Fifty Favorite Works of Italian Literature
(in alphabetical order, with no more five than books per author, because otherwise . . . *)
The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
All the Errors by Giorgio Manganelli
An Autumn Story by Tomasso Landolfi
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati
Blind Argus by Gesualdo Bufalino
Brief Lives of Idiots by Ermanno Cavazzoni
The Castle of Fratta by Ippolito Nievo
Catastrophe and Other Stories by Dino Buzzati
Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels by Giorgio Manganelli
Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
Conversations in Sicily by Elio Vittorini
The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Sciascia
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig
Dissipatio H.G. by Guido Morselli
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
The Faithful Lover by Massimo Bontempelli
The Giro d’Italia: Coppi versus Bartali at the 1949 Tour of Italy by Dino Buzzati
Gogol’s Wife and Other Stories by Tomasso Landolfi
The Iguana by Anna Maria Ortese
Ithaca Forever by Luigi Malerba
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Lies of the Night by Gesualdo Bufalino
The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante
A Love Affair by Dino Buzzati
Malacqua: Four Days of Rain in the City of Naples, Waiting for the Occurrence of an Extraordinary Event by Nicola Pugliese
Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino
The Parrots by Filippo Bologna
The Plague Sower by Gesualdo Bufalino
Poem Strip by Dino Buzzati
The Professor and the Siren by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
The Serpent by Luigi Malerba
“The Signorina” and Other Stories by Anna Banti
Silk by Alessandro Baricco
Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino
Stories with Pictures by Antonio Tabucchi
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy
The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati
The Temple of Iconoclasts by J. Rodolfo Wilcock
To Those Gods Beyond by Giorgio Manganelli
A Tournament of Misfits: Tall Tales and Short by Aldo Palazzeschi
The Toy Catalogue by Sandra Petrignani
The Transgressionists and Other Disquieting Works: Five Tales of Weird Fiction by Giorgio de Maria
The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria
The Voice of the Moon by Ermanno Cavazzoni
What Is This Buzzing, Do You Hear It Too? by Luigi Malerba
You, Bleeding Childhood by Michele Mari
* otherwise = Calvino
— October 9, 2025