An alien inspector arrives in Italy on a routine observation mission. The mission is not routine.
Inspector Z-147 of Galactic Command has classified six hundred and twelve civilizations across four hundred and thirty-one planetary systems. The methodology is solid. The taxonomy is forty-seven volumes long. The deadline is firm. None of this prepares Z-147 for the espresso, the queue, the Sunday lunch, the grandmother, or the word boh - one syllable that contains an entire philosophy and resists every instrument of interplanetary analysis.
Three hundred days later, the deadline has been missed. The taxonomy is in crisis. And the field report that arrives at Galactic Command is unlike anything in the history of interplanetary observation - because the civilization that was supposed to be the subject of the study turns out to have been conducting its own study all along. With better results.
Italians Are Aliens (And They Don't Know It) is a literary non-fiction book in seven parts and twenty-four chapters. It is about Italy, about belonging, and about what happens when a classification system meets a civilization that has been cheerfully defeating classification systems for two thousand years.
For readers who love warmth, irony, and books that make you want a coffee immediately.
Nearly 500 pages. Survival guaranteed.