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The Little Virtues
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Check link for latest rating. ( 10,204 ratings, 1,370 reviews)
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Format: Paperback / softback
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See more'I really love and admire The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg... She writes beautiful, short essays about very simple things: shoes, food, children, writing itself. Her sentences have great precision and clarity, and I learn a lot when I read her.' - Zadie Smith
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Description
As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones... So begins the titular essay in Natalia Ginzburg's extraordinary collection, which takes little subjects - shoes, meatballs, moneyboxes - and turns them into subjects of great significance.
Whether she writes of the loss of a friend, the effects of World War II, the horrors of British food, the craft of writing, the importance of silence, or the Abruzzi, where she and her first husband lived in forced residence under Fascist rule, Ginzburg brings to her reflections the wisdom of a survivor and the spare, wry, and poetically resonant style that makes these essays as contemporary and relevant as when they were originally published.
Ginzburg is regarded as one of the finest and most important Italian writers of the twentieth century and this collection will introduce her remarkable writing to a new generation of readers. This is feminist, personal writing at its very best, which sings with wonder and grace.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg is celebrated for its sharp, introspective essays that blend personal anecdotes with broader cultural reflections. Readers often praise Ginzburg’s ability to convey profound insights through a deceptively simple prose style, capturing the subtleties of everyday life. Her reflections on themes such as family, identity, and morality resonate deeply, highlighting a unique, conversational voice that engages and enlightens.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781911547143
Publisher: Daunt Books
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 19 April 2018
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Daunt Books
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 134
Collections
About the Author
Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991) was born in Sicily and became one of the most important Italian writers of the twentieth century. She published her first short stories at the age of eighteen, and went on to write dozens of novels, plays and essays, including Voices in the Evening, All our Yesterdays, and Family Lexicon, which won the prestigious Strega Prize in 1963. She was the first person to translate Proust into Italian. As well as being a prolific writer, she was involved in politics and activism throughout her life, and served in the Italian parliament from 1983-1987.
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All Our Yesterdays
Anna, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl in a small town in northern Italy, after a brief romance finds herself pregnant. To save her reputation, she marries an eccentric older family friend, and they move to his village in the south. Her relationship with Cenzo Rena is touched by tragedy and grace as the events of their life in the countryside run parallel...Paperback$2500Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Family Lexicon
'The places, events and people are all real. I have invented nothing.' Natalia Ginzburg wrote her masterful, Strega Prize-winning novel Family Lexicon while living in London in the 1960s. Homesick for her big, noisy Italian family, she summoned them in this novel, which is a celebration of the routines and rituals, in-jokes and insults, and above all, the repeated sayings...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Happiness, As Such
Dear Michele, she wrote, I'm writing principally to tell you that your father is sick. Go visit him. He says he hasn’t seen you for days. Michele is the beloved only son of a large, dysfunctional family in 1970s Italy. Headstrong and independent, he has disappeared to London without explanation. Back in Italy, his father lies dying. Michele's departure sets...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Dry Heart
The Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: 'I shot him between the eyes.' As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and revenge—proceeds, the narrator's murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability. Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg's writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage. She transforms the...Paperback$2300Elsewhere:$2499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Road to the City
Delia is one of five children, growing up in a poor Italian village. She is 17 and dreams of marrying a rich man; she dreams of a grand apartment in the city and silk stockings. To escape her father's neglect and her mother's sadness, she begins to take the dusty road to the city every day, accompanied by Nini, her...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Family and Borghesia
Architect Carmine and translator Ivana were once lovers. Their child died and their relationship ended but now, decades on, both with marriages and children of their own, they are friends. During a bout of pneumonia, Carmine—uneasy in his life of aspiration and materialism—begins to look back over opportunities missed and choices made. Set against postwar social breakdown, the melancholic, quietly...Paperback$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Valentino
'So there is no one to whom I can speak the words that most need to be spoken, about the events which most closely concern our family and what has happened to us; I have to keep them bottled up inside me and there are times when they threaten to choke me.' Valentino is the spoiled child of doting parents...Paperback$2100Elsewhere:$2299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
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In a hushed, Italian town after the Second World War, Elsa lives with her parents in the house where she was born. Twenty-seven and unmarried, she is of constant concern to her mother, whose status anxiety manifests itself in acute hypochondria. Elsa hopes to live a life different to the one she's always known, and when she meets Tommasino, it...PaperbackSold Out -
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