From the Book - 1st U.S. ed.
Day 1: Malpensa -> Milan: The airport, where we discover that Italians prefer exceptions to rules
The highway, or the psychopathology of the stoplight
The hotel, where singular people are not content with a double room
Day 2 & 3: Milan: The restaurant, one way of sitting in judgment
The store, the field of lost battles
The nightspot, where foxes turn into peacocks
The condominium, a vertical space for oblique obsessions
The eat-in kitchen, the nerve center of domestic counterespionage
The bedroom, the bathroom, and how hard it is to find space of your own
Day 4: -> Tuscany: The train, where many talk, few listen, and everyone understands
The museum, beautiful women on the walls
Television, where the semi-undressed signorina acquires a cloak of significance
Day 5: Tuscany: The countryside, where we show that Italians are the world's leading manufacturers of emotions
The Italian piazza, a tool with more cutting edges than a Swiss-army knife
The window, framing fantasies that are sometimes cut short by a shutter
Day 6: Rome: The bank, a confrontation of confidence and cold feet
The office, the opera house of orderly anarchy
The shopping mall, a taste of America delivered to your door
Day 7: Naples: The sidewalk, or on collective individualism
The automobile, and fumbling on the fold-down seats
The travel agency, where the nation flexes its flippancy and pampers its patriotism
Day 8: Sardinia: The waterfront, the convoluted charm of a liquid frontier
The beach, a bare outline
The garden, seclusion in bloom
Day 9: Crema: The barber, the newsstand, and the town as a lifebelt
The monument. And yet it moves
School, the workshop where shared memories are made
Day 10: Crema -> Malpensa, via San Siro: The church, where we will ruminate on the moral menu
The stadium, notes on social gastroenterology
The horizon. In other words, give us back Columbus
Epilogue: A letter from America.
