Here are some "great books to be read" about Italy (Spectator Magazine). 

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis - Giorgio Bassani

Bassani gives us Ferrara in 1938-39 cleverly weaving together the historical and the intimate--the fate of Italian Jews and a boy feeling in love on the outset of WWII.

The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Set in Sicily during Italy's struggle for unification, a force for change with Garibaldi, and the loss of aristocratic grandeur.

Risotto with Nettles - Anna del Conte

A memoir with food. Anna del Conte begins in Milan, moves to Rome and then to a village in Emilia-Romagna learning the history and the different culinary delights of each place.

The Shape of Water - Andrea Camilleri

The first of the Commissario Montalbano series - gripping detective stories.

Where Angels Fear to Tread - E.M. Forster

Slim, but powerful, Forster's first novel perfectly conjures the Tuscan landscape and its alarmingly liberating effect on the English abroad.

Christ Stopped at Eboli - Carlo Levi

A fascinating and beautifully written account of the author's time as a political exile, living among peasants in a remote corner of Southern Italy in 1935.