ITALY provokes two reactions among English-speakers: either they become irrationally besotted with it, or they are afraid of it.

Both reactions arise from the same suspicion — that the Italians know something we don't; that of all the ways different societies go about the pursuit of happiness, the Italians have got it right.

At any given moment, the hills of Tuscany are alive with the sound of a million Americans, English and Australians trying to find out how to be Italian. Most of them get no further than the food and the art, and return home stimulated but frustrated.

Then there's a second group: the English-speakers threatened by the obvious pleasure Italians take in every aspect of their lives.

They fear the anthropologist Luigi Barzini may be correct when he says that, in the heart of every human being, "there is one small corner which is Italian, that part that finds regimentation irksome, the dangers of war frightening, strict morality stifling, that part which loves frivolous and entertaining art, admires larger than life solitary heroes, and dreams of an impossible liberation from the strictures of a tidy existence".

The Protestant mind, which believes that humans need order and discipline, reels at the idea of a society thriving on the edge of chaos.

I'd like to think this book will help both groups, and perhaps even shift group two into group one. Neither group has been well served by the guidebooks on Italy that have been available up to now.

Most guidebooks have a lot to say about dead Italians, but mention living Italians only as workers in hotels, restaurants and shops.

Their readers are left to float through Italy in a kind of tourist bubble, gaping at the monuments and gulping at the pasta, but understanding nothing of the real life going on around them.

This book contains plenty of history, food, wine, accommodation, even shopping, but that is not its primary purpose. My goal is to enhance your travels – or your memories of travel – by explaining what modern Italians are talking, writing and gesturing about, even if you don't speak a word of the language. Italians do talk about their art treasures and their food treasures, but they also discuss sex, politics, money, soccer, children, music, clothes, cars and crime.

So this book discusses them too. As far as I know, this is the first book about modern Italy written specifically for Australians.

It is designed to be both practical and provocative. If you want to know how to make a reverse charges call from Italy, try chapter 97 (phones).

If you want to know why so many Italian prostitutes look like men in drag, try chapter 30 (sex). If you want a list of restaurants that emphasise regional specialities, try chapters 19 to 23.

If you wonder why so many streets are called Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini, try chapter 37 (one nation). If you arrive in a town and find everything closed, you may find the explanation in chapter 90 (holidays).

If you're struggling to pronounce a destination or spell your name for a hotel booking, try chapters 10 to 14. If you wonder why Italy's political system was transformed during the 1990s, try chapter 3 and chapters 16 to 18. If you're stuck in a queue at the post office or the railway station, try chapters 4, 93, and 96, and learn to enjoy every delay.

I've travelled to Italy 17 times since my first visit in 1977. I am still trying to find out how, as Barzini puts it, "Italians seem to understand things which still perplex other people, to have explored short cuts, a few of which are a trifle shabby and questionable, but useful to avoid life's roughest spots.

"Italians have mastered the great art of being happy and of making other people happy, an art which embraces and inspires all others in Italy, the only art worth learning, but which can never really be mastered, the art of inhabiting the Earth."

Solving the mystery of Italy is a scholarly pursuit that requires at least one lifetime. I hope you'll join me in the research. And if there turns out to be some fun in it, well, that's the burden we scholars have to bear.

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