Trame A Contemporary Italian Reader Cristina Abbona-Sneider, Antonello Borra, Cristina Pausini

"Trame: A Contemporary Italian Reader" brings together short stories, poems, interviews, excerpts from movie scripts and novels, and other works by 33 renowned authors. The readings cover familiar themes - youth, family, immigration, politics, women's voices, identity - from the fresh perspective of a new generation of Italian writers. By presenting a rich array of materials and many points of view, "Trame" highlights the cultural complexity of contemporary Italy.Each text is accompanied by a diverse selection of activities and exercises that help students read authentic texts and build their language skills. These include: pre-reading activities that introduce important themes; vocabulary lists with definitions in Italian; writing exercises; and, post-reading activities in discussion and analysis. With its range of readings and exercises, "Trame" is designed to be easily adaptable to instructors' different needs and class levels. It is ideally suited to high-intermediate and advanced Italian language and culture courses.

Cristina Abbona-Sneider is lecturer and director of Italian Language Studies at Brown University. Antonello Borra is associate professor of Italian at University of Vermont. Cristina Pausini is lecturer at Wellesley College.

"I have really enjoyed teaching third-year Italian students with "Trame: A Contemporary Italian Reader". The short stories, passages from novels, films scripts, poems, and journalistic pieces anthologized here offer a wide array of themes and levels of linguistic sophistication. The pre-reading activities are engaging, and the post-reading questions are really well done and provoke good discussions. I expect to teach with "Trame "for years to come."--Jonathan Druker, Illinois State University--Jonathan Druker (06/12/2012)