Winter in Bellapalma — Jens Bjorneboe

This comic novel by renowned Norwegian writer Jens Bjørneboe follows the exploits of a community of expatriates living off-season in a small Italian fishing village: their lives, loves, and interactions with the locals, including involvement in a dispute between the fishermen and the town fathers who wish to promote the tourist industry. A shorter, lighter read than most of Bjørneboe's work, it nonetheless invokes social commentary with concise portraits of various personality types and the inevitable collision of values in modern life between greed/progress and traditional ways of life.