuscript available
World Rights Available
It's a strange and memorable book, studied, mannered, yet oddly tender and humane.
«The Observer»
The story is settled in different places in Europe, between 1903 and 1957. Alongside the portrait of those decisive fifty years in
history, the author describes a process of psychological, human and cultural maturation of the main character which, in
disagreement with his family, leaves it in order to find a way to live his life in harmony with himself. Five volumes, each with a
life of its own and readable separately, comprise this ambitious project, with a structure resembling those of the great novels
from the XIX century, told in a unique style which contributed to creating a literary success that spread all over Europe.
In 1965, Andrea Giovene printed a thousand copies of the second book of The Autobiography at his expense. One of those
copies got on the desk of Finnish writer Edvard Gummerus, who obtained a translation rights agreement for Giovene’s books in
the four Scandinavian languages, and promoted the author’s name for the Nobel prize. The raising interest got to Italy, and
Rizzoli decided to publish the whole saga of Sansevero. The Italian edition was soon followed by foreign editions in Spain,
France and Germany.
Andrea Giovene was born in Naples in 1904 of a noble family, a cosmopolite, he left home as a young man travelling around
the world and published two novels before joining the army and being sent to Greece during World War II. After spending many
years in concentration camps in Poland and Germany, he returned to Italy to work in a post-war commission for the Italian
Government and cooperated with «Il Mattino» newspaper as vice-director. He died in 1995.
Enrico Pea
THE BOOK OF MOSCARDINO
Publication date: September 2008 | Pages: 448
English manuscript available
World Rights Available
The time has come to announce that Italy has a
writer, and it’s ages since I confirmed that any
country has one!
Ezra Pound
After more than half a century, Pea’s work not only has lost none of its own originality and strength, but reread today it takes on
even more of its absolute value, timeless and above the cultural trends of the moment and of the classics. Despite this, or
perhaps precisely because of its “peculiarity”, the name Enrico Pea has now been totally forgotten. The Book of Moscardino
comprising four short novels whose stories are interconnected – Moscardino, translated into English by Ezra Pound, The
Saintly Face, Magometto and The Servant of the Devil – was published in 1944 by Garzanti. After being reprinted by Einaudi at
the end of the seventies at the request of Italo Calvino (though, without Magometto), it has finally been reintroduced here in its
original form. The Book of Moscardino is titled after the nickname of its young protagonist and tells – through poetic
autobiography, mythico-fantastic twists and extraordinary narrative – the story of his family and relationship with his legendary
grandfather, who led a “wasted life” like “wandering from dream to dream in different countries”. Enrico Pea’s greatness and
singularity lie in this character, suspended between story, mythology and autobiography. Pea is considered one of the greatest
Italian writers of the twentieth century, loved by Eugenio Montale, Manlio Cancogni and Carlo Carrà, and of whom Giuseppe
Ungaretti wrote: “Some moments will surprise you for their density, propriety, violence, their azure infinity, for a humanity
etched out by a word still moist with earth – and shiny with rust – like a blade of grass springing up to laugh in the sun, a
beautiful morning: like only Giotto and who knows who else in the world knew how to do”.
Enrico Pea was born in Seravezza, in the province of Lucca, in 1881. When he was fifteen years old, he left home to be a
shepherd, then a deck boy and finally emigrated to Egypt. Self-taught, writing for him was a revelation. Ungaretti encouraged
him and pushed him to write, contributing to the publication of Fole in 1910, his first work. Though, it was Giacomo Puccini
who facilitated the real discovery of Pea by recommending him to the Treves Publisher Brothers, which, upon his insistence,
determined the publication of Moscardino in 1922. In 1914, Pea returned to Italy and settled in Viareggio, where for a long
time he was a theatre impresario. He passed away in 1958.
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Renato Ghiotto
THE SLAVE
Publication Date: May 2013
Pages: 320
World Rights Available
Timeless
«Il Foglio»
An intriguing novel about an ambiguous relationship with sadomasochistic shadows between two women
Margaret is a rich and bored movie star; Silvia is a wellborn girl with an excellent education which decide to work as lady-inwaiting by the famous actress. Since the very beginning, a subtle dynamic of domination and submission rises between the two
women and the author describes, with extraordinary psychological intensity, how their relationship changes day by day: Silvia
begins as a servant and ends up as a slave, while she develops feelings of friendship, sexual attraction and rivalry towards the
mistress. Men stay in the background as mere instruments of power and as a presence in the erotic fantasies of the two
ladies, who explore every aspect – even the most ancestral – of femininity, dependence, love, trust and abandon.
First published by Rizzoli in 1967, this extraordinary novel had a big success in Italy; shortlisted for the Premio Strega, it was
translated into seven languages and turned into a movie by the great director Pasquale Festa Campanile.
RENATO GHIOTTO
Born in Montecchio Maggiore (Vicenza) in 1923, he started to work very young as a journalist for the newspaper “Il Veneto”. In
1943 he had to take refuge in Switzerland where he worked in the refugee camps. Back home, in 1945 he became director of
“Il Veneto”, but in 1950 he quitted and moved to Argentina, where he had the chance to meet Jorge Luis Borges.
Back in Italy in 1953, he worked in advertising and journalism. In 1967 he published his first novel: The Slave. He wrote other
three novels, many short stories, essays on cinema and art. He died near Vicenza in 1986.
Silvano Ceccherini
THE TRANSFER
With a foreword by Filippo Bologna
Publication Date: June 2013
Pages: 240
World Rights Available
A real wonder.
Antonio D’Orrico «Corriere della Sera»
Called “the Italian Jean Genet” for their similar life experience, Silvano Ceccherini began his writing career in prison, serving a
twenty year sentence. His first novel, The Transfer, was published by Feltrinelli in 1963 – during his last months of reclusion –
and immediately earned the attention and praise of both critics and writers such as Carlo Cassola and Giorgio Bassani.
