To most visitors Italy is simply the land of la dolce vita: fine arts and fine wines, lakeside villas, cypress trees and delectable Mediterranean food. And so it is: but the reaction of those who live in Italy for any length of time tends to be a more complex mixture of seduction, enchantment – and exasperation.Few writers are better qualified to look beneath the surface than John Hooper, the experienced Rome correspondent for both The Guardian and The Economist. Hooper has already given us a lively portrait of Spain and the Spaniards: here he offers a perceptive and entertaining insider’s portrait of another southern European country of paradoxes and contradictions, where nothing is ever quite what it seems. Other writers before have examined the delights and foibles of Italy