Made in Italy

The aim of this book is to paint a portrait of present-day Italy; titles: Italy As Is, Contemporary Italy, or even, Only In Italy, may have been equally appropriate. The chosen title, Made in Italy, refers to what Italians create with much passion be it haute couture, or alta moda as Italians say, status cars like Ferrari, exquisite food and wine from truffles to chocolate to spumante, but also uniquely Italian style politics, education and money matters. Answers are given to questions like: What is Italy's pop music scene like, and opera, where does it come from, which are Italy's top opera houses? What sort of movies do Italians like? What kind of books do they read, how much do they read? What is modern Italian language like, what are its peculiarities, is it still heavily borrowing from English? Is Italian family, marriage institution values still intact? Where is the best place to live in Italy? How green is Italy? And finally when do Italians retire from work, how much are they paid? Can they live on it? Also included are three entertaining travelogues exploring Liguria, Le Marche and Lazio regions