SONS OF ITALY RELEASES
WINTER 2008 BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS

Washington, DC-- January 31, 2008 Warm up next to the fire this winter with one of the Sons of Italy Winter 2008 Book Club selections. Check out the Sons of Italy Book Club for Winter 2008:

• Kimchi & Calamari by Rose Kent. Fourteen-year-old Korean adoptee Joseph Calderaro is stumped when his social studies teacher assigns an ancestry essay. He doesn't know his birth parents and even though he thoroughly enjoys his Italian American family he begins a search for his birth family.

  Kent's debut novel humorously captures a young teen as he fights with his sisters, has crushes on girls and makes a new friend. The book has special appeal for adoptees, but the questions about family roots that it raises are universal. A great read for ages 9-12. [$15.99; hardcover; 240 pages; HarperCollins]

• Italian Lessons by Peter Pezzelli. Two lonely men form an unlikely friendship in Pezzelli's latest novel. Fresh out of college, Carter Quinn returns to Providence, R.I. unsure of everything except his plans to go to Abruzzo to pursue the woman he loves. He can't speak Italian so he turns to Professor Giancarlo Rosa, who knows first-hand what disappointments and betrayals are found under Italy's blue skies. What begins as an apparent mismatch between teacher and student soon blossoms into a friendship that teaches both of them about life, love and forgotten secrets. [$14.00; paperback; 320 pages; Kensington]
• The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943- 1944 by Rick Atkinson. Vol. II of Pulitzer- winning author Rick Atkinson's projected trilogy on WW II covers the liberation of Italy from German control. It follows the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and attack on the mainland Italy two months later, ending with the liberation of Rome in June 1944. Military historians still debate whether the Italian campaign was necessary, but Atkinson shows it was there that the American army honed its battle skills despite paying a high price for the mistakes their generals made. [$35.00; hardcover; 816 pages; Henry Holt and Co.]

• Playing for Pizza
  By John Grisham
  After causing his team to lose a championship game, third-string quarterback Rick Dockery flees vengeful fans and finds refuge in the most unlikely corner of professional football: the Italian National Football League. First baffled and then enchanted by all things Italian, Rick navigates his new home in this charming fish-out-of-water novel. [$21.95; hardcover; 272 pages; Doubleday]
• Sicily Through Symbolism and Myth
  By Paolo Fiorentino
  "Sicily for the Ancient Greet was what America was for the19th century Europeans: a promised land of plenty," writes Sicilian scholar Gaetano Cipolla in the introduction to Fiorentino's study, which offers an in- depth, analysis of the Greek and Roman myths associated with the largest island in the Mediterranean. [$12.95; paperback; 124 pages; Legas]

The Sons of Italy National Book Club is dedicated to the works of writers who focus on Italian American issues, themes, experiences and Italian culture. OSIA chooses three to four fiction and non-fiction books each quarter for a total of 12 to 16 titles a year.

OSIA encourages its 700+ lodges as well as other Italian American organizations, clubs and individuals to choose one or more of the books each quarter to read and donate copies to their local schools or public libraries.

Most book club selections can be bought on the OSIA Web site.

Order all your books, magazines, etc. through OSIA and Amazon.com. Most orders are shipped within 24 hours.

As a special bonus, Amazon.com will donate a percentage of all sales ordered on our site to OSIA.

CLICK HERE to Buy OSIA Winter Book Club Selections Online

OSIA has more than 600,000 members and supporters and a network of more than 700 chapters coast to coast. OSIA works at the community, national and international levels to promote the heritage and culture of an estimated 26 million Italian Americans, the nation's fifth largest ethnic group, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. See www.osia.org.