Rating: 
Summary: A Fascinating Glimpse into Italy's family culture
Review: "An Italian Education" will not only appeal to Italophiles but also to parents who will enjoy the author's vivid descriptions of family life in another country. Its actually a two country comparative study of family life, Italy, the book's setting and Parks' England. The comparisons are thoughtful and often hilarious, particularly the two country's different attitudes on school, religion, medicine and a day at the beach.Parks' wit and dry British humor make this a very enjoyable and fast read. The author use his family as the vehicle to introduce the reader on how Italy raises its children. After reading Parks lovely descriptions of the idiosyncrasies of modern day Italy, I am still unable to discern how much Parks actually admires about how Italy raises its youth.
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Summary: very pleasant trip into the italian world of parenthood
Review: An Italian Education is one of the most entertaining and sensible book I have ever read. While reading it, you discover or rediscover the Italian way of live while laughing at the more or less gentle remarks of the totally subjective narrator... While focusuing on the children, you actually learn a lot of their art of being parents. This is a kind of Bildungsroman, and Tim PArks is probably the one who receives "an Italian Education".
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Summary: Great book about being Italian
Review: At first, I didn't think I'd like this book. I'm American, have been married for quite a few years now, but my wife and I have no children. I speak Italian fairly well, and have travelled there quite a bit. But, as a non-Italian, there were always things about the culture that I never understood. Tim Parks, through his observations about bringing up children in Italy (in the Veneto), has explained so much about the Italian way of thinking and living that I now understand much more about what it means to be Italian. For example, read his description about how gifts (not allowances!) are given to Italian children, and his relating that to the way Italians have of tipping in restaurants--ah, now I understand!! Any Anglophone who wants to try to understand Italy should read this book. Tim Parks is a great writer, with a sensitive and idiosyncratic style, and tremendous powers of observation and description. This was the first book of his that I have read, but now I plan to read the rest of his books, both fiction and non-.
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Summary: Italy
Review: great book. funny and insightful take on Italian life. Highly recommended
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable look at Italy
Review: I finished this book, like Parks' first book on Italy (Italian Neighbors), with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, Parks writes well, fluidly, comfortably. His subjects are well-handled and fascinating, and he has mastered that technique of finding universal truths in personal stories. And yet...his non-fiction books always have a few characteristics that grate, things that stick in my mind and my craw even after I've finished a book I ought to have loved. For Italian Education, the biggest problem for me was the first two chapters, which are Parks at his worst: smug, self-obsessed, whiny. As just a single example, in the second chapter he tries to justify writing not one but two books about Italy - as though this needs a justification. Part of his justification is the unique way he's found of doing it, concentrating on local people, local issues, things he knows intimately. He's in love with his cleverness at inventing this approach, apparently unaware that he isn't the first writer, or the first travel writer (or even in the first fifty) to use it. That tone, which disappears as he delves into stories about his family, about living in Italy, left me wanting to find flaws in the book, and I did find a few more. Parks ended it in a strange place, with his wife out of the picture for many chapters and a new baby not yet born - in a book about children, the third one never makes an appearance? And I felt the title was a little less than apt - it isn't about education, it's about children growing up Italian and taking their father with them, at least part way. Italian Children would be much nearer the mark. But these are tiny quibbles. And the fact that I found so few after those first two chapters - despite almost *wanting* to dislike the book - should tell you about its quality, its insight. Parks may be annoying at times but he can write, and in Italian Education he's found a strictly local topic with worldwide appeal. An important measure of any society is how it treats its children, and so this book is a fascinating study of Italy through a less than common lens. If you're interested in Italy or parenthood or travel at all, buy this book. Read this book. Even if you don't want to like it, you will.
