Wash, D.C.: Beppe Severgnini Reading

Fans of the irrepressible Italian author Beppe Severgnini listen up. If you’re in the Washington, D.C.-area, you can hear him speak at an Italian Cultural Institute presentation at the Italian Embassy on Friday, September 15 at 6:30 p.m.

Severgnini, the bestselling author of Ciao, America: An Italian Discovers the U.S., will take attendees on a lively tour of modern Italy that takes you behind the seductive face it puts on for visitors—la bella figura—and highlights its maddening, paradoxical true self. The author is promoting his new book La Bella Figura: A Field Guide to the Italian Mind. I’m reviewing the book for the September issue of Dream of Italy (so I won’t give away too much here) and can promise that Severgnini turns the same discerning and humorous eye on his countrymen as he did on the American public in his first book.