Events
When: Saturday, Oct. 19 – 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem St, Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
The Italian American Writers Association-Boston returns to I AM Books for its monthly open mic and featured author series! This month IAWA presents authors Anna Monardo and Matthew Porto.
When: Thursday, Oct. 24 – 6:30 p.m.
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem St, Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
*Event in collaboration with the National Organization of Italian American Women
“Senza Glutine – Timeless Italian Dishes for the Gluten Free Palate” is both a collection of time tested Italian recipes that have been modified for those suffering from gluten-intolerance, as well as a resource for those starting on their gluten free journey.
The book contains over 100 beautifully photographed recipes, illustrated techniques, and information on how to source the best gluten-free products. The book is equally helpful to those just starting their gluten free journey or those simply longing for diversity in their diet. While the recipes in this book were created for those with gluten sensitivities, the recipes can easily be used for those who simply love Italian food at its best.
When: Friday, Oct. 25 – 2 to 3 p.m. (Book signing)
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem St., Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
Lorenza Pieri is an author, journalist, and translator. She grew up in Tuscany and spent long periods in Paris, Turin, and Rome, where she worked in publishing. She lived for eight years in Washington D.C., where she continued to write about politics and culture for a variety of outlets. Lesser Islands (Europa, 2023) was the winner of numerous prizes and has been translated into six languages. The Garden of Monsters (Europa, 2020) was a finalist for the Strega Prize. Pieri now lives in Milan.
When: Thursday, Nov. 7 – 6:30 p.m.
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem St, Boston MA (Register Here)
“The Battalion Artist explores the three years, three months, and three days of Nat Bellantoni’s life on the Pacific front in World War II. He had known since childhood that he wanted to be-that he in fact was-an artist. When he packed his seabag and took leave of his family and his sweetheart to go to war, he knew that the best way to manage the narrative of his life and to cope with the ups and downs of his feelings was to create images-visual records that spoke of what he felt, as well as what he saw. In this stunning book filled with authentic World War II images-many in full color-we see and feel the intensity of wartime life through the eyes of a talented young artist who was also a US Navy Seabee. Natale Bellantoni, a young art student from Boston, sailed across the Pacific in 1943-45 and returned home with a sea chest of art and photographs documenting his experiences in New Caledonia, New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, and Okinawa. His subject matter was his daily life: endless weeks at sea, harbors and ships, men at work, airstrips, the local countryside, and the view of enemy planes overhead at night from his fox hole. Now collected in a lavishly illustrated volume, his watercolors, sketches, and photographs offer a window onto one of the most significant moments in American history. The Battalion Artist explores the World War II experiences of Nat Bellantoni, but it reflects the story of an entire generation”–
When: Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024 – 6:30 p.m.
Where: I AM Books, 124 Salem Street, Boston MA 02113 (Register Here)
*In conversation with I AM Books founder Nicola Orichuia
From the time she first felt called to its gates as a high school student fascinated by Dante and Italian thanks to a life-changing teacher, Rome has been a fixed star around which Alizah Holstein’s life has rotated—despite the fact that she bears no Italian heritage, and has never lived there long enough to call it home.
In this kaleidoscopic yet intimate memoir, her shifting relationship to a vibrant city layered with human history becomes a lens on why we look to the past, on the mysteries of affinity and desire, and on what it means to grow up. Holstein weaves the stories of Romans past and present, and encounters with the city of historical figures from Petrarch to Freud, into the narrative of her evolution from a curious student abuzz with the thrill of discovery, to a lonely researcher in a city to which she feels she belongs despite knowing no one, to an ambitious young historian struggling to find her place in the halls of academia. Following a trail of memories—that first taste of a tartufo cioccolato in Piazza Navona, the ancient walls of the Via Appia blurring from the back of a motorcycle, the smudge of ink on a manuscript left by a scribe’s hand over seven hundred years before—she explores what it means to be romana, Roman—and to find solace and self-knowledge in the presence of the past.
