Eccola Press is pleased to announce that its book, Piazza: Italy’s Heart & Soul” by writer-photographer team, Marybeth Flower and Joe Bauwens, was selected as the winner of the Best Coffee Table Book category at the 11th Annual Independent Publisher Book Awards 2007 IPPY Award Winners.
The Independent Publishers Book Awards, also known as the IPPY Awards, were presented at BookExpo America 2007 in New York City.
This year’s titles were submitted by publishers from all 50 U.S. states, 8 Canadian provinces and 17 overseas countries.
“We are extremely honored that Piazza: Italy’s Heart & Soul’ was honored with this award,” said Bauwens & Flower. “From the inception of the book we felt it was important to show how the Italians live in their town squares. As far as we know this book is unique in that it focuses on the Italian people and not on their architecture and landscapes.”
In “Piazza,” Flower and Bauwens bring Italy to life with their dazzling photographs in vivid color taken in the piazzas of towns - large and small.
In his recent review of “Piazza,” Don George - award-winning travel journalist and former global travel editor for Lonely Planet Guidebooks - says, “Unlike some coffeetable books, ‘Piazza’ does not preen itself as a sacred tome that is almost too precious and pristine to be touched; rather it presents a living, breathing, jostling, sometimes rough-edged and always robust portrait of Italian life at its center, lived and evoked in all its sensual splendor.” Don George’s Don’s Place.
“I’m betting you’ll be on the phone with your travel agent by page 15,” said Joel Siegel, Entertainment Critic for Good Morning America.
Elaine Petrocelli, the owner of Book Passage bookstore in Corte Madera, CA and the founder of the world reknown Book Passage Travel Writers and Photographers Conference said, “Give this book to someone you love along with tickets to Italy.”