10 books like Naples '44

By Norman Lewis,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like Naples '44. Shepherd is a community of 8,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Goodbye to Berlin

By Christopher Isherwood,

Book cover of Goodbye to Berlin

Peter Chapman Author Of Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World

From the list on telling stories from real life.

Who am I?

Fact is often more fascinating than fiction, and on occasions, a lot weirder too. As someone, London-based though lucky to have travelled extensively in Europe since childhood (my mother was keen to visit places where my father had been stationed in the Second World War) and more recently as a journalist (for The Financial Times, BBC, The Guardian, and others) in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, I have always been attracted to stories that strongly convey senses of time, place and the people you just happen to meet.

Peter's book list on telling stories from real life

Discover why each book is one of Peter's favorite books.

Why did Peter love this book?

The book, set in the early 1930s, is from a fleeting period when the liberal pleasures of the German capital made it the European place to be. An English teacher of reserved social origins, Isherwood writes of the Berlin characters who enlivened his life, against the forbidding backdrop of Hitler's rise to power. Cabaret, the film adapted from the book, led Isherwood to insist his version of events was far nearer to how things were.

Goodbye to Berlin

By Christopher Isherwood,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Goodbye to Berlin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1934, Goodbye to Berlin has been popularized on stage and screen by Julie Harris in I Am a Camera and Liza Minelli in Cabaret. Isherwood magnificently captures 1931 Berlin: charming, with its avenues and cafes; marvelously grotesque, with its nightlife and dreamers; dangerous, with its vice and intrigue; powerful and seedy, with its mobs and millionaires - this was the period when Hitler was beginning his move to power. Goodbye to Berlin is inhabited by a wealth of characters: the unforgettable and "divinely decadent"Sally Bowles; plump Fraulein Schroeder, who considers reducing her Buste relieve her heart palpitations;…


Longitude

By Dava Sobel,

Book cover of Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

Tim Vandehey Author Of Swipe: The Science Behind Why We Don't Finish What We Start

From the list on how technology is changing how we live.

Who am I?

I’m a journalist and a tinkerer. I’m fascinated not only by how things work but by how small levers can move mountains. Growing up in the workshop of my grandfather, an old Boston boatwright, I was mesmerized by the idea that a small rudder could maneuver a huge vessel. In college, I fell in love with how a small idea or expression could redirect a course of research or a country. As a self-taught maker of things, I appreciate how technologies empower us. I’ve chosen these books because they’re examples of how small ideas become things, lines of research, or patterns of thinking that shift human progress in unknowable ways.

Tim's book list on how technology is changing how we live

Discover why each book is one of Tim's favorite books.

Why did Tim love this book?

I adore books that go deep into fascinating minutiae, and Longitude is a master class in that.

Sobel looks at John Harrison’s quest to solve a problem that had bedeviled mariners and scientists for centuries: How do you keep accurate time at sea so you can determine your longitude—where you are, east to west?

Sailors and scientists had tried and failed to solve the puzzle, but Harrison finally did it, and the story of how he did it is both prosaic and world-changing in its detail and scope.

Plus, it’s just a ripping good yarn of failures, setbacks, and seafaring stuff, which, as a longtime sailor, I relish. 

Longitude

By Dava Sobel,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Longitude as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and of one man's forty-year obsession to find a solution to the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--"the longitude problem."

Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day-and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives and the increasing fortunes of nations hung on a resolution. One man, John Harrison, in…


Book cover of As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Peter Chapman Author Of Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped the World

From the list on telling stories from real life.

Who am I?

Fact is often more fascinating than fiction, and on occasions, a lot weirder too. As someone, London-based though lucky to have travelled extensively in Europe since childhood (my mother was keen to visit places where my father had been stationed in the Second World War) and more recently as a journalist (for The Financial Times, BBC, The Guardian, and others) in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, I have always been attracted to stories that strongly convey senses of time, place and the people you just happen to meet.

Peter's book list on telling stories from real life

Discover why each book is one of Peter's favorite books.

Why did Peter love this book?

Still in his teens and a young poet in the making, Lee set out in the 1930s from his village in the rural west of England, first to walk to London and then to take a boat to Spain. Landing with no return ticket and little knowledge of where he was, he walked across the country earning his keep by playing his violin on the streets. His story captures the romance of Spain, plus its drama and tensions of the time.

