Lessico Famigliare is the most popular non-fictional work written by Natalia Ginzburg, one of Italy's most distinguished modern authors. In clear prose, through a series of charming vignettes and sharply observed descriptions, Ginzburg creates a vivid picture of the family in which she grew up. The colourful rhymes, phrases, interjections and idiosyncratic items of vocabulary which were constantly on the lips of the various family members form one of the themes of the book and furnish its title. At the same time Italy's turbulent and ominous political developments during the 1930s and 1940s provide a deftly sketched background to the daily lives and occasional wild adventures of Ginzburg's siblings and parents. The most detailed and affectionate, though mercilessly critical, portrait in the gallery is that of Ginzburg's father, a brilliant research biologist at Turin university, a hot tempered, opiniated, domineering patriarch at home. This book contains a much abridged, slightly edited version of the original Italian text side by side with a fluent English translation.