"Quotations from the Web edition of Dante's Divine Comedy from www.italianstudies.org/comedy/index.htm."--T.p. verso.

Reviews

By interspersing interviews and anecdotes from her life in Italy, Hales, an American journalist and health writer (An Invitation to Health), interweaves her story of learning to speak Italian with highlights of the language's development. Hales explores political history, biographies of powerful artistic contributors, the widespread and continued use of local dialects, and, of course, food. Likewise, readers are treated to interviews with the likes of the president of the revered L'Accademia della Crusca, where Hales touched the society's first dictionary, nearly 400 years old. She portrays riveting performances of Dante and Verdi in Rome and Milan, and she describes how she could consistently hear from the mouths of ordinary Italians Dante's or Verdi's beautiful lyrics specifically crafted to be read aloud or sung. A word lover yet not a linguist, Hales offers helpful but not in-depth or technical linguistic background, so the bibliography is valuable. An enthusiastic cultural tour guide and introduction to Italian, this is recommended for public libraries.-Marianne Orme, Des Plaines P.L., IL Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

In this charming love letter to the language and culture of Italy, journalist Hales recounts her inebriation with Italian's sounds and her lovesickness over its phrases. Enamored of this lovely and lovable language, Hales immerses herself in Italian culture on numerous trips to Italy in her attempt to "live Italian." She comes to think of Italian as "a lovable rascal, a clever, twinkle-eyed scamp that you can't resist even when it plays you for a fool." Hales regales us with the mysteries of the language, such as when a color becomes more than hue. She tells us that yellow, for example, refers to a mystery "because thrillers traditionally had yellow covers." In her rapture over the language, she also swoons over Italian literature (from Dante to Manzoni), opera (Verdi and Puccini) and cinema (Marcello Mastroianni and Fellini) as she rehearses the many ways in which the language has seductively slipped into Western culture and consciousness. (May) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

"A praiseworthy feature of "La Bella Lingua "is the way Hales peppers her narrative with hundreds of Italian words, idioms, and figures of speech--all chosen with gusto and brio and clearly translated into English--to introduce readers to the sonic and semantic seraglio that is the Italian language. A separate chapter on 'Irreverent Italian' highlights "la parolaccia," the earthy lexicon of invective and jocular sensuality that contemporary Italians imbibe with their mother's milk but foreign students of Italian rarely get to savor." --Peter D'Epiro and Mary Desmond Pinkowish, authors of "Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World"
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""Dianne Hales is just about pitch perfect as she weaves the engaging story of her "innamoramento "with Italian, hitting the high notes of Italian culture...
a lovely, touching tribute to the many fine civilizing gifts that Italy has shared with the world. Any smart traveler to Italy would want to read "La Bella Lingua."
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