Böcker av Beppe Severgnini

First of all, let's get one thing straight. Your Italy and out Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, white wine and raven haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It's alluring but complicated. In Italia you can go round and round in circles for years. Which of course, is great fun.' Beppe Severgnini was The Economist's Italian correspondent for ten years. A huge Anglophile as well as an astute observer of his countrymen, he's the perfect companion for this hilarious tour of modern Italy that takes you behind the seductive face it puts on for visitors -- la bella figura -- and uncovers the far more complex, paradoxical true self. Alongside the historic cities and glorious countryside, there'll be stops at the places where the Italians reveal themselves in all their authentic, maddening glory: the airport, the motorway and the living room. Ten days, thirty places. From north to south, from food to politics, from saintliness to sexuality.This witty and beguiling examination will help you understand why Italy, as Beppe says, 'can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred metres or ten minutes.

In this witty and entertaining collection of travel tales, an acclaimed journalist explores his obsession with trains--and what his rail journeys have taught him about culture and identity."I''ve gone around the world in installments. Every trip has been a revelation. I''ve watched regions, nations, and continents change moods and I''ve met more people on trains than in forty years of airplane flights. Every train trip has been a spectacle. Trains are stages, cafés, bazaars. The only talk show that will never go off the air..."Beppe Severgnini has spent his life traveling the world, and not just because he''s a journalist; he''s a passionate, unflagging train buff. Off the Rails recounts some of his favorite trips across Europe, Australia, Asia, and the United States, each journey bringing readers not only to a different place but to a different time, from his honeymoon on the Trans-Siberian Express (in a four-person compartment!), to a winding journey from Russia to Turkey during the last summer of communism, to a recent coast-to-coast trip with his son from Washington, D.C., to Washington State.Off the Rails is the perfect getaway for anyone with a touch of wanderlust, who dreams of escape or just likes to laugh. Filled with memorable characters and perceptive observations, it demonstrates--hilariously--what unites us.With the world in chaos and life in perpetual fast-forward, it''s always the right time to hop on board with Beppe Severgnini and meet your charming, hapless, quarrelsome, romantic, shifty, quirky, endearing neighbors.