Il Bel Centro by Michelle Damiani

Il Bel Centro by Michelle Damiani

Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center is a passport to the heart of Italy. Michelle Damiani chronicles how her American family of five transformed within the medieval walls of Spello. Part searingly-honest memoir, part celebration of Umbrian life, Il Bel Centro evokes the pleasures of an Italian hill town, complete with colorful characters, historical asides, and storied celebrations.

At once hilarious and wise, this spellbinding journey will feed your soul and your wanderlust. Il Bel Centro will sweep you into an Italian village, where for bakers, pants are optional, and a good lunch will take you straight through till dinner.

A magical read.

I absolutely couldn't get enough of this book.

I was instantly transported to Italy.

This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

Could not put it down.

I could smell the freshly baked bread, taste the local wine, and if I closed my eyes I could easily see the sloping hills, the pink stones of Spello, the 'alley ladies' with their basket of vegetables to sort and their easy chatter.

I just want more.

Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center includes recipes for delicious Umbrian dishes as well as professional-quality photographs.

A realistic look into what happens when you uproot your family to immerse yourself in a foreign culture, attempting to raise kids in an unfamiliar environment.--Huffington Post's list of Ten Fascinating Books about Living in a Foreign Country, August 2016

If you can't get yourself to Italy for an extended stay, Il Bel Centro is a worthy substitute. Highly recommended. --Michelle Fabio, Bleeding Espresso, reviewing for Spring 2016 issue of Ambassador, the magazine of the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF)

Il Bel Centro reads in many ways like a romance novel. In this case it is the author who falls in love with a country and way of life...It is a grand book...--PRIMO magazine, October, 2016

Michelle Damiani is a Charlottesville, Virginia-based freelance writer, clinical psychologist, and foodie. Her heart, on the other hand, is in Spello, Italy, where she and her family spent a year acclimating to being out of their element, wrestling with the challenges of parenting on foreign territory, and eventually cleaving into the essence of Italian village life. Michelle created short fiction before her year abroad, and one of her works was just awarded first prize in the Hook Short Fiction Award, which was judged by novelist John Grisham. She used the time her children were in Italian public schools to write a blog about their experiences while in Italy. Expatsblog gave the site Il Bon Centro the bronze prize for best Italian blog.

When she returned to Charlottesville, she turned the blog into a book, Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center, which is now available in print and digital formats. She began writing a four-part novel series set in Italy because she missed her village. Santa Lucia, The Quiet Madonna, and The Stillness of Swallows are three of the books that have been published. Michelle has compiled the collective wisdom of traveling families into The Road Taken: How to Imagine, Plan, and Experience Your Family Journey Overseas, a thorough guide.

You can find her at www.michelledamiani.com when she isn't organizing her forthcoming trip around the world.