Why had she bound herself to a man who didn’t love her? Meghan left her hometown to work as a waitress in Italy. One day she was at work when the wealthy Alessandro came in for lunch, and she immediately caught his attention. Having experienced a tragic relationship in the past, Alessandro sensed something familiar and comforting radiating from her. They spent some more time together and then he unexpectedly proposed to her. They were joined in a loveless marriage. But why? And why had Meghan agreed to become the bride of a man who didn’t love her?

Hot-blooded Italian Luc Peretti threw Skye Sumner out of his life when he thought she'd betrayed him with his own brother. Six years on, Luc learns that Skye was innocent. His brother lied. And Skye has borne Luc's son! Skye wants nothing to do with Luc. He can't buy her back! But Luc won't take no for an answer. There's only one way to take back what was stolen from him . . . Marriage!

Headline: A study of how Italian films re-envisage male identity in response to sexual liberationBlurb: Italian cinema has traditionally used the trope of an inadequate man in crisis to reflect on the country's many social and political upheavals. Masculinity and Italian Cinema examines how this preoccupation with male identity becomes especially acute in the 1970s when a set of more diverse and inclusive images of men emerge in response to the rise of feminism and gay liberation. Through an analysis of the way Italian films explore anxieties about male sexuality and femininity, the book shows how such anxieties also intersect with particular preoccupations about national identity and political engagement. This is an essential study-tool to understand the multiple constructions of masculinity in Italian cinema, helping students and researchers to understand the work of some of Italy's most provocative filmmakers.Key Features* Re-examines key Italian films, including Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, Ettore Scola's A Special Day, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem and Lina Wertmuller's The Seduction of Mimi, in the light of gender and queer theory.* Covers the major thematic concerns, genres and stylistic traits of 1970s Italian political cinema* Analyses the broader cultural context of 1970s Italy, including sections on Italian feminism, Gay liberation and the post-'68 social movements.Key Words: Gender; Queer; Body; Gay; Feminism; Pier Paolo Pasolini; Bernardo Bertolucci; Lina Wertmuller; Nanni Moretti; Federico Fellini; Ettore Scola; Marco Ferreri.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A marvelous new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Lowland and Interpreter of Maladies about a woman questioning her place in the world, wavering between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. “Another masterstroke in a career already filled with them.” —O, the Oprah Magazine Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit. In the arc of one year, an unnamed narrator in an unnamed city, in the middle of her life’s journey, realizes that she’s lost her way. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor: traversing the streets around her house, and in parks, piazzas, museums, stores, and coffee bars, she feels less alone. We follow her to the pool she frequents, and to the train station that leads to her mother, who is mired in her own solitude after her husband’s untimely death. Among those who appear on this woman’s path are colleagues with whom she feels ill at ease, casual acquaintances, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. Until one day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will abruptly change. This is the first novel Lahiri has written in Italian and translated into English. The reader will find the qualities that make Lahiri’s work so beloved: deep intelligence and feeling, richly textured physical and emotional landscapes, and a poetics of dislocation. But Whereabouts, brimming with the impulse to cross barriers, also signals a bold shift of style and sensibility. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.

Weddings in 15th-century Italian courts were grand, sumptuous affairs, often requiring guests to listen to lengthy orations given in Latin. D'Elia shows how Italian humanists used these orations to support claims of legitimacy and assertions of superiority among families jockeying for power, as well as to advocate for marriage and sexual pleasure.