As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

By Laurie Lee,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The author of Cider with Rosie continues his bestselling autobiographical trilogy with “a wondrous adventure” through Spain on the eve of its civil war (Library Journal).

On a bright Sunday morning in June 1934, Laurie Lee left the village home so lovingly portrayed in his bestselling memoir, Cider with Rosie. His plan was to walk the hundred miles from Slad to London, with a detour of an extra hundred miles to see the sea for the first time. He was nineteen years old and brought with him only what he could carry on his back: a tent, a change of…


Call the Midwife

By Jennifer Worth,

Book cover of Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

Sylvia Vetta Author Of Food of Love: Cooking Up a Life Across Gender, Class and Race

From the list on memoirs which help us understand the world.

Who am I?

For The Oxford Times, I wrote the lives of 120 inspirational people from five continents. My 3 novels are inspired by real lives including the charity founder Nancy Mudenyo Hunt and the artist Qu Leilei, the hero of Andy Cohen’s film Beijing Spring. Stories of 30 not-famous choir members in I Love you All show that we are each unique. My memoir has a particular purpose. I dug deep into my life and my husband Atam’s to reveal the intersection of gender class and race—the barriers that shaped my life and how Atam and I tried to transcend them.

Sylvia's book list on memoirs which help us understand the world

Discover why each book is one of Sylvia's favorite books.

Why did Sylvia love this book?

I was born in my parent’s house which, like all in our area, had no central heating. That was the reality of giving birth in the forties and fifties in England. Jennifer’s memoir of midwifery in working-class Poplar, in the docklands of London, gave rise to one of the most popular TV series. The BBC has taken the story beyond Jennifer’s memoir but the tone is the same. The TV series, like the book, tackles difficult social, cultural, and economic issues, with insight, compassion, and humour. I aimed to tackle issues of class, gender, and race in my memoir in a similar tone.

Call the Midwife

By Jennifer Worth,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Call the Midwife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The highest-rated drama in BBC history, Call the Midwife will delight fans of Downton Abbey

Viewers everywhere have fallen in love with this candid look at post-war London. In the 1950s, twenty-two-year-old Jenny Lee leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in London's East End slums. While delivering babies all over the city, Jenny encounters a colorful cast of women—from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English, to the prostitutes of the city's seedier side.

An unfortgettable story of motherhood, the bravery of…


The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Book cover of The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set

Susan Van Allen Author Of 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go

From the list on women who love Italy.

Who am I?

I am grateful to my maternal grandparents, immigrants from southern Italy, who instilled in me a love for the Bel Paese that has inspired me all my life. I began to travel to Italy 45 years ago, and after writing for television—on the staff of Everybody Loves Raymond—I turned to travel writing. I’ve written 4 books about Italian travel, along with many stories for magazines. I also design and host Golden Weeks in Italy: For Women Only tours, to give female travelers an insider’s experience of this extraordinary country.

Susan's book list on women who love Italy

Discover why each book is one of Susan's favorite books.

Why did Susan love this book?

I have always loved visiting the city of Naples – for the great food, the rich history, and the warm locals who remind me of my southern Italian relatives. Ferrante’s novels go deep into the complexities of a female friendship that spans many decades, while also bringing to life a wide range of characters who I grew to love and truly care about, while devouring this extraordinary series.

The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The complete four-volume boxed set of the New York Times–bestselling epic about hardship and female friendship in postwar Naples that has sold over five million copies.

Beginning with My Brilliant Friend, the four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante follow Elena and Lila, from their rough-edged upbringing in Naples, Italy, not long after WWII, through the many stages of their lives―and along paths that diverge wildly. Sometimes they are separated by jealousy or hostility or physical distance, but the bond between them is unbreakable, for better or for worse.

This volume includes all four novels: My Brilliant Friend; The Story of…


I Will Have Vengeance

By Maurizio de Giovanni, Anne Milano Appel (translator),

Book cover of I Will Have Vengeance

Joseph D'Agnese Author Of The Marshal of the Borgo

From the list on discovering Italian mystery novels.

Who am I?

As a kid, Joseph D’Agnese did not feel quite normal unless he’d devoured at least two mystery novels in a weekend. Today he’s a journalist and author. His mystery fiction has appeared in Shotgun Honey, Plots with Guns, Beat to a Pulp, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. He’s a past recipient of the Derringer Award for Short Mystery Fiction, and a contributor to the prestigious annual anthology, Best American Mystery Stories. D’Agnese lives in North Carolina with his wife, the New York Times Bestselling author Denise Kiernan.