The story is apparently simple: the transfer of a detainee from a prison to another. And yet, the power and the depth of
Ceccherini’s language open a door to a world that free people mostly ignore: through the eyes, the thoughts and the feelings of
a prisoner, we can see that such things as a landscape, a running girl, a family waiting for a train, a smile from a kind officer
are experiences much more intense that we can imagine.
SILVANO CECCHERINI
Born in Livorno in 1915, Ceccherini began a life of small thefts and juvenile delinquency at an early age. Stevedore, anarchic,
tramp, robber, from 1934 to 1939 he served in the French foreign legion (later he described this experience in the novel
Stones on Every Street, published by Rizzoli in 1968) and after the war he was convicted to twenty years of prison for illicit
traffic and robbery. He spent most of his conviction in the maximum high-security prison of Porto Azzurro. He died as a free
man in his hometown in 1974. Among his works, there are The Mail Lady (1964), After the Anger (1965), The Mirror In the
Elevator (1967) and God’s Adventurer (1971).
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BACKLIST
Laura Mühlbauer Strong as the Storm | Pubblication Date: April 2013 | Pages 160
The destiny of three sisters crossing the fate of an entire population in the first half of the 20th Century. A
remarkable debut with an impressive style.
Pulsatilla The Ballad of Dreid Prunes | Pubblication Date: June 2008 | Pages 264 |Rights sold to France (Au
diable Vauvert) and Germany (Graf Verlag) | More than 100.000 copies sold
This book isn’t just a good read or simply the autobiography of a twenty-year-old Italian girl, it’s a practical guide to
all of life’s more ambiguous aspects, from hairstyles to the consultation of the I Ching. This book will bring tears to
your eyes.
Margherita Giacobino Out of the ordinary | Publication Date: June 2010 | Pages: 256
Dolores and Debora have never met. But when they’re both twenty their fates mingle. Will they reach happiness,
or disaster?
Luca Di Persio Moment Zero | Publication Date: June 2011 | Pages: 256
A car accident which seems a tragic fatality, a secret organization capable of enacting the death for their rich and
powerful clients, givingthem a new identity and a new face: Paolo Assi, a police officer and night-time killer, and
Francesco Gualtieri, scientific researcher, will have to face those two apparently unlinked issues.
Gianni Miraglia Die Milan, Die! |Publication Date: March 2011 | Pages: 256
Violent, harsh, apocalyptic, Die Milan, die! Is an extraordinary and true to life portrait of what Italy could become in
a few years, told by one of the most original and nonconformist writers of our time.
Jacob Popper Ereticus. Galileo’s Last Truth | Publication Date: January 2011 | Pages: 282
A precise and detailed reconstruction of the struggle of men who raise against the fierce laws of Catholic trials.
Maurizio Blatto Backdoor | Publication Date: November 2010 | Pages: 224
Backdoor, Turin: we’re open. To what? Everything, more or less. And everybody. This is the story of our clients,
even the most improbable, the ones you wouldn’t believe they’re real. But they are, and they’re here, in our
legendary record shop. This is a place which is so true and unbelievable that is more pop than a Beach Boys
chorus.
Barbara Alberti Gospel According to Mary | Publication Date: October 2007 | Pages: 156 | English manuscript
available
Charming and lyrical, this is not the story of the wise and silent woman portrayed by the gospels, but of an
inquisitive girl who wants to weave her destiny on her own.
Manlio Cancogni Talk to Me, Tell Me Something | Publication Date: July 2010 | Pages 192 | World rights
available
First published in 1962, it is an incredibly modern, merciless and aching story about the deepest meaning of love
and relationships, a brilliant and sad parable of married life and the search for happiness.
Sacha Naspini Our Absence | Publication Date: April 2012 | Pages: 192 | World rights available
In a unique style, Sacha Naspini depicts the controversial and intense feelings of youth, the sudden coming of
age, the invincible power of hope and love. Or merely, the desire to find a place to call home.
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Gianni Bozzacchi
ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE QUEEN AND I
Brilliant, sensitive, Gianni always catches your soul
Elizabeth Taylor
Publication date: October 2013
Pages: 160 with b/w photographs
World Rights Available
English Manuscript Available
I truly enjoyed this book by Gianni Bozzacchi about his
friend Elizabeth. In this collection of photos you feel her
private thoughts, her love, her sadness often near the
surface, and that survivor spirit, a rare quality in such an
exposed and difficult life.
Jacqueline Bisset
A stunning collection of intimate portraits. If you’ve ever
wondered why the world loves this woman, Bozzacchi's
book will answer your question.
Roy Scheider
Elizabeth Taylor: The Queen and I is a remarkable collection of Gianni Bozzacchi’s photographs of the Diva, most of them
previously unpublished, capturing her as a film star, a woman, and a personal friend. It was 1965 when Bozzacchi, an
impetuous twenty-two-year-old, was given the chance of a lifetime. The streetwise kid from Rome was sent to Africa to work as
a special photographer on the set of The Comedians, a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Alec Guinness, and
Peter Ustinov. As the film developed, Taylor offered Bozzacchi a job as her personal photographer.
Elizabeth Taylor was the world’s most famous woman at the time and undoubtedly the most glamorous. Her marriage to
Richard Burton claimed international attention, and together they were the quintessential jet-set couple. Bozzacchi was to work
with Taylor and Burton for the next eleven years. They opened the door to their world for him, and his own talent and artistic
style led him to an extraordinary success. Suddenly, everybody was looking for him: movie and fashion professionals,
celebrities, political figures, and the merely famous. Bozzacchi was awarded the honor of International Photographer of the
Year three times and became a celebrity himself, the subject of magazine layouts and television interviews.
