A romantic murder mystery by  Cecilia Storhaug

Published: 2018

Translated into Italian by Mariano D'Ambrosio

Published: 2019

CAPRI DIEM — Amore e Morte a Capri

CAPRI — The Island of Dreams is the dramatic setting for the story of a brilliant, but philandering local hero who pursues justice, redemption and the miracle of love.

As the plot unfolds, readers get an insider’s tour of the glamorous playground for the rich and famous; the spectacular scenery and ancient historic sites that have drawn romantics, artists and nature lovers to the island for centuries.

The title CAPRI DIEM, coined from the Latin aphorism Carpe Diem, reflects the philosophical theme of the book: Live every day as if it was your last, in search of joy and beauty, when you find beauty, you desire to be part of it forever.

Cecilia’s novel is inspired by her love for the Island of Capri and its people. Born and raised in Norway, Cecilia divides her time between Norway, California, and Capri, where she has owned a home for over 30 years.

By Axel Munthe

​

"I want my house open to sun and wind and the voice of the sea, like a Greek temple, and light, light, light everywhere!!" 

​

The Story of San Michele is a book of memoirs of Swedish physician Axel Munthe (October 31, 1857 – February 11, 1949) first published in 1929. Written in English, it was a best-seller in numerous languages and has been republished constantly in the over seven decades since its original release.

Munthe grew up in Sweden. At the age of seventeen, he was on a sailing trip which included a brief visit to the Italian island of Capri. Hiking up the Phoenician steps to the village of Anacapri, Munthe came across a ruined chapel owned by a nearby resident, Maestro Vincenzo, and fantasized owning and restoring the property. The chapel, dedicated to San Michele, had been built on some of the ruins of Roman Emperor Tiberius' villa.

Munthe went to medical school in France and then opened a medical practice in Paris. He later assisted in the 1884 cholera epidemic in Naples. In 1887, he managed to buy the ruined chapel and subsequently spent much of his life on Capri building the Villa San Michele. Munthe also had a medical practice in Rome in order to help pay for construction.

Munthe was a true Renaissance man a scientist and doctor as well as a poet who was a friend of Henry James, Somerset Maugham, and others. In this 1929 volume, he offers an account of San Michele, a house he built on the site of the Roman emperor Tiberius's villa on the Isle of Capri off Italy's southern coast. His weaving of the story of the house with Italian history, mythology, and culture is reminiscent of 18th- and 19th-century travelogs. This book was a smash in several languages for many years and is sold to this day to the thousands who visit the museum.

The Villa of San Michele on the Island of Capri is a magical place quite out of the ordinary. Some people call the villa with its garden a paradise on earth, others regard it as the pearl of the island, a place where for a moment you can step out of this world. Axel Munthe’s former home is undoubtedly unique and a living example of a dream that came true.

This spectacular picture book, large format, collects 127 full-page color photos and 32 photos posted in the texts and photographed by Umberto D’Aniello, a photographer who already has many exhibitions in Italy and abroad as well as various publications. The total volume is 156 pages with an introduction by Riccardo Esposito. After the rich photographic section, the text concludes with a chapter dedicated to the island’s history and the origin of the name “Capri” edited by historian Salvatore Boràg

EDIZIONE LA CONCHIGLIA

Photographs by: Umberto D’Aniello

Edited by: Riccardo Esposito, Salvatore Borà

156 pages with 127 full-page color photo

Text in Italian, English, German, Spanish

CHANTECLER - Capri Jewels, The Love and Creation of Beauty (published by Rizzoli). A book passionate about Capri, its Nature and its inherent sense of freedom – all real and at the same abstract dimensions of which Chantecler Capri jewels are imbued.

Conchiglia Editions sells excellent books in English and in Italian, in their bookstores on Capri and online.

Conchiglia Editions was born in Capri in 1989 and grew together with the four libraries created by Ausilia Veneruso and Riccardo Esposito during these many these years on the Island of Capri and in Rome and through the work of the Conchiglia Cultural Association.

The structure of La Conchiglia is that of a niche publishing house that mainly deals with particular interests with a catalog that has over 200 titles. The red thread that characterizes the choices of the publishing house is a definite idea of the trip, the island, the South and the Mediterranean, and the conviction that Capri has to be an extraordinary international lab en plain air of art and culture as well as a destination for educated and quality tourism.

The logo features a shell containing two sirens, deities linked to the transition between different dimensions and transformation, including and above all through knowledge.

Conchiglia Editions are and want to remain a publishing house that faces particular themes while staying on the island, because "every book is an island. Every island as any book is a space and an oracular instrument, of initiation and of transition to different realities.

