{"product_id":"little-virtues","title":"Little Virtues","description":"\u003cp\u003e“As far as the education of children is concerned,” states Natalia Ginzburg in this collection of her finest and best-known short essays, “I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but a love of one’s neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.” Whether she writes of the loss of a friend, Cesare Pavese; or what is inexpugnable of World War II; or the Abruzzi, where she and her first husband lived in forced residence under Fascist rule; or the importance of silence in our society; or her vocation as a writer; or even a pair of worn-out shoes, Ginzburg brings to her reflections the wisdom of a survivor and the spare, wry, and poetically resonant style her readers have come to recognize. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A glowing light of modern Italian literature . . . Ginzburg’s magic is the utter simplicity of her prose, suddenly illuminated by one word that makes a lightning streak of a plain phrase. . . . As direct and clean as if it were carved in stone, it yet speaks thoughts of the heart.” —The New York Times Book Review\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Natalia Ginzburg","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47874426372349,"sku":"9781611457971","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0472\/7069\/0970\/files\/9781611457971.jpg?v=1784753535","url":"https:\/\/www.thepaintedporch.com\/products\/little-virtues","provider":"The Painted Porch Bookshop ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}