EXPOSED MEMORIES
An extraordinary portrait of showbiz in the Sixties and
Seventies, packed with brilliant photographs, funny stories
and fascinating anecdotes. A tale about an extraordinary
man and his work. I’m sure everybody will love this
marvelous book, as much as I did. Gianni, I love you!
Elizabeth Taylor
Publication date: October 2013
Pages: 320 with b/w photographs
World Rights Available
English Manuscript Available
Gianni Bozzacchi grew up in the poor and devastated Rome after the end of WWII, feeling restless and keen to adventure: his
bold spirit brought him far away from home, to Hollywood, to the mansions of the kings and queens of the star system, to the
pages of the most glamorous magazines. Close friend and personal photographer of Elizabeth Taylor, he became the eye that
showed the world the life of the international jet set in the Sixties and Seventies. His artistic path has been full of chances and
sudden turns: among others, the tragic crash that stopped his career as a racing driver and the movie set in Africa where he
begun to photograph Elizabeth Taylor, changing his life forever. And finally, at the peak of his career, the sudden and
irreversible decision to quit photography for good and start something new getting his life back.
Gianni Bozzacchi didn’t just portray an era: he embodied it as an artist – able to find the middle path between glamour and
real feelings –, as a young man, fascinating and adventurous, capable of getting through doubts and fears, and as a playboy,
the typical figure of the jet set in those years. A life that has some of the features of a fairy tale: the call that stays unheard
before being received, the frequent coincidences, the figure of the father, mentor and conscience, the entrance in the magic
world of celebrity, death and rebirth, love and courage, success and sacrifice.
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Laura Scarpa
HUGO PRATT – THE LOST LESSONS
Introduction by Vincenzo Mollica
Preface by Ferruccio Giromini
Publication date: October 2012
Pages: 226 – illustrated
World Rights Available
Pratt’s unpublished lessons from his teaching period at the Escuela Panamericana de Arte in the Fifties.
A comics handbook by an excellent teacher: Hugo Pratt. Thanks to the recent recovery of the lecture notes from
the Escuela Panamericana De Arte, where Pratt taught at the beginning of the Fifties, it was possible to retrace the
teaching experience of one of the greatest cartoonist of all times.
Next to the didactic iconographic material, we find memories of Pratt’s colleagues, students which have ecome
famous cartoonists and great authors inspired by his work: Ongaro, Pavone, Fenzo, Muñoz, Fuga, Vianello,
Manara, Stano and Bacilieri, which all provided unpublished material.
This book evidences methods and tools, inspirations and experiences lived by Pratt and it reveals also his
relations with book industry, his ethic and philosophy of the work, the importance of an artist which, during fifty
years of activity, revolutionized the history of comics.
Laura Scarpa (Venice, 1957) is a cartoonist, editor and comics teacher. She met Hugo Pratt in 1972 in Venice,
where he gave her encouragement about her first works.
She published stories for children and adults in many magazines and revues and, as illustrator, she worked with
many publishers. She created and directed «Animals», one of the leading Italian comics reviews.
She has been teaching comics for twenty years and in 2001 she founded the specialized review «Comics School».
Her last illustrated publication is Coffee for Breakfast (Caffè a colazione, from the tumblelog with the same name
http://caffeacolazione.tumblr.com/).
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Sabina de Gregori
and Christian Guémy
C215. A STENCIL MASTER
Publication date: April 2013
Pages: 220
World Rights Available
English Manuscript Available
An exhaustive interview with C215: everything
you need to understand the work of one of the
most influent street artists of the moment.
Giuseppe Culicchia, «La Stampa»
Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Rome, Sao Paulo, Jerusalem, Los Angeles are just some of the cities where Christian
Guémy – a.k.a. C215 – have left his painted tracks.
C215 is one of the most respected street artist in the world, alongside with Banksy and Obey. He frequently
cooperates with worldwide galleries and his works are sold by the most influential auction houses.
On the street art scene for over 20 years, he became an artistic reference thanks to his mastery of the stencil
technique applied to portraits. His favorite subjects are common people, kids, women, immigrants, homeless, all
portrayed in natural poses and seized in their most intimate and personal moments. Vitry-sur-Seine – the town in
the suburbs of Paris where he lives – is an open sky museum where his portraits surprise people passing by.
Those vibrant and pensive faces seem to dig into human identity giving dignity even to the most decadent
suburban landscapes. Somewhere his precise and unique style traces an anatomy of the pain, while elsewhere he
paints lightness and joy of living with his skilful and original use of the color.
This book is the outcome of the close collaboration between the artist and Sabina de Gregori and is, at the same
time, C215’s official biography and the complete catalogue of his work.
SABINA DE GREGORI
Born in Geneve in 1982, she lives and works in Rome. A degree in Fine Arts, de Gregori studies contemporary art
forms and street art. C215 is her third book after Banksy. The Art Vandal (Castelvecchi, 2010) and Shepard Fairey
a.k.a. Obey (Castelvecchi, 2011).
CHRISTIAN GUÉMY
Born in Bondy (Île-de-France) in 1973, he lives in Vitry-Sur-Seine and works all over the world.
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Sabina de Gregori
SHEPARD FAIREY A.K.A. OBEY
Life and Works of the King of Poster Art
Publication Date: November 2011
Pages: 128
World Rights Available
An exhaustive and richly illustrated biography of
an American dream of the Zeros.
«la Repubblica»
After a triumphant voting campaign, Barack Obama, Neo-President of the USA, took some time to write a letter to
Mr. Shepard Fairey, a.k.a. Obey, and thank him for drawing his poster which, according to many observers,
represented the real key to the President’s success. The poster, a red and blue portrait of Obama with the word
Hope written below, was soon seen all over the world, and became an icon as famous as Andy Warhol’s Marilyn.