"Le Edizioni La Conchiglia sono e vogliono rimanere una casa editrice che affronta temi particolari rimanendo su di un’isola particolare perché “ogni libro è un’isola. Ogni isola come ogni libro è uno spazio e uno strumento oracolare, di iniziazione e di passaggio a realtà diverse. Ogni libro, come ogni isola, è uno spazio e uno strumento per reclusioni totali da cui accedere a libertà totali”.

Authors such as James Hillman, Erri De Luca, Somerset Maugham, Ivan Bunin, Norman Douglas, Axel Munthe, Philip Tommaso Marinetti, Raffaele La Capria, Edwin Cerio.

Umberto d'Aniello and Claretta Cerio share a love for Capri, the Italian island in the Gulf of Naples.

Both d'Aniello and Cerio are natives of the island and, in this book, they express their passion for Capri through their chosen metiers. The island's most renowned photographer, d'Aniello takes dazzling black and white images of the island's grottoes and cliffs, its jet-setters and trendy beaches, its ancient palaces, churches and cemeteries and the people who live out their daily lives against this most romantic of backdrops. Writer Claretta Cerio lends her distinctive voice to the book and offers a uniquely personal take on island life. Together, these words and images create a love-letter to a place whose history and beauty have made it one of the world's most magical locales.

CLARETTA CERIO was born in Capri and has lived there for decades. She is the author of numerous novels and short stories. UMBERTO D'ANIELLO has lived his entire life on Capri. His photographs have been featured in magazines and exhibitions. YVONNE MEYER-LOHR is an editor and designer.

By: James Money

The air of Capri has had an extraordinary effect on many remarkable people down the centuries - as if the island had come to the collective decision that it was made for pleasure, a commodity that foreign visitors have always found there in spades. 

It was on Capri that Emperor Tiberius built a palace where he 'gave vent to all the vices' that he hadn't been able to indulge in Rome. In the nervous days following the trial of Oscar Wilde, English homosexuals found Capri a perfect haven. And in 1919 one Capri resident even remarked on the necessity of swathing her two dogs in chastity belts...

James Money's Capri, first published in 1986, is the first full social history of the island: a rambunctious tale that boasts a vivid cast of characters, usually found in various states of congress.

The Island of Capri was written by Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821 - 1891).

Cover Photograph of Marina Grande, ca. 1880 by Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914). He was born in Frankfurt am Main (in modern-day Germany), and became one of Europe’s most important and prolific photographers of the 19th century. Active from 1857 to 1888, he produced thousands of images of archeological ruins, landscapes, art

This book gives a lot of history and background for the beautiful island of Capri.

This book was translated From The German by the Author's Permission by Lilian Clarke. Published in Boston & New York in 1879. and portraits.

Excerpts:
….A whole summer month I lived upon the Island ofCapri, and enjoyed to the full the magical loneliness of the sea. Now I would gladly retain these enchanted visions; but the stillness, the beauty, the mystery, is hardly to be told in words.
….It was on a Sunday, and the clearest morning, that we stepped into a boat atSorrento, and were towed to Capri. The sea was as still as the sky, and all in the far distance lost in a dreamy haze. But Capri lay before us, large and stem, with its battlements of unbending cliffs and peaks, the melancholy wildness of its mountains, and the rugged steepness of its dizzy precipices of red limestone. Upon the heights, brown Castelle, now fallen to ruin; forsaken redoubts, with their abandoned cannon, now covered by the smiling yellow flowers of the wild broom; cliffs, waste and wild, springing high into the air, around which the sea-hawk flutters,—the dwelling of the sun and of birds, as Æschylus says; caves, deep below, dimly lighted, and full of mystery; but above, on the bent back of the island, a cheerful little town, with white, domed - houses, with high walls, and a domed church-tower. Below, the harbor 0f the fishermen, with its narrow beach of white sand, and boats ranged in many rows.
….The bells were ringing and echoing as we approached the land; and upon the beach stood a pretty fisher-girl, holding a little bench of wood, which she pushed into the water as the boat touched the sand so that we might land dry-footed. And as I sprang upon the shore, upon this wonderful Capri, which in the North I had so often pictured to myself, I felt immediately at home. All was still and quiet; scarcely a fisherman to be seen, only two or three children bathing from a cliff, a few fisher-girls upon the beach, the rocks around, stern and silent. I had entered a wild and enchanted solitude. A steep and difficult path leads from the shore, between garden-walls, directly up to the little town of Capri. Among the rocks are gardens, with olive trees, orange trees, and grape-vines; but they strike the eye as being somewhat thin and scanty if accustomed to the luxuriance of the Campanian landscape. The very trees appear to be hermits upon Capri.
….Crossing the wooden bridge, and entering the town itself, through the ancient gate, the mind receives the most cheerful impression of a life of seclusion from the world, and the most unique picture of peace, childlike simplicity, and freedom from care. For here, in a very small piazza, peasants, in their holiday clothes, are sitting gossiping on the stone steps of the church; there, children are playing, full of noise and glee; and the little square itself looks as if the children had built it in their play. The houses are small, with domes and flat roofs, and almost every house has a vine trained over it.

