Casa Carlini audiobook cover of The Swallows of Montafia, featuring elegant design with bird illustrations and vintage style.

The Swallows of Montafia

Audiobook
$13.99
$13.99
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Casa Carlini audiobook cover of The Swallows of Montafia, featuring elegant design with bird illustrations and vintage style.
  • Casa Carlini audiobook cover of The Swallows of Montafia, featuring elegant design with bird illustrations and vintage style.
  • Casa Carlini audiobook cover of The Swallows of Montafia, featuring elegant design with bird illustrations and vintage style.
The Swallows of Montafia

The Swallows of Montafia

$13.99
$13.99
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A life devoted to the past, and finding beauty in the devotion.

In The Swallows of Montafia, celebrated historian Alan Strauss-Schom turns his discerning gaze inward, reflecting with candor and quiet lyricism on a life spent pursuing the past. From the hush of French archives and reading rooms along the Seine to drafty hotel rooms and borrowed apartments, he recounts the solitude, exhilaration, and stubborn hope of a scholar devoted to uncovering hidden truths in the lives of Napoleon and his era. Now settled in the small Piedmontese village of Montafia, where swallows wheel above tiled roofs with the changing seasons, Strauss-Schom discovers a gentle arrival—a place where the weight of history meets the tender beauty of the present.

Blending personal memoir with the rhythms of rural Italy, the book becomes a meditative exploration of memory, belonging, exile, and homecoming. With emotional resonance and graceful prose, Strauss-Schom reveals how a lifetime spent among the dead ultimately led him to a deeper appreciation of the living world right in front of him.

  • A reflective memoir by the acclaimed biographer of Napoleon and Napoleon III
  • A meditation on history, solitude, and the search for belonging
  • Set against the evocative landscape of rural Piedmont, Italy

Available in multiple formats:

  • Paperback & Hardcover: Elegant print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text, ideal for your bookshelf.
  • Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.
  • Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, perfect for immersive listening.

A beautifully written memoir for readers who appreciate thoughtful reflections on life, history, and the quiet poetry of place.

About the Author

Alan Strauss-Schom is a distinguished historian and biographer whose work has illuminated the political and military currents of modern Europe. His major titles include Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle, Napoleon Bonaparte: A Biography (a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize), and The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoleon III. Nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, he has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and is the founder of the French Colonial Historical Society. In The Swallows of Montafia, he turns his attentive and discerning gaze toward the story of his own life.

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