Obey was born in South Carolina in 1970, and became famous by covering the American cities with stickers and
posters. Obey ’s politic s took shape focusing on crucial issues such as propaganda and social control and
operates by the rules of guerrilla marketing. He also committed himself to pacifist causes, producing many posters
against the Iraqi war. With a recognizable graphic style, Obey comments contemporary events, and acts as a
spokesperson which with an artistic approach becomes a social critic of our globalised society.
BANKSY
The Art Vandal
Publication Date: October 2010
Pages: 256
World Rights Available
The first biography - precise and engaging - on
the art terrorist.
«Il Sole 24 Ore»
More than 20.000 copies sold
His identity is unknown. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with
graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been
featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti
directly himself; but art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the
problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Fans look for his stencils into the streets. Galleries
opened their doors to his works. This is the Banksy effect. Despite receiving enormous media attention Banksy’s
real identity remains the cause of much debate. De Gregori’s book is a journey into his world, from the walls he
stencilled to the galleries in which he left his trademark, a journey which soon becomes an analysis of Britain’s
new culture and society.
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Carlo B0
WHAT IF ST. FRANCIS
CAME BACK?
Publication Date: June 2013
Pages 64
World Rights Available
What would we do if Francis of
Assisi knocked at our door today
with his message of sacrifice?
The sharp radicality of this tiny
book is really striking.
«Il sole 24 ore»
What would we do if Francis of Assisi knocked at our door today? Starting with this question, Carlo Bo reflects on the meaning
of the Franciscan message, now outdated but still so necessary. Francis – the rich who repudiates his wealth and wants to feel
on his own skin the pain of life and the beauty of creation committing himself totally to faith - is for Bo the personification of
the choice to renounce to easy comforts, possess and vain rebellion. Our society answers to Francis and Jesus with a “no” but
still keeps on worshipping meaningless and empty simulacrums, a clear sign of deep crisis. But Bo thinks that we can move on
with a brand new start because “Christian religion is still the most beautiful temptation, the purest idea of men”. In those
pages – written at the beginning of the Eighties – Bo expresses his sharp vision of the present as a militant critic – certain that
culture and literature must be “a guide and not a shelter” – and as a believer who clearly perceives the crisis of religion in
contrast with modernity.
Carlo Bo was one of the most important and influent Italian intellectuals. Literary critic and academic, in 1968 he founded
IULM (Free University of Languages and Communication) in Milan. From 1947 to 2001 he has been the dean of the University
of Urbino. In 1984 he was named Senator for Life of the Italian Republic. He wrote many essays, among the other we recall
Literature as life (1938), Essays on French literature (1940), Mallarmé (1945), Prayer and Poetry (1992).
Vattimo, Sequeri,
Ruggeri
QUESTIONS ON
CHRISTIANITY
What we shall expect from the
evangelical message
Publication Date: June 2013
Pages 180
World Rights Available
What are the meaning and the destiny of Christianity in the cultural and spiritual context of our times? In this book, two
thinkers face the contemporary attitude to religion and, in particular, the role of both the evangelical message and the Church
in our postmodern society. Exhorted by journalist Giovanni Ruggeri, Gianni Vattimo and Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri find a
common language and a common territory to share their thoughts about Faith. Is Church the medium of Christ’s message or it
is an authoritarian and despotic institution which casts a shadow on the figure of Jesus? How does a Christian act in relation
with ethics, culture, art? A thorough overview of themes and perspectives that makes us reflect on the meaning and the
possibilities of Christian Faith, overcoming empty repetitions of catechism or reductive morals.
Gianni Vattimo (Turin, 1936) is one of the most important Italian philosophers. He studied philosophy under Luigi Pareyson,
Karl Löwith and Hans- Georg Gadamer. For over forty years he taught Theoretical Philosophy in Turin and he has been visiting
professor at a number of American Universities. He is author of many essays on German philosophy, in particular on Nietzsche
and Heidegger, all translated into several languages.
Pierangelo Sequeri (Milan, 1944), writer and musician, is among the most important Italian theologists. He wrote several
essays on theological issues, with particular attention to the contamination between Theology, Philosophy, Psychology and
Aesthetics.
Giovanni Ruggeri (Calcinelli, 1962), journalist, graduated in Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University of
Rome, studies the relations between Christianity and Modernity, between poetry, philosophy and religion.
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Pontesilli, Di Battista,
Turco
PARADISE IOR
Preface by Gianluigi
Nuzzi
Publication date: April 2013
Pages: 300
World Rights Available
Italy and some parts of Europe
are on the edge of an economic
disaster. The united currency is
swaying while the plungers get
even richer. Who is responsible
for the crisis? Could getting
back to the old currencies be
the solution to avoid the abyss?
At the dawn of the new millennium, European economic ambitions sounded like a revolution. Ten years ago, Euro was
introduced with the aim of uniting the different national currencies of Eurozone members and coordinating the monetary
policies of the EU countries. The goal of the new currency was also to guarantee development and occupation and to protect
the economies of the member states from financial speculation. But after a decade the countries which have adopted Euro
show a delay in the economic growth compared to the ones which kept national monetary sovereignty. Bruno Amoroso
analyzes causes and responsibilities of this failure. A crisis which is just the last of a series begun in the middle of the 1980s,
after Reagan’s deregulation, and continued with Clinton, Bush and Obama. Euro hanging in the balance is an extremely clear
text where the author, instead of indulge into the current euroscepticism, proposes plausible solutions which should be
adopted by Governments as soon as possible.
Angela Camuso
NO MERCY
The true story of the
Banda della Magliana from
1977 until today
Publication date: August 2012
Pages: 270
World Rights Available
A necessary book.