Joseph's book list on discovering Italian mystery novels

Discover why each book is one of Joseph's favorite books.

Why did Joseph love this book?

Can a mystery novel have supernatural elements and still be considered a mystery? I obsessed on this question when I was writing my book. (You’ll know why if you check it out.) Then, out of the blue, I stumbled across de Giovanni’s astonishing novels. His detective, Commissario Ricciardi, suffers from a bizarre affliction. He sees dead people. Specifically, he sees visions of murder victims just before their death. Naturally, this makes him the greatest cop ever, and the most tortured. If you can stand to read a little on the wild side, you will enjoy these historical mysteries, set in 1930s Naples. Currently 10 books in the series.

I Will Have Vengeance

By Maurizio de Giovanni, Anne Milano Appel (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I Will Have Vengeance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Introducing Italy’s Commissario Ricciardi. “De Giovanni’s distinct brand of noir . . . will appeal to Agatha Christie and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán fans” (Publishers Weekly).

Commissario Ricciardi has visions. He sees the final seconds in the lives of victims of violent deaths. It is both a gift and a curse. It has helped him become one of the most successful homicide detectives on the Naples police front. But the horror of his visions has hollowed him out emotionally. He drinks too much and sleeps too little. Other than his loyal partner, Brigadier Maione, he has no friends.
Naples, March 1931.…


The Poison Keeper

By Deborah Swift,

Book cover of The Poison Keeper: An enthralling historical novel of Renaissance Italy

J. C. Briggs Author Of Summons to Murder

From the list on featuring historical figures.

Who am I?

I love the novels of Charles Dickens and when I found out that he did go out with the London Police to research the criminal underworld for his magazine, I thought what a good detective he would make. He has all the talents a detective needs: remarkable powers of observation, a shrewd understanding of human nature and of motive, and the ability to mix with all ranks of Victorian society from the street urchin to the lord and lady. I love Victorian London, too, and creating the foggy, gas-lit alleys we all know from Dickens the novelist.

J. C.'s book list on featuring historical figures

Discover why each book is one of J. C.'s favorite books.

Why did J. C. love this book?

Another woman steps out of the shadows of history in this novel about seventeenth-century Italy. Gulia Tofana was a notorious poisoner of terrible men and Deborah Swift explores in a tale full of excitement and drama the imagined early career of Gulia whose mother was executed for murder. Gulia just wants to be an apothecary, but her friendship with the abused wife of an aristocratic, power greedy husband draws her into murder. It is full of rich detail – you can feel the heat, smell the perfume, hear the rustle of silk and taffeta, and you can’t help being on the side of the women trapped in a corrupt and violent world.

The Poison Keeper

By Deborah Swift,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Poison Keeper as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Naples 1633

Aqua Tofana – One drop to heal. Three drops to kill.

Giulia Tofana longs for more responsibility in her mother’s apothecary business, but Mamma has always been secretive and refuses to tell her the hidden keys to her success. But the day Mamma is arrested for the poisoning of the powerful Duke de Verdi, Giulia is shocked to uncover the darker side of her trade.

Giulia must run for her life, and escapes to Naples, under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, to the home of her Aunt Isabetta, a famous courtesan. But when Giulia hears that her mother…


My Brilliant Friend

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Book cover of My Brilliant Friend

B.W. Powe Author Of These Shadows Remain: A Fable

From the list on vistas and fantasias of the subconscious.

Who am I?

My name is B.W. Powe—and I’m a writer, poet, teacher, mentor, and musician. I’ve written since I was a boy, when I began to dream of beautiful sentences, and finding a way to turn music into literary expression. I live in Stouffville, a small edge town near Toronto, Canada—and a portion of the year in Cordoba, Spain, where my wife is from. I was encouraged by my mother, an amateur pianist, and my father, a politician, and novelist. We lived in Toronto through the 60s-90s and witnessed how the city sprawled. I’ve written about the Genesis Overdrive that informs culture and lives. My latest book, Ladders Made of Water, will be available on February 14th, 2023.

B.W.'s book list on vistas and fantasias of the subconscious

Discover why each book is one of B.W.'s favorite books.

Why did B.W. love this book?

