La bella figura : a field guide to the Italian mind Beppe Severgnini ; translated by Giles Watson.

Day 1: Malpensa -> Milan: The airport, where we discover that Italians prefer exceptions to rules -- The highway, or the psychopathology of the stoplight -- The hotel, where singular people are not content with a double room -- Day 2 & 3: Milan: The restaurant, one way of sitting in judgment -- The store, the field of lost battles -- The nightspot, where foxes turn into peacocks -- The condominium, a vertical space for oblique obsessions -- The eat-in kitchen, the nerve center of domestic counterespionage -- The bedroom, the bathroom, and how hard it is to find space of your own -- Day 4: -> Tuscany: The train, where many talk, few listen, and everyone understands -- The museum, beautiful women on the walls -- Television, where the semi-undressed signorina acquires a cloak of significance -- Day 5: Tuscany: The countryside, where we show that Italians are the world's leading manufacturers of emotions -- The Italian piazza, a tool with more cutting edges than a Swiss-army knife -- The window, framing fantasies that are sometimes cut short by a shutter -- Day 6: Rome: The bank, a confrontation of confidence and cold feet -- The office, the opera house of orderly anarchy -- The shopping mall, a taste of America delivered to your door -- Day 7: Naples: The sidewalk, or on collective individualism -- The automobile, and fumbling on the fold-down seats -- The travel agency, where the nation flexes its flippancy and pampers its patriotism -- Day 8: Sardinia: The waterfront, the convoluted charm of a liquid frontier -- The beach, a bare outline -- The garden, seclusion in bloom -- Day 9: Crema: The barber, the newsstand, and the town as a lifebelt -- The monument. And yet it moves -- School, the workshop where shared memories are made -- Day 10: Crema -> Malpensa, via San Siro: The church, where we will ruminate on the moral menu -- The stadium, notes on social gastroenterology -- The horizon. In other words, give us back Columbus -- Epilogue: A letter from America.

An offbeat odyssey into the heart of Italy and the Italian people captures the colorful character of the nation in a ten-day journey to thirty destinations that reveal Italy's best, worst, and most authentic aspects.