Enrico Mentana, chief of the
News Broadcasting of Italian
television channel La7
The most complete book about the history of the Banda della Magliana. A best seller updated with the latest unsettling events
about the most violent criminal organization in Rome. Journalist Angela Camuso examined hundreds of police reports and files,
letting the protagonists speak. The criminals, miserable children of poverty, tell us a dreadful and captivating sequence of
murders, crimes and mysteries which begun at the end of the troubled Seventies and are still going on.
The Magliana gang achieved control of the heroin market in Rome, removing all competitors and keeping the power thanks to
numerous connections with the highest powers of the State and Church, with Cosa Nostra and Camorra, with neo-fascist
terrorism, secret services and corrupt politicians, magistracy and the police. And when everyone thought the Banda was totally
dissolved, new tragic events linked to the old boss made clear that their power hasn’t died out yet. Antonio Mancini – former
chief of the gang – wrote that this book is «the only one that tells the truth and retrace facts without adding anything. The
whole story is here». No mercy is a powerfully written narration which shocks with the rough violence of the truth.
Angela Camuso is an investigative journalist specialized in crime and law. She writes for several newspapers and magazines
such as «l’Unità», «l’Espresso», «Il Venerdì di Repubblica».
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Valeria Fraschetti
WALKING IN SAREE
India Isn’t a Country for Women Yet
A journey among the protagonists of a revolution
portrayed with vivid colors.
«la Repubblica»
Publication Date: October 2011
Pages:224
World Rights Available
Being a woman in India means living among prejudices and harassment. In spite of appearances, politicians in saree and
provoking actresses, India is a deeply rooted patriarchal country. Recently drew up statistics confirm this: girls are less worthy
of being fed or cured than boys, and female child mortality in some Indian regions is 6% higher than male mortality. Still,
travelling in the country looking for stories of female mishaps, you can discover that Indian women, maybe because of this
intimate knowledge of suffering, know how to tolerate tyranny and being overwhelmed. Journalist Valeria Fraschetti narrates a
two year journey of research to discover a fascinating country still full of contradictions in which women are still destined to pay
the price of social inequality.
Valeria Fraschetti was born in 1980. Journalist, she lived in India for two years and cooperated with «La Stampa» and «Il
Riformista». Now she writes for «la Repubblica». This is her first book.
Leonetta Bentivoglio
MY OWN VERDI
Fifteen operas viewed by the greatest
performers of our time
A prismatic and still coherent portrait of the
composer
«la Repubblica»
Pubblication Date: April 2013
232 pages
World Rights Available
Fifteen operas, twenty interviews: twenty conversation with some of the greatest opera performers of our time – music
directors, singers, directors – which were asked to confront themselves with the great Italian Maestro.
Loretta Bentivoglio – music and theatre critic writing for «la Repubblica» – asked each of them to talk about their favorite
Verdi’s opera, the one that involved them the most, professionally and emotionally. Talking about Verdi, they bring up
memories and thoughts, explaining their own vision of theatre, music, singing. My own Verdi is a perfect introduction to the
most important melodramas of the composer – each interview is followed by an annotation about the opera describing
themes, style and execution – but is also an occasion to reflect on the modernity of this genre, on its diffusion and on the latest
innovation of the mise-en-scene. The volume is enriched by a gallery of scene pictures and portraits of the interviewed and by
a thorough appendix about Giuseppe Verdi’s work.
Interviews with: Leo Nucci (Nabucco); Werner Herzog (I due foscari); Renato Bruson (Macbeth); Leyla Gencer (Macbeth);
Jonathan Miller (Rigoletto); Luca Ronconi (Il Trovatore); Liliana Cavani (La traviata); Zubin Mehta(La traviata); Gianandrea
Noseda (I vespri siciliani); Luciano Pavarotti (Un ballo in maschera); Giuseppe Sinopoli (La forza del destino); Myung-Whun
Chung (Don Carlo); Riccardo Chailly (Aida); Franco Zeffirelli (Aida); Antonio Pappano (Messa da Requiem); Claudio Abbado
(Simon Boccanegra); Mirella Freni (Simon Boccanegra); Daniele Gatti (Otello); Peter Stein (Otello); Riccardo Muti (Falstaff).
Essayst and journalist, Leonetta Bentivoglio has a degree in Philosophy at University La Sapienza. Expert in ballet, theatre and
opera, she worked as consultant for many musical and theatrical festivals and events in Italy and abroad. Since 1992, she
writes for «la Repubblica»: she has interviewed the international protagonists of art and culture and she attended the most
important events, from La Scala to Bayreuth, from Salzburg Festival to Avignone. She has wrote many books about music,
theatre, cinema and art.
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Umberta Telfener
I MARRIED A NARCISSIST
A survival Guide for Women in Love
New edition to be published in Summer 2014
Publication Date: October 2007
Pages: 272
Rights Sold to Germany (Random House) –
Brazil (Editora Record) – Spain (Arcopress)
More than 40.000 copies sold
Men who charm and wound, always more intelligent than average, sensitive, seductive, grandiose, then suddenly
depressed and inadequate.
What does a narcissist want from a woman? In the majority of cases, his only wish is to be helped to Love himself,
love himself, love himself. But, what if one day his woman needs him? This is where the problems begin, because
a narcissist is always trained on the Absolute, caught up in projects that are too big and heroic to allow for doubt
or indecision. Umberta Telfener’s book is witty, fluid and sometimes comical, though it deals with an extremely
serious subject.
This is a true survival guide, because narcissism is impossible to overcome. Your only hope is to come out of it
alive.
HOW TO SAY GOODBYE
The Side Effects of Love
Publication Date: October 2008
Pages: 320
World Rights Available
Umberta Telfener deals with various kinds of goodbyes, on the basis of solid clinical and scientific research:
separation as a temporary or a definitive split-up, imposed or inevitable, capricious or necessary. She offers
suggestions, solutions and ways out to break the deadlock you experience when you’ve been left. A book that
helps you to understand how to start over again and regain that irresistible will to go on with your life.
