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Songbirds, Truffles, and Wolves: An American Naturalist in Italy

by Gary Paul Nabhan

A walking journey through central Italy’s cultivated and cultural landscapes

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Regular price $36.19 USD Sale price $23.16 USD
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Paperback New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praised by William Kittredge as “a great book”

    Kittredge praises the book as a great book and describes its emotional arc.

AlbakiReads Editorial

A walking journey through central Italy’s cultivated and cultural landscapes

Gary Paul Nabhan recounts a 200-mile walk from Florence to Assisi, undertaken to consider his Mediterranean roots and the landscape associated with Saint Francis. Encounters with peasant farmers bring plants, seeds, local foods, recipes, and customs into the journey, grounding the route in everyday agricultural knowledge as well as pilgrimage. The book connects natural observation with history, tracing how cultivated landscapes and inherited traditions shape one another along the way.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Travel readers interested in Italy beyond major-city itineraries
  • Nature writing readers interested in agriculture, plants, and rural traditions
  • Readers interested in walking journeys and pilgrimage routes

Themes

ItalyWalking pilgrimageNature and historyAgriculture and seedsFood traditions

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

By the winner of the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing

"Gary Nabhan went to walk in old Italy like a pilgrim. . . . This is a story about moving from sad uncertainty to part-time joyousness. It is a great book."--William Kittredge

"In part to ponder my Mediterranean roots and in part to learn of the land of my saint, San Francisco," Gary Paul Nabhan, one of America's finest nature writers and author of The Desert Smells Like Rain decided to walk the two hundred miles from Florence to Assisi. Along the way he met peasant farmers eager to share the love of their plants and seeds, recipes and customs. The fruit of this pilgrimage is writing that imaginatively traverses the boundary between nature and history.


"Unusual but important . . . entertaining and informative . . . the book afford[s] an evening retreat as satisfying as a shot of grappa with a plate of anisette cookies."--The New York Times Book Review
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