Capri, Ischia and Procida surround the gulf of Naples in a protective way, as a kind of umbilical cord, which reminds of the Aleutine islands embracing the coasts on the border between Alaska and Siberia, almost near the longitudinal line of the change of date. These three pearls, three real jewels of the Mediterranean, are wonderfully similar to each other from the point of view of the climate, the natural landscapes, the territorial constitution, the gastronomic specialities and hospitality, although the latter is rather rarely exceptional due to the conservative nature and character of the islanders, who are always a little bit diffident toward the continent’s inhabitants. However, Capri, Ischia and Procida, besides the many commonalities, present many diversities, which in the course of the centuries have inspired in different ways poets and writers (a brief account of these writings will follow the book’s preface). My memories too, above all those related to my infancy and youth, have become more and more vivid in my mind – and into my heart – and have accompanied me in both the happy and melancholic moments of my life. The first island I discovered was Ischia. I was twelve, I think. I spent my summer holidays always on the mountains of Faito and Roccaraso, as my mother was a Virgo, deeply fond of mountains. She was able to convince me too, and when I was asked why I was not used to go to the seaside, I answered: “I love the mountain much more”. But when, at last, I spent my first summer at seaside, between Porto and Ponte in Ischia, and I enjoyed my first baths at the little beach near the “Rangio fellone”, then I asked myself what had I been doing all those years in Abruzzo’s fields… Since then I have never gone back to the mountains and although I do not hate them at all, it is a fact that I have not spent even just one week there any more. Ischia bewitched me. I am referring here to 1960! I remember that my neighbour, on the beach I frequented, was Roberto Murorlo, and in that year I had my “night club” baptism, just at the “Rangio fellone” where Peppino di Capri, very young at the time yet already very good, made his show. I remember that when my brother and me had some money in our pocket, we went at Calise café and had much Coke, immersed in the fresh of the pinewood and into an incredible chant of millions of cicadas or crickets (I can’t say more precisely). In Ischia I soon learned to swim because my uncle Paolo, whom I loved, threw me down from his boat the very first time I was on it, and I am still grateful for this. Then, although respecting all those who love the good air of the mountain and enjoy the heights, I realized immediately that I definitely loved the sea and I have never betrayed it since then. I visited Procida eight years later. I was twenty, I had just got engaged and my brother-in-law Eugenio, who had a resin-cruiser with a fast motor, every weekend from June to October, brought me with him for water-skiing, just around Procida, between the most beautiful creeks and purest water in those areas. Those were without any doubt the only sportive two years of my life, which I still remember with particular emotion. I can also see again the sunsets at the end of the season when with wet hair and a strong wind on our faces we went back to the little harbor where the boat was moored in more than one hour and a half. It was probably there that, underestimating the possible bad effects on my cervical, I provoked a headache that has accompanied me for years. Yet I don’t regret that experience, which has been one of the most passionate of my life...

Ciro Discepolo He has been dealing with astrology since 1970. He has written over 120 books, most of them best-sellers in Italy as well as abroad (France, the United States of America, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia and Russia) and he has published over 1,000 astrological lessons on YouTube and about 300 short Astrology Essays almost all on Google Books. In 1990 he founded the quarterly Ricerca '90, which he has been editing and publishing since then.

To the date of January 2017 the pages of his Google+ account are been visited from over 20 millions people.

By: Nina Parker

​

Over one hundred delicious recipes from Capri and the Amalfi Coast.
Nina dazzled us with her homage to the food of St Tropez, and now she has set her sights on the spectacular coastline of Capri. After university, Nina joined the team at L'Anima, London as a commis chef and fell in love with their style of pastry and cooking using fresh Italian ingredients with a rustic touch. In her new cookbook, she draws on this passion for Italian cuisine to present us with over 100 original recipes. With many gluten-free and dairy-free options, Nina offers a lighter, healthier approach to her cooking. 
Full color throughout, much of this beautiful cookbook is shot on location on the stunning Amalfi Coast of Capri, in amongst the intimacy of the charmed cozy streets, and alongside the expanse of clear blue sea.

by Michael McDonough

​

Of this special limited edition, one hundred copies have been produced, numbered 1 to 100, and signed by the author, Michael McDonough. Malaparte: A House Like Me (Limited Edition) offers an extraordinary look at Malaparte, the man and the house. Often called the most beautiful house in the world, Casa Malaparte in Capri, Italy, is dramatically sited on a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was home to Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957), the Italian writer who designed the building. A perpetual enigma, he still confounds nearly all who care to look.