Psychologist and psychotherapist, Umberta Telfener is a professor at the School of Specialization in Psychology of
Health at «La Sapienza» University of Rome. An expert in Systems Theory, she has published several essays on
psychology and epistemology such as Sistemica, voci e percorsi nella complessità (Bollati Boringhieri).
24
NON FICTION
Gary Lucas
TOUCHED BY GRACE
My Music with Jeff Buckley
Publication date: October 2012
Pages: 256
European Rights Available
English Rights sold to Jawbone
English Manuscript Available
A literary titbit, a beautiful book, disarmingly sincere.
«Rolling Stone»
An absorbing and compelling story offering us an insight into the short life of a first rate star, but also
into the NY musical scene of the '90s and the record labels world of that time.
«la Repubblica»
Gary Lucas tells the parabole from glory to suicide of late Jeff Buckley, the fallen angel which donated
us Grace.
«La Stampa»
With Grace, Jeff Buckley and Gary Lucas shook the music world.
«Il Piccolo»
Jeff Buckley was considered to be the most formidable, brilliant up-and-coming young rock vocalist in the early
‘90s. He was a beautiful boy who seemingly had it all: looks, charisma and a spectacular voice -- both angelic and
demonic -- that melted the hearts of fans and music lovers everywhere. After recording his 1994 album GRACE
which has been hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time by critics and musicians such as Bono and Jimmy
Page, Jeff's career was tragically cut short by a fatal and controversial swim in the treacherous waters of the
Mississippi River in 1997.
Gary Lucas, the acclaimed guitarist and Grammy-nominated songwriter and co-writer of some of Jeff's best known
songs, including "Grace" and "Mojo Pin", has written a book straight from the heart about his lost friend: a loving,
intimate, and no-holds-barred account of working with Jeff Buckley, told from the inside by a key Buckley
collaborator. It vividly depicts how this gifted pair of misfits were mutually attracted to one another, and how they
decided to join forces with a plan to rock the music world to its foundations with their group Gods and Monsters,
how they went on to co-write and record their famous anthems, the shattering trauma when Jeff quits Gary to go
solo just when the band were on the cusp of getting a major label deal, and Jeff and Gary's dramatic and heartfelt
reconciliation live onstage, shortly before Jeff's mysterious and fateful drowning.
An up close and personal glimpse of Jeff and Gary's work process in writing and recording their songs, Touched By
Grace is filled with in-depth descriptions of their trials and tribulations on the road to making it, and loaded with
details and fascinating stories about Jeff Buckley that have never before appeared in print.
The book coincides with a movie coming out about Jeff's early days in NYC, "Greetings from Tim Buckley",
premiered at the Toronto film Festival in September, starring Penn Badgley as Jeff Buckley, and scheduled for
release in Summer 2013. Gary Lucas appears in the movie as a key character and worked as a consultant.
Gary Lucas was born in Syracuse, NY in 1952. Guitarist, Grammy-nominated songwriter, soundtrack composer,
Gary has been described as “one of the best and most original guitarists in America”. Lucas also lectures on guitar
and the music business, and performed in more than 35 countries. Gary's pedigree includes collaborating and
playing with Lou Reed, Captain Beefheart, Bryan Ferry, Leonard Bernstein, Chris Cornell and Noel Gallagher.
25
NON FICTION
Laura Gramuglia
ROCK IN LOVE
From Elvis & Priscilla to Kurt & Courtney, 50
Love Stories to the Sound of Music
Updated Edition: January 2014
Pages: 455
Rights Sold to Turkey (Affectum Libris)
Stories that deserve to be told. Stories that share a love for the excess, that mingle with music and art, stories of love at first
sight, pain and self-destruction. All of them are passionate, some are lived on the edge, some are brief, some are stories of a
lifetime. Some of them inspired great songs and albums, some inspired misery an d distress. Some o f them have an happy
ending, some end in tragedy. All of them lived to the sound of music. Radio host Laura Gramuglia tells these amazing rock and
love stories in a glossy magazine style without forgetting great accuracy and detail-mindedness.
> Paul McCartney & Linda Eastman
> Jim Morrison & Pamela Courson
>
Patti
Smith
&
Robert
Mapplethorpe
> John Lennon & Yoko Ono
> Jimmy Page & Pamela Des Barres
> Ozzy Osbourne & Sharon Levy
> Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen
> Serge Gainsburg & Jane Birkin
> Thomas Mars & Sofia Coppola
> Bono Vox & Alison Stewart
> Sting & Trudie Styler
> Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithfull
> Keith Richards & Anita Pallenberg
> Nick Cave & PJ Harvey
> Amy Winehouse & Blake CivilFielder
> Bob Dylan & Joan Baez
> George Harrison & Pattie Boyd
> Chrissie Hynde & Nick Kent
> Pete Doherty & Kate Moss
> And more…
Publication date: September 2014
Pages: 192
World Rights Available
Laura Gramuglia
Gianluca Vitiello
POP STYLE
The Music You Wear
A travel in words and images to discover the evolution of music along with catwalks and street style: mutual
influences and crossroads. From rockabilly to mod, from glam to punk, from new wave to disco, from hip hop to
techno: a collection – divided by decades – of trendsetter artists and stylists who understood before anyone else
how important the impact of music was on fashion, with focuses on cult clothes, videoclips, album covers and
brands. Between art and business, the story of a flourishing couple.
Laura Gramuglia lives between Milan and Bologna, waiting for a new rock love story to come knocking at her door.
Record collector, music journalist and radio host, she believes green is the new black.
Gianluca Vitiello is an hip-hop artist and a radio host. Moreover, he teaches Urban Languages and Metropolitan
Trends at the Academy of Fashion and Luxury. He realized the project Deejay nell’Armadio (Dj in the Closet): a
series of portraits of the most influent Italian Djs photographed in their closets.