A magnificent depiction of the coming of age of a writer, through youth to old age, in Naples, Italy, with a powerful depiction of a friend who is a magnetic enigma. It describes Italy through the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s—and addresses, engages, creativity, historical crises, family schisms, politics, sexuality, female rage, literary politics, and breakdown and loss, the consolations of artistic endeavor. Passionate, complex, rich, epic in its scale, attentive to small details, acute in its charting of minds and spirits. Ferrante has invented the memorable characters of Lila and Elena in her pages.

My Brilliant Friend

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked My Brilliant Friend as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

OVER 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN ENGLISH WORLDWIDE

OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN THE UK

OVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE

NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES

GUARDIAN 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY

58 WEEKS ON THE BOOKSELLER'S TOP 20 ORIGINAL FICTION BESTSELLERS LIST

SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015

43 INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS DEALS

Now in B-format Paperback

From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but…


Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Book cover of Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

Amy Hassinger Author Of After the Dam

From the list on flawed, fierce, and fascinating mothers.

Who am I?

Becoming a mother reshaped me in ways I’m still wondering at now, two decades on. I’ve had to find ways to resist the repressive cultural mythology surrounding motherhood—the pressure I felt to suddenly become a perfect, self-sacrificing vessel for my children’s optimized development. When I read stories about flawed mothers—women, queer and straight, struggling beneath the magnitude of the job, yet fiercely loving their children all the way through—I felt I could breathe a little bit, could handle the task with a little more good humor and forgiveness, for myself, my partner, and my kids. Read a book, bust a myth, go hug your mom.  

Amy's book list on flawed, fierce, and fascinating mothers

Discover why each book is one of Amy's favorite books.

Why did Amy love this book?

I devoured Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet (four novels that trace a lifetime friendship between two women living in a deeply patriarchal mid-twentieth-century Italy) in a single summer a few years back, and when I got to the end of those few thousand pages, I felt as though I wanted to start right over at the beginning again. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay is the third novel in the series, and I name it here because it’s the novel in which Elena—the book’s protagonist, and a writer herself—becomes a mother. Elena has a modern marriage compared to her friend Lina’s, but still, she finds the expectations and demands of motherhood difficult to reconcile with her own creative ambitions. Ferrante represents that central struggle with arresting honesty—a captivating read. 

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE

"Nothing quite like this has ever been published before."-The Guardian

"This is high stakes, subversive literature."-The Daily Telegraph

"With the publication of her Neapolitan Novels, (Ferrante) has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy-and the world."-The Sunday Times

"An unconditional masterpiece . . . I was totally enthralled."-Jhumpa Lahiri

"An extraordinary epic."-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meets The Sopranos and rewrites feminist theory."-The Times

"Ferrante's writing seems to say something that hasn't been said before, in a way so compelling…


The Days of Abandonment

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Book cover of The Days of Abandonment

Nina Schuyler Author Of The Translator

From the list on iconoclastic women.

Who am I?

When I was 12, I was given The Book of Questions by Neruda Pablo. “Tell me, is the rose naked or is that her only dress?” It was the perfect book for me, with an abundance of questions. As I got older, the questions turned more serious: what are these forces restricting women to a narrow strip of being? To a slim wedge of psychological existence? How did the definition of female pare down to only a fistful of traits—nurturing, accommodating, object of desire, etc.? I’ve found solace in books, with fully dimensional female characters who refuse society’s common assumptions. It’s these females I try to create in my work. 

Nina's book list on iconoclastic women

Discover why each book is one of Nina's favorite books.

Why did Nina love this book?

I’d recommend any one of the novels by Elena Ferrante, a writer who depicts with nuance and complexity her female characters’ psychology, as it’s impacted by the forces of society, family, motherhood, wifedom, work, economics, and politics. The Days of Abandonment is one of her earlier novels about a woman whose husband leaves her for a younger woman after 15 years of marriage. A common story, unfortunately, but what isn’t common is the brutally honest depiction of rage, sorrow, depression, loss of self, and the slow evolution of a new life and a new self. 

The Days of Abandonment

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Days of Abandonment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the New York Times–bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, this novel of a deserted wife’s descent into despair―and rage―is “a masterpiece” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

The Days of Abandonment is the gripping story of an Italian woman’s experiences after being suddenly left by her husband after fifteen years of marriage. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it more and more difficult to do the things she used to: keep a spotless house, cook meals with creativity and passion, refrain from using obscenities. After running into her husband with his much-younger new lover in public, she cannot even…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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8,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about Naples Italy, Italy, and World War 1.

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