Italian

Lidia's Italian Table is overflowing with glorious Italian food, highlighted by Lidia's personal collection of recipes accumulated since her childhood in Istria, located in northern Italy on the Adriatic Sea. Hearty and heartwarming Italian fare is what Lidia understands best, and each chapter of this gorgeous cookbook is infused with Lidia's warm memories of a lifetime of eating and cooking Italian style.

The Italian Americans reveals the unique and distinctive qualities of one immigrant group's experience, and how these qualities, over time, have shaped and challenged America. At the turn of the 20th century, many Italians immigrants came to work, earn money to support their families, and eventually return home. Nearly half of the first generation Italian immigrants did return to Italy, but for those that made America home, their struggle to maintain a distinct Italian culture was guided by remarkably powerful ideals of family that had always been at the center of their lives.

An entertaining ensemble comedy about the extremes one man goes to circumvent Italian divorce laws, Divorce - Italian Style (Divorzio all'italiana, 1961) was a big hit in Italy as well as on the American art house circuit. Americans were undoubtedly drawn to the scandalous nature and then-steamy sexuality of its script, as well as to its thickly-lacquered Sicilian atmosphere - this is an Italian film full of exaggerated if funny Italian stereotypes. Criterion's supplements work to put the film into sociopolitical context, an important component of the film's and its director's reputation in Italy, but one generally lost on non-Italians.

Pimsleur Italian I (30 units + text book)

With Pimsleur Language Programs you don't just study a language, you learn it – the same way you mastered English! And because the technique relies on interactive spoken language training, the Pimsleur Language Programs are totally audio – no book is needed!