Please try your request again later. I kept hoping it wouldn’t fall apart before I returned it – otherwise I was going to be out 95 cents….

I just loved it! Unique and endearing. Exciting, moving, funny, wise...and shocking, too. Enjoyed the film many times during my childhood and was looking for that when I noticed it was actually from a book.

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The film makers ditched the book's narrator which is good (he is unnecessary to the story and takes up too many pages). The story holds up better than most popular fiction because of its balance between sentimentality and darker elements and especially through the attention to detail about daily life in Santa Vittoria. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free. A highly entertaining story with tightly written use of details.

The story of a peasant village and it's determination to save their wine from the occupying German forces. But without a doubt it is a gripping narrative, a long and satisfying read. "THE Secret of Santa Vittoria" is the fact that the little Italian hilltop town has hidden 1,000,000 bottles of local wine from the Germans during the final days of World War II.

There's plenty of humor early on, but as the end comes (and the SS) the fun ends.

Come to find out this book was a NY Best Selling book in its day. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

That is really insightful and I think you’re spot on! Along the way, as is often the case in war, uncomfortable compromises are made by both sides.

Crichton's 1966 novel, narrated here by Christopher Hurt, depicts the efforts of an Italian mountain village to protect its hoard of wine from German soldiers near the end of World War II. Stay with it anyway. Well worth the effort. Really torn on this book, as I remember the movie that was made from this - a movie that was a huge box office disappointment! His father, Kyle Crichton, was a writer/editor at Collier's magazine and author of novels and biographies, including a biography of the Marx Brothers. In the last days of World War II, German forces are sent to occupy the Italian hill town, Santa Vittoria, and claim its great treasure: one million bottles of the Santa Vittoria wine that is its lifeblood. I first read this as a youngster, before my teens. I’m not going to read this book! In an amusing sequence of events, Italo Bombolini, a clownish man with a penchant for Machiavelli, becomes the new mayor and surprises everyone when he rises to the occasion.

?Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. If you’ve ever accidentally scared yourself so badly with a book that you couldn’t sleep, you might have wished for a way to predict the type... To save the long-term future of their village, the people in the Italian village of Santa Vittoria decide to hide over a million bottles of their famous (and expensive) wine from the occupying Nazis. Michelle, I too am very literal, and when I jumped into The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), I wasn’t sure what to think about the book. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Von Prum wants to have a “bloodless victory,” not because he has compassion but because anything else would be beneath him.

Vivid characters on both sides, including a clownish Sicilian mayor who consults his only book (Machiavelli's "The Prince") for guidance in the struggle. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. I enjoyed the rich descriptions of the Italian character and tempermant and watching the clever ways the Italians strung along the German soldiers.

The music score was by Ernest Gold and the cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno. There's a problem loading this menu right now.

I hope! Based on a true story and the author 's personal experience, the book clearly told the story of one small village and their ordeal. This was an interesting story about the German occupation of a small Italian village during WW II .

A slightly whimsical and meandering start got me wondering what I was actually reading, but the strands all soon wove together and I was in the midst of a delightful and comic tale, about wartime resistance, human nature and wine. I have just reread it, and even though I had forgotten about some of the disturbing parts, I still feel that the story, the characters, and the writing are superb. Imagery is lost on me.

I remembered really enjoying it, and I am glad I re-read this again!

At first, the villagers were indifferent, not seeing how it impacted them at all. The switch was jarring and perhaps the author’s way of reminding us that war is not a humorous romp. In my mind I placed the book in Montepulciano, the heart of wine making country and a town with many of the same characteristics as the one in the book.

Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. A bumbling, hilarious, over-the-top and pitch perfect gem of a read.

It was made into a movie which was released in 1969. Full of humour, love, courage, cruelty, honour and cowardice. I laughed and cried. For a leisurely novel about a slow-paced community, Christopher Hurt is perhaps a bit too brisk and businesslike. Then, I loved it for the game they played. Without it, they would face starvation. He knows me well.

Learn how your comment data is processed. They play their parts according to their historical consignments until events dictate change.

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