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.
Rating: 
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-.
Rating:
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: 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: A delightful read
Review: In a very readable and delightful book, Tim Parks manages to capture to quintessential family life surrounding children growing up in Italy - trust me I was one of them !! Life at home, at school and at the summer seaside, are all affectionately captured by the author, as are the personal relationships with family, friends and neighbours. This is a book that everybody will enjoy, particularly touching and bringing back memories to those of us that grew up in Italy.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing, little in common with his earlier success
Review: Just like many other reviewers, I was very impressed with Tim Parks' Italian Neighbors (1992), which I thought was witty and well-written. It did justice to all the things I admire about Italy and, although the author tended to go on a bit, the book was very enjoyable. I bought Italian Education on the strength of this experience and it was so disappointing I struggled to finish it. Boring and repetitive and focused on the author's child in a way that happens to all parents who can go on and on about their offspring - except that most parents know much better than to put their self-centered ramblings on paper. I understand that after phenomenal success of Italian Neighbors the author had enormous credit of trust from his readers, and I am sorry he abused this trust by putting out this low-quality, underedited and bland book. It is a great virtue of a writer to understand that you haven't got much more meaningful to say and then shut up - but Parks clearly lacks this virtue. Maybe he needs to move to another country - but there is definitely nothing he can reveal about Italy any more. It is a shame he and his publisher do not understand that - or maybe they both were too keen to cash in on the existing reputation? I hope at least the publisher is embarrassed. In future, I'll stay well clear of anything written by Tim Parks. I would not be surprised if many other readers do the same.
Rating:
Summary: Poor
Review: One can't help but feel for Mr. Parks. He is miserable in Italy. For starters, Italians are conniving tax-evaders themselves who moreover "have a way of assuming that one's planning to cheat". They, let's dispel some stereotypes, "may be a sentimental people but rarely romantic". And that purported closeness of the Italian family? Well, now we know that is just for show: even though during family reunions Italians are exceedingly festive with each other in private, of course, they curse out all the vices of every relative in turn. Have you heard about the Italian grandparents? They come unannounced, and as the result of their care, the grandchildren are "spoilt and over protected and stuffed full of caramelle and sat in front of the television all day..." He "hates it when they come". Don't get him started on raising kids in this country: his children oftentimes seek their mother's help rather than his own and this, naturally, is entirely due to the cult of mother in the Italian society. An Italian house is full of sharp angles, hard floors and other objects harmful for children. Whereas "the English domestic world is a soft, soft place". The list goes on... At the beginning of the chapter "Santa Patata", some 170 pages in, the author suddenly stops and asks if possibly the picture of Italy he is painting is too grim. No, he reassures, there is one good aspect of living in Italy: "Aunt Natalina", his babysitter's mother, who is wonderful with his kids. But the 12 pages of this chapter (of the 455 total), plus maybe a few pages at the very end of the book in the chapter about a beach, are the only somewhat positive ones. Then we are back to annoyances of all things Italian. Mediterranean weather? Please. While at times it might seem pleasant inevitably your wife would spoil the experience by complaining "miserable weather, non e' vero?" And when we see a boat named "Santa Monica" the author is sure that it was so named not out of devotion but because "no-one can yet imagine any other way to name a fishing boat". Even football (soccer), the national obsession, is of course taught completely wrong at school... Italy is a horribly foreign place indeed. The grumpy tone and often colorless description of minutia make the book rather difficult to read. I tried hard to think of some positive aspects of the book. The experiences described are real, and although they do not translate necessarily to other parts of Italy or other families the book might give one a taste for some aspects of Italian life. It does bring home struggles of a man foreigner in a country and foreigner in his own family (with an Italian wife and his children growing Italian). It is very different from all other books that I know about one's experiences in a foreign place if only for the amount of resentfulness it contains.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, with a warm and perceptive view of Italy
Review: This wonderful book is a moving and informative account of the author's trials and tribulations raising his children in Italy, and the discoveries he makes about Italian culture during the process. His occasional tendency to simplistically analyze the reasons behind the actions of his relatives, neighbors and friends might grate on the nerves of some readers (particularly those who dislike any criticism of organized religion), but nonetheless his love and respect for Italy and Italians is clearly visible throughout the book. In particular, his charming anecdotes describing his vacations with his children while on the Adriatic coast of Italy struck a strong chord with me. His description of the Italian beach scene made me realize why I enjoyed my vacations on the coast of Italy so much. Throughout the rest of the book, some of his other observations and anecdotes brought me to a deeper awareness of what I both love and dislike about Italy, and further gave me a greater insight into the motivations, joys and aspirations of my Italian friends. I don't know how this book will read if you haven't lived or travelled in Italy, but I would hope that it will give you an appreciation of the wonderful people and culture that I have found here. I read it in one sitting, and afterwards found myself moved to plan yet another expedition into the small beach towns along the coast near my home. In all, this was certainly a wonderful, perceptive and inspiring book, underscored throughout by the author's wit. His earlier book about his Italian experience was certainly funny, but it didn't amuse nearly as much as this one, perhaps because much of his first book was so clearly intended to amuse. This book is witty, warm and loving at the same time and stood head and shoulders above his previous effort.
Rating:
Summary: An Italian education. going to Italy? read this book!
Review: Tim Parks does a great job of describing his life
with his kids and wife and wife's family in Italy.
His problems would be your problems, and the things
that frustrate him to death will frustrate you too!
Must read. I laughed all the way through it, and interrupted
what my husband was reading many times to read him
excerpts of THIS book
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