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.The Honoured Society: The Sicilian Mafia Observed

by: Norman Lewis

August 29, 2003
This is actually one of the books on the Mafia you SHOULD get. The main strong point being it's ability to explain the background of the mafia. It's also well written, this is good "story telling".

If you get this you should complement it with "Excellent Cadavers" by Alexander Stille. Together they give you enough information to navigate further. Both of them deal with the Sicilian mafia, but concentrate on different periods.
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.Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia

by: Roberto Saviano

January 18, 2008
I read this book before retiring to bed over several nights. I found it hard to put down, yet each time I turned the page I thought the narrative might pick up, become more personal and lead me somewhere more satisfying. Is it me? Do I lack that bit of inside information that would help me digest and put more clarity to the situation? The information came at you wholesale, floods of it...names, places, so many names and places, complicated by my lack of knowledge of places and probably politics, background and pronunciation. So many killings...don't get me wrong, I loved it and recommend it ...yet it left me wanting just that little bit more explanation. All the while I was reading the book I was constantly nagged by the question...what was ... Read More:
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.Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia

by: John Dickie

March 08, 2007
by far the most interesting book I have read in ages, everything you wanted to know about the Mafia. And as everyone says, 'LEMONS!'?!?
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.Midnight in Sicily (Panther)

by: Peter Robb

May 06, 1999
This is an excellent book, but although there's some original stuff, it's really more a synthesis of the works of others than anything else. While Robb pulls it all together extremely well, he fails to attribute his sources adequately, using italics in an awkward and, for a reader, distracting fashion where he quotes other writers. He also neglects to relate specific quotes to their sources, which may have been an editorial decision intended not to put off the more casual readers. Nevertheless, this makes for a frustrating read at times. I kept seeing the work of Norman Lewis, in his riveting and beautifully written book The Honoured Society, quoted here without any direct attribution, and returned to that book often as I was reading Robb's. Lewis is far better, ... Read More:
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.Naples '44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth

by: Norman Lewis

July 31, 2002
Norman Lewis's son is a friend of mine and has been for twenty years. For twenty years I've drunk beer, watched football, told jokes and (in the dim & distant past) chased girls with the son. I even met the father once. It was not until I read the back of a Norman Lewis book last year & saw the picture, that I put two and two together. "Yep, that's my Dad". Astonishing!

I read that book,A Dragon Apparent, and enjoyed it, but not really enough to run out & buy others. I dont read much travel writing in general but it was undeniably well written, interesting & felt it was doing me good. On a whim I bought this one, Naples 44, last week and it is a real step up. Dressed up as a diary of a place in time (there's a clue in the title as to where & ... Read More:
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.American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power

by: Thomas A. Reppetto

January 28, 2005
If this book had been around 5 years ago, when I first started reading about organised crime, I could have avoided many titles that used fabricated, exaggerated and/or simply recycled information. As it is, I have read dozens of historic accounts concerning the Italian-American crime groups (Mafia, La Cosa Nostra) and Reppetto's book still informed me of facts and events I had not yet read.
Its well written without becoming too scholarly and stuffy but, at the same time, it does not sacrifice truth in aid of a better story. A real pleasure to read!
If your just starting to read about the mob then this is a God send! It will provide an invaluable all-round knowledge on the subject and leave you with an understanding what I had to read many books before attaining.
If ... Read More:
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.The Leopard: Revised and with New Material (Vintage Classics)

by: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

September 06, 2007
The quality and of writing of "The Leopard" was, for me, perfect. And this bearing in mind it was a translation from Italian. With the exception of the recent nasty (American-English) trend of using "what" rather than "that which", it was English at its best. I would like to read it in Italian some day, but at my level, this would have been hard work. It was just a shame it was not longer. I could see the point of the 20 year gap in the story but it would have been so much more interesting if it had been a continuous story. However, bearing in mind that as one of the few that found "The Grapes of Wrath" one of the most disappointing books I ever read (talk about "The Kings New Clothes", I will never understand why everyone raves about the manufactured English and inconsistently story ... Read More:
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.The Wine Dark Sea

by: Leonardo Sciascia

April 10, 2001
The quality and of writing of "The Leopard" was, for me, perfect. And this bearing in mind it was a translation from Italian. With the exception of the recent nasty (American-English) trend of using "what" rather than "that which", it was English at its best. I would like to read it in Italian some day, but at my level, this would have been hard work. It was just a shame it was not longer. I could see the point of the 20 year gap in the story but it would have been so much more interesting if it had been a continuous story. However, bearing in mind that as one of the few that found "The Grapes of Wrath" one of the most disappointing books I ever read (talk about "The Kings New Clothes", I will never understand why everyone raves about the manufactured English and inconsistently story ... Read More:
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.The Moro Affair: And the Mystery of Majorana (New York Review Books Classics)

by: Leonardo Sciascia

2004-04
This book was read by me in 2003, many years after the sad event it coversbut its impact is none the worse for that. If anything given subsequentevents in Italy after Moro's death, Sciascia was proven to have written avery insightful book into Italian political morals over the post waryears.
Sciascia is an Italian politician and writer whose coverage of Italy'spolitical problems has made him many friends and enemies across the yearsit seems (witness the tragic impact he inadvertently had by criticisingthe anti-Mafia judges as covered in Alex Stille's great book "ExcellentCadavers").
This book is based on his involvement as a member of the Italianparliamentary committee which investigated the Moro Affair after itstragic outcome. He firstly provides a great detective story covering ... Read More:
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.The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection

by: Diego Gambetta

April 01, 1996
This book was read by me in 2003, many years after the sad event it coversbut its impact is none the worse for that. If anything given subsequentevents in Italy after Moro's death, Sciascia was proven to have written avery insightful book into Italian political morals over the post waryears.
Sciascia is an Italian politician and writer whose coverage of Italy'spolitical problems has made him many friends and enemies across the yearsit seems (witness the tragic impact he inadvertently had by criticisingthe anti-Mafia judges as covered in Alex Stille's great book "ExcellentCadavers").
This book is based on his involvement as a member of the Italianparliamentary committee which investigated the Moro Affair after itstragic outcome. He firstly provides a great detective story covering ... Read More:
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