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable look at Italy
Review: I finished this book, like Parks' first book on Italy (Italian Neighbors), with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, Parks writes well, fluidly, comfortably. His subjects are well-handled and fascinating, and he has mastered that technique of finding universal truths in personal stories. And yet...his non-fiction books always have a few characteristics that grate, things that stick in my mind and my craw even after I've finished a book I ought to have loved. For Italian Education, the biggest problem for me was the first two chapters, which are Parks at his worst: smug, self-obsessed, whiny. As just a single example, in the second chapter he tries to justify writing not one but two books about Italy - as though this needs a justification. Part of his justification is the unique way he's found of doing it, concentrating on local people, local issues, things he knows intimately. He's in love with his cleverness at inventing this approach, apparently unaware that he isn't the first writer, or the first travel writer (or even in the first fifty) to use it. That tone, which disappears as he delves into stories about his family, about living in Italy, left me wanting to find flaws in the book, and I did find a few more. Parks ended it in a strange place, with his wife out of the picture for many chapters and a new baby not yet born - in a book about children, the third one never makes an appearance? And I felt the title was a little less than apt - it isn't about education, it's about children growing up Italian and taking their father with them, at least part way. Italian Children would be much nearer the mark. But these are tiny quibbles. And the fact that I found so few after those first two chapters - despite almost *wanting* to dislike the book - should tell you about its quality, its insight. Parks may be annoying at times but he can write, and in Italian Education he's found a strictly local topic with worldwide appeal. An important measure of any society is how it treats its children, and so this book is a fascinating study of Italy through a less than common lens. If you're interested in Italy or parenthood or travel at all, buy this book. Read this book. Even if you don't want to like it, you will.
Rating:
Summary: 99 and 44/100 % pure
Review: I liked the book, honestly, but I'm afraid I have to agree that this book is flawed. I don't really find it condescending the way a previous reviewer did, but I did sense a very deep disappointment, maybe even anger, that I didn't feel in the first book. I can understand this "anger", however, because , as an expatriate in Germany, I also have the same feeling towards my chosen home; it's simply not the perfect place it could so easily be, if only the Germans (in Mr Park's case, Italians) would play along. I really like Italy around Verona (I first saw this book in a bookstore in Vicenza)(a LOT cheaper through amazon.com, though) and this book gave me some more really good peeks through the keyhole. There were lots of similarities between Italy and Germany (incidentally, I'd have to strongly disagree with Mr Parks' views of Germans - they simply are not so) so not everything surprised me the way it surely would a person from New Zealand or the US. I would have loved to hear a bit about our "old friends" from the first book, too. Read this book and its predecessor. You'll enjoy them both.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I read "Italian Neighbours" in less than a weekend and couldn't wait for this book to arrive. Unfortunately, I found it a bit disappointing. Like another reviewer, I can't quite put my finger on what it is that I don't like. Maybe TP sounds a little bitter and less ready to concede that there may be advantages to the Italian mindset. He seems to do nothing but whinge about Italy which started to wear on me a bit. Again, like the other reviewer, I also miss his previous neighbours. They were much better observed and more detailed than the current batch. Furthermore, Park's observations about Italy in general are not as accurate as they were in "Italian Neighbours". He seems to have extrapolated life in Montecchio, a small place in the Veronese to the rest of Italy and sometimes this just doesn't hold water. A small example: contrary to Tim Park's writing, Italian shools DO offer extracurricular activities and they DO offer school sports. Well, at least in Lombardy they do. As I said, I finished "Italian Neighbours" in under a weekend. I thought the book was so good that I really wanted to MEET Tim Parks. This second book took me over two weeks, and even that was real hard going what with Tim Park's constant whingeing and all. That just about says it all for me.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I read "Italian Neighbours" in less than a weekend and couldn't wait for this book to arrive. Unfortunately, I found it a bit disappointing. Like another reviewer, I can't quite put my finger on what it is that I don't like. Maybe TP sounds a little bitter and less ready to concede that there may be advantages to the Italian mindset. He seems to do nothing but whinge about Italy which started to wear on me a bit. Again, like the other reviewer, I also miss his previous neighbours. They were much better observed and more detailed than the current batch. Furthermore, Park's observations about Italy in general are not as accurate as they were in "Italian Neighbours". He seems to have extrapolated life in Montecchio, a small place in the Veronese to the rest of Italy and sometimes this just doesn't hold water. A small example: contrary to Tim Park's writing, Italian shools DO offer extracurricular activities and they DO offer school sports. Well, at least in Lombardy they do. As I said, I finished "Italian Neighbours" in under a weekend. I thought the book was so good that I really wanted to MEET Tim Parks. This second book took me over two weeks, and even that was real hard going what with Tim Park's constant whingeing and all. That just about says it all for me.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and amusing view of Italians
Review: I saw many Italians in this book that I seem to know personally. Amusing and very insightful in the first half, the story line got bogged down towards the end and I found myself skipping pages. Difficult though it must be to categorize a whole nation it helped me understand the Italians I know a little better. Will now go out and buy Italian neighbours.
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