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A Season with Verona
 
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A Season with Verona (Hardcover)

by Tim Parks (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd; New edition edition (7 Mar 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0436275953
  • ISBN-13: 978-0436275951
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 364,680 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #80 in  Books > Sports, Hobbies & Games > Football > European > European Leagues

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

For the last few months Anglo-Italian novelist Tim Parks has been writing of his devotion to Italian football club Hellas Verona in The Guardian. In A Season with Verona we get a chance to read the full and absorbing narrative that lay behind those short snippets.

In some ways the book is a standard travelogue. In following his lowly Series A team in their seasonal slog around Italy, Parks gets to visit all the famous sights and cities. What makes this journey so different and so interesting is that Parks is accompanied by vividly ordinary, honestly working-class, determinedly urban Italians and gets to share their Nick Hornbyish highs and lows. This in turn provides a credible, fresh and revealing insight into the Italian character. These fans do all the normal soccer-supporter things like fight, drink, despair, exult, rant and put each other in comas; but they also do more surprising things, like sing songs in praise of the murderous Liverpool fans of Heysel and give voice to racist feelings about their southern compatriots.

This may not sound like most people's image of southern loveliness. Indeed it isn't. But it is a much needed antidote to all that saccharine-sweet Under The Tuscan Sun stuff; and it also makes this book a splendid bedside companion to the Italian campaign in the next, or indeed any, World Cup. --Sean Thomas



Review

Travels around Italy, in search of illusion, national character and goals!
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Customer Reviews

43 Reviews
5 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (43 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars amazing book not only for football fans, 2 May 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusions, National Character and Goals (Paperback)
As a long term Sheffield Wednesday fan I was most pleased to find this book on the shelf of my favourite bookshop a couple of weeks ago. I've always loved stories about football, but especially about mad football ites, people like myself who follow their beloved team week in and week out. Although I've never been to Verona and I don't know anyone in Italy, I felt like I have an awful lot in common with the people Mr Parks amazingly describes. The excellent thing about this book however, is that even people who are not particularly keen on football, can easily read it. It clearly emerges from the pages of this manuscript that Mr Parks is not only a passionate supporter of Hellas Verona, but also a clever academic. At some stages of the book i envied the author for his incredibly huge ability to describe the emotions us football fans go through during a whole season.
Needless to say that although it is quite a thick book (about 450 pages) I read it in less than two days.
Thanks Mr Parks for sharing your passion with us readers, I wish you all the best for your professional life and your team.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great stuff, 11 Mar 2002
By A Customer
One of the best books about football ever, and a superb dissection of contemporary Italy to boot.

Parks supports unfashionable, vilified Hellas Verona - he's lived in the Veneto for more than 20 years. Last season he went to every game, home and away, and his account of the travails of the club is a potent critique of fandom.

Not one for the kind of people who think books about football should be written in the platitudinous style of the mainstream press and inarticulate "pundits", but a great (and original) essay on what it means to be a football supporter and the unique joys and trials of Italy's Serie A.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Per sempre Gialloblu!, 23 Oct 2006
By A. Herniman (Bristol, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusions, National Character and Goals (Paperback)
I won't bore you with my loquacious opinion on this magnificent book (other people have done that probably better than I can among these readers' reviews). No, I will simply tell you the truth.

When I finished reading the book in May 2003, I booked a flight to Verona and a hotel near l'Arena, and went to the stadium for the last game of that season (Bari, 1-1, for the statiticians among you). I had to see la Curva Sud for myself. Since then, having made friends with one or two members of I Piu Mati (ciao Christian, ciao Alberto, ciao Fabio!) I've been back several times (including a memorable 5-3 win over rivals Vicenza [di merda!]) and they've even been over to see my humble bunch of sleeping giants (the West Country's top team, Bristol City. Well, excluding Yeovil). In short, the book inspired me, it coursed through my veins and I was like a junkie, needing a fix of the Brigate Gialloblu (minus the violenza!). A terrific, vibrant, inspiring read. Forza Signor Tim!

(PS If you liked the social/cultural/non-football parts to the book, make sure you read his Italian Neighbours and Italian Education books. The description of which coffee to drink when in the former book is as good as the opening chapter of A Season With Verona)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Old School Support
Reading this book brought back many memories of when I was a teenager and travelling far and wide supporting Celtic. Read more
Published 2 months ago by H. Delaney

2.0 out of 5 stars A Season in Hellas
At the heart of this, it is a very decent book, but one that is written by someone with a relatively thin grip on the subject on the matter. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr. Antonio Cavaldoro

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly written, brilliant book.
I had always been aware of the book but had never got around to buying it. Anyone who is a fan of Italian football will enjoy the the references to the players and others will... Read more
Published 4 months ago by A. Taylor

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, Addictive, Glorious
There are few superlatives left to use in describing this epic book. It combines two of my great passions, Italy - its culture, history, landscape and Serie A football, a love... Read more
Published 7 months ago by James Joice

5.0 out of 5 stars Best football book
This is one of the best football books I have read.It gets right into the heart of Italian football,its passion & its politics. Read more
Published 8 months ago by A. Justice

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Wow, I don't think Tim Parks could have chosen a better season to follow Verona. If he hadn't written the book, it would still be a great story to tell. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Napolean

5.0 out of 5 stars Parks Plays A Blinder!
This is a must for all literary football fans, following one of Italian soccer's less fashionable, and decidedly right wing, clubs Hellas Verona during the ill-fated season when... Read more
Published on 23 Nov 2006 by Graeme Wright

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Writing
Ask on any website message board that has anything to do with football what are the best football books and this comes up every time. Read more
Published on 1 Sep 2006 by Forza HUFC

5.0 out of 5 stars Forza Verona!
I had read about this book when it first came out and was interested, but it took me five years to get round to buying it. What an idiot I was! Read more
Published on 7 Aug 2006 by W. O'NEILL

4.0 out of 5 stars A Season to Remember!
A great book loosely based upon Verona's epic 2000-2001 Season in Serie A. The book is in diary form, so the author, like the reader, doesn't know the eventual outcome when he... Read more
Published on 28 Jul 2005 by R. P. Sedgwick

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