26
NON FICTION
Paolo Bassotti
SEXY ROCK
50 Stories of Music and Sexual Revolution
Publication Date: June 2014
Pages: 192
World Rights Available
I think pop music has shaped sex more than anything else in history.
Frank Zappa
Between scandals and provocations, pop and rock music went along with evolution of manners, since Elvis
shocked USA with his sensuality. Rockstars’ inventions, bloopers, transgressions have always been the mirror of
the audience’s desires, fears and changes, often anticipating them.
From the wild Beatles and Rolling Stones fans to the androgyny of Bowie’s glam rock, from the gay uprising of
disco music to the feminist pride of the riot grrrls, ending up with the explicit lyrics of gangsta rap and the mutant
bodies of Marilyn Manson and Lady Gaga.
A book to understand the explosive power of music, that gets straight into our bedrooms.
Paolo Bassotti was born in Rome where he still lives. He translates and writes books about music and collaborates
also with magazines and websites. In 2012, he published with Arcana Lou Reed. Rock and Roll. Commented
Lyrics.
Ezio Guaitamacchi
ROCK CRIMES
From Robert Johnson to Whitney Houston:
200 Crime Scene Examinations
Publication Date: April 2010
Pages: 455
World Rights Available
A Spoon River of Rock
«Il Sole 24 Ore»
Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison: in two years time, four huge rock stars whose music changed
the world, die in obscure circumstances. They all had a J in their names. They all were 27 years old. This is not,
though, the only mystery in rock history. Along with Brian, Jimi, Janis and Jim, plenty of luminous stars have lost
their young lives by accidents,ODs, violent acts , and homicides. From Elvis to Cobain, from Marvin Gaye to Jeff
Buckley, dozens of rock crimes are still unsolved .Forty years after Hendrix and Joplin ’s death ,thirty years after
Lennon’s homicide, this accurate and sharp document includes the most shocking events and the most difficult
stories, in an attempt to throw light on the mysteries bound to some of the most influential icons of XX century.
Ezio Guaitamacchi is a journalist, writer, musician and radio host, founder of «Jam» magazine. He interviewed
more than 1.000 rock stars, but he has never killed one. So far.
More than 20.000 copies sold
27
NON FICTION
Andrea Morandi
U2
The Name of Love. Commented Lyrics
Publication Date: November 2009
Pages: 650
Rights Sold to Poland (Replica)
More than 20.000 copies sold
U2 as you’ve never read about: in a precious and elegant volume, a screenplay for words and images, set in the
places and themes of a band which is now considered legendary. Andrea Morandi organizes his work as a movie
about four Irish boys leaving Dublin to conquer the world. The result is a new and deep reflection on their lyrics,
with all you can find in the backstage of more than 150 songs: politics, the Bible, love, philosophy, cinema.
The author studies each album discovering Irish roots and American icons.
Andrea Morandi, music critic and professional journalist, is a regular contributor to «Rockstar» and «Repubblica»
and «Ciak».
COMMENTED LYRICS TXT
Sex Pistols. No Future – Giuliano
Santoro
Muse. Love Is Our Resistance –
Emanuele Binelli Mantelli
R.E.M. Perfect Circle – Claudio
Fabretti
Black Sabbath. Neon Knights –
Eduardo Vitolo
Springsteen. Spare Parts (19732012) – Ermanno Labianca
Ramones. Cretin Hop – Pablo
Echaurren
Lou Reed. Rock and Roll – Paolo
Bassotti
U2. The Name of Love – Andrea
Morandi
The Beatles. Hey! Hey! Hey! (19671970) – Massimo Padalino
The Beatles. Hey! Hey! Hey! (19621966) – Massimo Padalino
The Police & Sting. Shape of My
Heart – Antonio Pollastri
Depeche Mode. Touch Faith –
Antonio Puglia
The Who. Pure and Easy – Eleonora
Bagarotti
Frank Zappa. For President! –
Michele Pizzi
Patti Smith – Claudia Bonadonna
Coldplay. Life is for Living – Corrado
Minervini
Oasis. Be Myself – Hamilton Santià
Nick Cave. And the Devil Saw the
Angel – Luca Moccafighe
Metallica. Inferno – Stefano Scalich
Howlin’ Wolf. I’m the Wolf – Luigi
Monge
Led Zeppelin. Dazed and Confused
– Claudio Mapelli
Guns n’Roses. Fuckin’g Crazy –
Antonio Aramini
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Erotic Nightmare – Aldo Fresia
Madonna. Heaven – Claudia
Bonadonna
Genesis. Once Upon a Time –
Giovanni De Liso
Radiohead. A Kid – Gianfranco
Franchi
Doors – Aurelio Pasini
Springsteen. Talk About a Dream
(1973-1988) – Ermanno Labianca
28
Joy
Division.
Broken
Heart
Romance – Marco Di Marco
Nirvana. Kill Your Friends – Andrea
Prevignano, Gianluca Polverari
The Cure. The Edge of the World –
Daniela Cascella
Eminem. Fuck it, Let’s all Stand Up
– Damir Ivic
Jeff Buckley. Dark Angel – Giulio
Casale, Luca Moccafighe
Janis Joplin. Cry Baby – Massimo
Cotto
Nick Drake. Journey to the Stars –
Paola De Angelis
Robert. I got the Blues – Luigi
Monge
Pink Floyd. The Lunatic –
Alessandro Besselva Averame
The Clash. I Wanna Riot – Luca
Frazzi
Johnny Cash. The Man in Black –
Valter Binaghi, Francesco Binaghi
NON FICTION
BACKLIST
Gillo Dorfles Irritations | Publication Date: November 2011 | Pages 192
An Analysis of Contemporary Moral Issues.
