What is this book? Depending on what you want to read about, this book is three books. There's a book about two young people moving to Italy, and discovering love, art, food, and maturity after college. There's a book about foreigners in Italy, how various types of stranieri-Italian meaning "stranger," "foreigner," and "barbarian," among other things-adapt to the country and learn to love it. And there's a book about young Americans hiding from financial collapse, gaining new perspective as stranieri themselves, seeing in Italy a reflection of their own culture and their own future. Take your pick, and like an American in Italy, see just what you want to see. Three books...in one. And yet the author is a Unitarian, go figure. Tristan Gans graduated from Middlebury College in 2008 and moved to Brescia, Italy afterwards with his girlfriend Sarah, who (SPOILER ALERT) is now his wife. The couple now lives in the Boston area. This is his first book.