Win a Camilleri library and stuff your face
The good people at Penguin are offering a big, fat prize in conjunction with the release of The Age of Doubt, fourteenth in Andrea Camilleri's series of novels about the splenetic, introspective, put-upon, food-loving police inspector Salvo Montalbano.Enter by Tuesday to win all 14 Montalbano novels, plus a basket of food that just might divert Salvo's attention from the case at hand: pasta, sauce, olives, desserts, roasted red peppers, olive oil, and cheese. Visit this link for details: http://apps.facebook.com/penguinpaperbacks/Giveaways/Enter/3663
Now, if only they'd offer elocution lessons from Catarella as a prize.
© Peter Rozovsky 2012
Labels: Andrea Camilleri, contests, Italy, Salvo Montalbano, Sicily
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 12:43 PM
21 Comments:
It bears saying again: I love Andrea Camilleri.
He is the most loveable of crime writers: funny, intelligent, sympathetic, satirical, and with an enviable, unaffected love of good food.
I haven't read the Montalbano books, but the Italian TV shows based on them are great. I've got a review of them here. The actor who plays Montalbano is excellent, and the whole thing is a wonderful advert for taking a vacation in Sicily.
Incidentally, Sellerio just published the new Montalbano novel "Una lama di luce."
Cary, the episodes of the television series I've seen have been unformly excellent, and thanis for the link; I'll take a look.
One impressive sidelight to Luca Zingaretti's performances as Montalbano is that he looks nothing like the character's description in the books, and he's younger, too. But his performances are so good that this never bothered me in the least.
I recently found out that Montalbano's beach apartment in the show is now a B and B. It's not even expensive.
Ha! Cary, I just now posted that information on your site.
You can also order the DVDs from Mhz Networks, which broadcasts the Montalbano series (and many other international detective shows) in the United States.
Simona, I had not heard that title before. It dies not appear on lists I'd seen even of Montalbano titles yet to be translated into English. Thanks.
I recently finished reading L'Età del dubbio so I'd be ready for its English-language release.
Camilleri has said on several occasions that, in addition to the definite titles in the finite Montalbano series, he would write others in between, if the mood struck. With an eye on current events in N. Africa, Camilleri seems to have been in the mood to write La Lama di luce (A Blade of Light?).
I keep an eye on all things Camilleri at www.vigata.org
It's updated frequently.
We spent 2 nights at La Casa di Montalbano in Santa Croce Camerina when we were in Sicily last November. It was a sort of pilgrimage site after seeing all the TV episodes! We knew from the B&B's website that it was rather spartan in its furnishings, etc., a pretty typical Italian B&B, in other words. But it was clean and friendly and, yes, right on the Mediterranean. Apparently some people think all the props from the TV show will be in place! I would love to snag that Stile Liberty end table from Montalbano's living room, though!
It's near to Ragusa and the surrounding area (used a lot in the TV show) but not many other sites within easy driving distance; but staying there was more about, well, just staying there.
I would gladly make such a pilgrimage. I have seen the B&B's Web site. The location is, indeed, alluring, and I've had trouble figuring out how a polic inspector could afford to live there.
I had not known that Camilleri had left open the possibility of adding to the series. I know his interest in Tunisia goes back at least to "The Snack Thief."
Sunday nights has become "Montalbano night" since I found someone with the Mhz channel. It has been a fun way to share Montalbano "poissonally in poisson" with my friends that won't read the books. I still haven't seen the "August Heat" episode.
Solea, August Heat is scheduled for Sunday, 29 July. Even though we own the DVD's we usually watch the Sunday night episodes, too. I love listening to the Italian; helps with my inflection. (Can't get into MhZ's Don Matteo in spite of it being filmed in the lovely town of Gubbio; don't care for the amateur sleuth + dumb cop premise.)
Solea, the Montalbano series is, in addition to being enjoyable in its own right, unusually faithful to the books. That meand that your non-reader friends might be more likely than otherwise to enjoy the novels. I hope they won't be disillusioned to discover that Salvo has hair and a mustache (though these are rarely mentioned).
Elisabeth, even though my Italian is rudimentary, I could understand bits of the Montalbano broadcasts because I had read the books. (Oddly enough, I found Catarella especially easy to understand.) May be time for me to order some more discs from Mhz.
My fondness for Piero della Francesca and my visit to Arezzo to see work (not just La leggenda della vera croce, but also the Maddalena at the duomo) predispose me to root for Arezzo in its annual archery competition with Gubbio. I suppose I shall have to visit Gubbio out of fairness.
(Oh, and did you see that McKinty's latest will finally get U.S, publication in November?)
Ah, but you don't need to go all the way to Gubbio to see its greatest gift to the Renaissance! The studiolo from the Palazzo Ducale is just up the road from you at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I couldn't wait for November; I read TCCG via interlibrary loan a few months ago.
I've seen it! If anyone claims to have seen better intarsia, I'll say: My arsia!
My favorite gourmet curmudgeon!
Am impatiently waiting for my library to get The Age of Doubt, but I may have to buy it as it's hard to wait when such rave reviews are floating about the blogosphere.
It's great to learn about www.vigata.org Had not known of this website, but I think my credit card will take a beating if I read more raves.
And I am planning to buy the first few TV episodes from MHZ Networks, and then go from there.
The book is to be released officially this week. I'm not sure when libraries get copies of new books.
This is the link to the new release on Sellerio's site: http://www.sellerio.it/it/catalogo/Una-Lama-Luce/Camilleri/5224
It will be in stores later this week.
Gubbio is a beautiful place: I recommend you go, next time you are in Italy.
And here’s that link in handly, clickable form. That cover looks like a Bronzino portrain in modern dress. or else like the woman and the girls in Degas’ portrait of the Bellelli Family.
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