Gillo Dorfles Facts and Factoids | Publication Date: October 2009 | Pages 160 | Rights sold to Spain (Sequitur)
An Analysis of fictions, falsifications, and adulterations of our mass-medialized, virtualized age.
Gillo Dorfles Conformists | Publication Date: October 2008 | Pages 128
There is a ghost wandering Europe, said Marx. And the ghost was communism. There is a vice among us, Dorfles
says. And this vice is conformism.
Gillo Dorfles Horror Pleni | Publication Date: March 2008 | Pages 240
Are we able to maintain any kind of awareness in our daily Horror Pleni?
Luther Blisset Mind Invaders | Publication Date: January 2005 | Pages 160
How to fuck the Media: a manual of cultural guerrilla and sabotage.
Bruno Contigiani Slow Living | Publication Date: December 2008 | Pages 128 | Rights sold to Spain (Plataforma)
| 50.000 copies sold
Small actions for great changes: how to change your life by taking everything slower.
Espedita Fisher I Will Be Love. The New Ways of Reclusion | Publication Date: February 2013 | Pages 128
Common stories of young women which found their road to joy and salvation by giving themselves to God.
Bruno Amoroso and Jesper Jespersen Europe Beyond Euro | Publication Date: September 2012 | Pages 177
The reasons of the economic disaster and the reconstruction of the community project in the analysis of two
worldwide respected economists.
Angela Camuso The Prey | Publication Date: November 2012 | Pages 280
The confession of a victim of pedophilia. Between faith and hypocrisy, the true story of the biggest scandal ever
occurred in the Church.
Corrado De Rosa The Camorra Doctors | Publication Date: February 2011 | Pages 288
How to use psychiatry to cancel crime.
Carlo Ruta Narcoeconomics | Publication Date: June 2011 | Pages 192
Drug dealing organizations in modern Economics.
Antonella Appiano Damascus Undercover | Publication Date: November 2011 | Pages 192
Four months in forbidden Syria on the verge of Revolution.
Paola De Angelis, Andrea Tantucci Rockitchen | Publication Date: November 2009 | Pages 272
Thirty menus for thirty legendary rock albums.
Donato Zoppo Prog | Publication Date: November 2011 | Pages 384
A fifty-year long suite.
Ezio Guaitamacchi Rock Files | Publication Date: November 2012 | Pages 550
500 stories that made the history of Rock.
29
OUR GROUP
Founded in 2011, Lit Edizioni group counts nine imprints, each of them with a clear identity and a
specific production: fiction, essays, instant books, music, spirituality, graphic novels.
Lit preserves the ability, typical of independent publishers, to find high quality publications, and
combines this aspect with big company skills, giving life to our unique history. Each Lit Edizioni imprint
maintains its identity and works cooperatively with the others, rationalising human and material
resources, allowing the company to produce high quality and unconventional books.
Castelvecchi, with its six lines, offers a wide range of production: classics, novels, political, philosophical
and scientific essays, historical studies, travel literature, diaries, biographies, topical inquiries. Founded
in 1992, it publishes around 70 new titles every year with a catalogue of more than 1.000 titles.
Born in 2007, Elliot promotes both classic and contemporary international literature as long as it
features high quality and originality of style. Elliot also publishes literary essays and nonfiction. To
December 2013, Elliot counts 300 books in its catalogue and publishes 85 new titles every year.
Born in the 70s to give voice to counterculture and music, Arcana deals with every rock genre, from the
origins to new trends, both Italian and international. Arcana publishes 50 new titles every year and has
a catalogue of more than 350 titles.
Born in 2013, the goal of Intento is to draw attention on the spiritual dimension of our existence, and
the different paths that allow us to explore it. Dialogue between all religions, spirituality and free
thinking.
LIT represents a summary of the whole Lit Edizioni book production. High quality paperback editions,
from novels to essays, bestsellers written by Italian and international authors.
Mompracem publishes books by famous illustrators, both Italian and international, which became
classics in comics history. It also discovers new illustrators and cartoonists.
Since 2002 Orme has been publishing essays from science to cooking, from ecology to health, from
spirituality to zoology. So scientific studies go with books focused on day-to-day relationships between
humans and nature.
The newborn imprint in the company, Ultra publishes books about popular allures and hobbies: selfhelp, humour, sport, pop music, genre fiction, slice of life. Every year Ultra publishes 60 new titles and,
to December 2013, has 90 titles in its catalogue.
OUR SUBAGENTS
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, China, Taiwan,
Russia TEMPI IRREGOLARI
Germany CHRISTINA VIKOLER
Latin America, Portugal, Spain THE ELLA SHER LITERARY AGENCY
Greece ERSILIA LITERARY AGENCY
Turkey KALEM AGENCY
30
OUR GROUP
LATEST ACQUISITIONS
ELLIOT
Edna O’Brien The Country Girls (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Country Girl (Faber& Faber)
Christopher Moore The Serpent of Venice (William Morrow)
Vita Sackville West The Garden (Frances Lincoln)
Marcos Giralt Torrente Tiempo de vida (Anagrama)
Evgenij Vodolazkin Lavr (ACT)
CASTELVECCHI
Norman Cohn Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy And the
Protocols of the Elders Of Zion (Serif)
Donald Sassoon Imaginary Interview with Karl Marx
Emmanuel Lévinas Noms propres (Fata Morgana)
Václav Havel Politics and Conscience
ARCANA
Graham Nash Wild Tales (Crown)
Michael Rutherford The living Years (Constable)
Paul Rees Robert Plant: A Life (HarperCollins)
ULTRA
Brené Brown I thought it Was Just Me (Gotham Books)
Timothy Gallwey The Inner Game of Tennis (Random House)
Craig Boreth The Hemingway's Cookbook (Chicago Review Press)
31