Natalia Ginzburg Pens THE LITTLE VIRTUES

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire-iReach/ Thanks to an article published in The New Yorker on September 7, 2016, a little known book The Little Virtues, published in English in the late 1980s by literary powerhouse, Arcade Publishing (a division of Skyhorse Publishing Inc.), has rattled the Amazon bestsellers list, dropping below #100, seemingly out of nowhere. It now stands at #722 and is #3 in the category, Literature/ Fiction essays, and #7 in the category Biographies/ Memoirs.

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The New Yorker article, by Belle Boggs, entitled The Book That Taught Me What I Want to Teach my Daughter http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-book-that-taught-me-what-i-want-to-teach-my-daughter, praised the book, written by Italian author Natalia Ginzburg, as one that has meant more to her than any other.

"It's really heart-warming to hear it has bumped up on Amazon," said Jeannette Seaver, who along with her late husband, Dick Seaver, brought Ginzburg's The Little Virtues, and other books of hers, out in English at Arcade. "What makes me get up in the morning is seeking literary, political and human interest stories." Added Seaver: "The recent success of The Little Virtues reaffirms my husband and my commitment to discovering literary voices that are not known in the United States."

Skyhorse Publishing Group Editorial Director, Mark Gompertz, said: "At the time when many publishers have given up on pushing their backlist, Skyhorse derives 60% of its revenue from it." Arcade has been an imprint of Skyhorse since 2010.

Ginzburg, who grew up in Turin, Italy and died at age seventy-five in 1991, wrote twelve books and two plays while raising five children and losing her husband to Fascist torture. She was a novelist, essayist, playwright, short-story writer, translator, and political activist. For many years, she also served in the Italian Parliament.

Much of her work focuses on families. "I write about families because that is where everything starts, where the germs grow," she told writer Mary Gordon in a 1990 article that appeared in The New York Times Magazine.

"She was a modest, brilliant writer," recalled Seaver, who in addition to The Little Virtues published Ginzburg's All Our Yesterdays, The City and the House, and The Manzoni Family.

In The Little Virtues, Ginzburg advocates an open approach to raising children: "We should not demand anything: we should not ask or hope that he is a genius or an artist or a hero or a saint; and yet we must be ready for everything," she writes. "What we must remember above all in the education of our children is that their love of life should never weaken."

Ginzburg writes that we should teach children "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 love for one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know."

Praise for The Literary Virtues

"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

SKYHORSE PUBLISHING

Skyhorse Publishing, one of the fastest-growing independent book publishers in the United States, was launched in September 2006 by Tony Lyons, former president and publisher of the Lyons Press. It has had forty-two titles on the New York Times bestseller list over the course of its ten-year history.

With a backlist of over 6,000 titles, Skyhorse publishes a maverick list that includes fiction, nonfiction, history, politics, rural living, cooking, humor, and children's books. A Skyhorse imprint since 2010, Arcade has published literary giants such as Samuel Beckett, E. M. Cioran, and Leo Tolstoy, alongside new voices such as Andre Makine and Ismail Kadare. In 2012, Chinese novelist Mo Yan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Arcade was founded by Richard and Jeannette Seaver in 1988.

Lyons is dedicated to publishing books that make people's lives better, whether that means teaching them a hobby, bringing them a unique and important story, or encouraging them to fight against injustices, conspiracies, or abuses of power

Media Contact: Charlie Lyons, Skyhorse Publishing, 212-643-6816 x 286, clyons@skyhorsepublishing.com

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SOURCE Skyhorse Publishing

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