News Release

09/19/08
New Book by Prominent Local (East Bay) Doctor Celebrates “GROWING UP ITALIAN” In Rhode Island; two chances to meet the author at PPL

Providence Public Library is proud to host two visits by Dr. Edward Iannuccilli, local Rhode Island author of the recently released Growing up Italian: Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories, on Wednesday, October 15, 6:00—8:30 pm at Central Library, 150 Empire Street, and again on Monday, November 17, 7:00 – 8:00 pm at Rochambeau Branch Library, 708 Hope Street, Providence.

The October 15 event is a fundraising event, the proceeds of which will be used to support a matching challenge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for technology. For information on attending this event, contact Dawn Kelly at dkelly@provlib.org or call 455-8050. The November 17 event is a free event sponsored by the Friends of Rochambeau.

Books will be available for sale and signing at both events.

About the Author and His Book
Remember a simpler time, when your house was filled with the aroma of Italian bread and grandma’s “gravy”? When Christmas Eve was La Vigilia? Going to The Boston Store on the bus with your mother? Maybe you recall piling into the family car on Sundays to head for Lido’s Beach? Grandpa’s homemade wine? The older folks playing La Morra under the grape arbor?

Whether you share these memories or not, you’ll love the nostalgic journey offered in the book Growing up Italian: Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories by Ed Iannuccilli. Released in July by Woonsocket-based Barking Cat Books, Growing up Italian is a collection of charming stories covering all the wonders, joys, fears, anticipations and mysteries of childhood in an Italo-American family. But it also will summon up memories of Providence in the 1940s and 1950s for anyone who lived them or has heard about them from older loved ones.

A Providence native, Ed Iannuccilli is a distinguished physician, educator and innovator in Rhode Island. He was the first appointed Clinical Professor at Brown University Medical School and is a former Chairman of the Board at Rhode Island Hospital. He also served on the board of Lifespan. As one of the founding principals of Ocean State Physicians Health Plan (later to become United Health Care), Dr. Iannuccilli became its third Chairman of the Board. Dr. Iannuccilli and his wife, Diane, live in Bristol. Growing up Italian is his first book.

For more information, visit www.barkingcatbooks.com.

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