By: Shirley Hazzard 

For millennia the cliffs of Capri have sheltered pleasure-seekers and refugees alike, among them the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, Henry James, Rilke, and Lenin, and hosts of artists, eccentrics, and outcasts. Here in the 1960s Graham Greene became friends with Shirley Hazzard and her husband, the writer Francis Steegmuller; their friendship lasted until Greene's death in 1991. In Greene on Capri, Hazzard uses their ever volatile intimacy as a prism through which to illuminate Greene's mercurial character, his work and talk, and the extraordinary literary culture that long thrived on this ravishing, enchanted island.

by Norman Douglas

​

South Wind is a 1917 novel by British author Norman Douglas. It is Douglas' most famous book. It is set on an imaginary island called Nepenthe, located off the coast of Italy in the Tyrrhenian Sea, a thinly fictionalized description of Capri's residents and visitors. The novel's discussion of moral and sexual issues caused considerable debate.

By Mariella Gardella and Gonzalo de Alvea

​

The splendid, sweeping panoramas of the island of Capri, where all the brilliant colors of the sea and surrounding nature blend together, lead to the doors of the most exclusive villas, thrown open for select viewing by their owners in this handsome volume. Superb photography captures Capri's unique qualities, including its terraced gardens, moored boats, and the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, drawing the reader into the heart of the home - the Caprese kitchen. Punctuated with delightful, home-grown Caprese recipes, the characteristics of a unique European culture that is the essence of Capri are revealed. Capri Style is a grand banquet of stories from some of Capri's most illustrious residents.

By Norman Douglas

​

Norman Douglas’s first travel book, Siren Land is an homage to a part of the world that captivated the author more than any other. Weaving the myths of the Sirens into the landscape and history of the region, Douglas writes with knowledge and an irrepressible exuberance of the past and the present, of legends and archaeology, folklore and daily life, patron saints, local ghosts, wine, and the wind.

The Mixture as Before is a collection of 10 short stories by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, first published by William Heinemann in 1940.​

​

"The Lotus Eater"

On Capri, the narrator meets Thomas Wilson, who tells his story: He was formerly a bank manager in England, and fell in love with the island while on holiday. His wife and child having died, he decided to live on Capri, and, aged 35, bought an annuity for 25 years. He has ten years left, then he will kill himself. The narrator, returning many years later, learns that Wilson, after putting off the act until he could not get credit, eventually made a failed attempt to kill himself which affected his mental state; he is living in reduced circumstances and avoids people, "like a hunted animal".

​

By Raffaele La Capria

​

Raffaele La Capria creates a portrait of Capri that begins in the time of Ulysses and moves to our present complex and hectic reality and composes an elegy for a Nature blasted by human negligence and error. Americans have now been visiting Capri for many years, and La Capria’s book will offer much to newcomers to the island that they would not otherwise have at their disposal, for his slim volume is a guidebook of a special kind, something like a novel and a local Italian guide. Capri has had a long history as a place of retreat, of sensual license, and of unparalleled natural beauty. Without running through the usual list of sights, La Capria gives his reader the sensation of having peered beneath each stone, and of giving an appreciation of what such a place has done to others, some of whom, once under Capri’s spell, gave their lives over to their dreams.

Kindle July 29, 2018

by Sergio Prozzillo (Author), Flavia Soprani (Author), Adrian Bedford (Translator)

Capri Island is the new guide that not only takes you to all the island's sites of unique natural beauty, but also features the history, art, architecture and aspects of local life-style that have made Capri one of the most famous islands in the world. You can access amazing art work, spectacular photos, authoritative texts, and an original selection of architectural gems through a visual layout impact that reflects the spirit and charm which have attracted and tied people to Capri through the ages: heroes of mythology, emperors, monarchs, pirates, writers, poets, painters... The CAPRI ISLAND guide has been produced entirely by experts on the places and history of the island: this is no mere compilation of information avaliable elsewhere on the web. There are 7 sections: 1. LOCATION 2. HISTORY 3. ITINERARIES 4. BY THE SEA 5. ART AND ICONOGRAPHY 6. HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE AND VILLAS 7. PERSONALITIES

It 'a portrait, a painting engraved in a book small in size but rich in detail for the acts to tell the island, its beauty, its legends and its role in time. Saccoccio wonders in the small streets of the island, examining in depth what has been said and written about the island, he has refreshed the mythological references, and especially has revived the historical events…”

 "Saccoccio takes readers on a tour of the area, transporting them in the most interesting and the most beautiful places; and then connects his unconditional admiration for Capri with that of the great writers that he reminds amongst the pages.