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Sentimental Economy by Edoardo Nesi
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Sentimental Economy

$13.46

Retail price: $14.95

Discount: 9%

This title is not eligible for purchase with membership credits. Why?

Narrator Edoardo Ballerini

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Translator Antony Shugaar
Length 4 hours
Language English
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From the Strega Prize–winning author of Story of My People comes an astute, multifaceted essay on the seismic shifts of 2020 and how he and people from all walks of life are adapting.

Attempting to make sense of the incredible upheaval of 2020—from the devastating impact of COVID-19 to the sudden loss of his father—Edoardo Nesi considers the changing global economy and its effect on our lives. He shares the stories of Alberto Magelli, a small textile entrepreneur; Livia Firth, a prominent advocate for sustainability; Elisa Martelli, a young Sangiovese winemaker; Enrico Giovannini, a leading economist and statistician; Rino Pratesi, a proud butcher from the heart of Tuscany; and more.

From the overworked to the unemployed, we’re all grappling with difficult questions about our current disorienting world: Will we ever feel healthy again, and what will it take to regain “normality”? What does progress mean today? Have science and technology let us down? What will the increased prevalence of remote working mean for our cities, and for our lifestyles generally? Deftly weaving together the personal and the economic, Nesi takes us on a fascinating journey to understanding.

Edoardo Nesi is a writer, filmmaker, and translator. He has written several novels, one of which, L’età dell’oro, was a finalist for the 2005 Strega Prize and a winner of the Bruno Cavallini Prize. He wrote and directed the film Fughe da fermo, based on his novel of the same name, and has translated David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest into Italian. In 2013 he was elected as a member of the Italian Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies.

Edoardo Ballerini is an American writer, director, film producer and actor.  He has won many awards for his audiobook narration; within only a few years after beginning his narrating career, he won several AudioFile Earphones Awards for his work, including Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How The World Became Modern, Jodi Picoult’s The Storyteller and Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins.   He narrated Kenzaburo Oe’s Nobel Prize Winning Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Joseph Finder’s The Moscow Club as well as works by John Edward and Daniel Stashower.   In television and film, he is best known for his role in The Sopranos, 24, I Shot Andy Warhol, Dinner Rush and Romeo Must Die. The silky-voiced Ballerini is trained in theater and continues to do much work on stage.

Federico Moccia is one of Italy's publishing phenomenons, and his emotional stories have been compared to the works of Nicholas Sparks and John Green. The first two Babi and Step books were blockbuster bestsellers in Italy, spending three full consecutive years on the Nielsen bestseller list. His books have been published in fifteen languages worldwide and have sold over ten million copies, and there are feature films in Italian and Spanish based on the first two books in the trilogy.
Learn more at:FedericoMoccia.esTwitter @FedericoMocciaFacebook.com/FedericoMocciaOfficial
Antony Shugaar is a translator and writer who lived for many years in Italy, France, and Spain. He has received two translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has translated close to forty books for Europa Editions and has worked for many of the most prestigious publishers, trade and academic, in the US and the UK. He has translated extensively for the New York Review of Books and has written for the New York Times, the Times of London, and many other publications.

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Reviews

“An intimate account of very recent history and an expansive story of a nation. Only Nesi could enfold fashion, economic theory, and literature into something so lapidary and beautiful.”

“As Italy becomes the first European nation gripped by the pandemic, Nesi picks up his phone and calls old friends…asking them what is going to happen. Their predictions are interwoven with his own amusing and poignant reflections on work, family, and Italian culture as the world around him shifts, at least temporarily, beyond recognition.”

“He laments the changes brought about by unpredictable viruses, giving readers permission to mourn the world that was and reflect on the time when we moved freely, indulged and enjoyed life, and socialized with little understanding of its fragility….Haunting and lovely: Readers will eagerly join Nesi in his remembrances.”

“This elegy for a vanished future captivates.”

“[An] elegant, witty book about Italy, economics, Covid, and family…Nesi applies Platonic questioning to economic experts, friends, and his personal memories, until past losses and the unknown present absorb us like a good novel.”

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