Sasso

A thriller pulsating with menace and sensuality...wonderful.
– Arena

A vividly imagined, erotically charged thriller….[Sturz’s] use of geography and history is masterful.
– Publishers Weekly

What haunts us after the mystery is solved is the novel’s potent evocation of life in this sun-bleached living purgatory, passed over by time and hope, and the voice of the narrator, a cultural anthropologist whose detachment starts to crumble as he falls into the grip of Mancanzano's fierce enchantment.
– The Boston Globe

Sturz has a flair for nifty turns of phrase, and this farcical whodunit is loaded, like Mancanzano itself, with pockets to get delightfully lost in: there are tangents about everything from art history and geology to sex and Italian politics. If "Sasso" (the word means "stone" in Italian) threatens to crumble into a hodgepodge, it only better serves its theme of the porousness of reality: "Truth," as the narrator eventually discovers, "is opacities, ambiguities, and spaces of darkness and blinding sun."
– Los Angeles Times

Sturz captures the poverty and misery of the region with a practiced, unblinking eye, yet counterbalances it with a sardonic, ironic humor that permeates the novel from first page to last. It is not unusual while reading Sasso to be saddened, horrified and amused, often within the same paragraph and occasionally within the same sentence. Sasso is Sturz's first novel. I don't know if he has any more percolating within, but even if he does not, this book will cement his notoriety. This is a novel whose reputation will build slowly, surely and, ultimately, indelibly.
– Bookreporter

When the bodies of two beautiful Italian teenagers are found in an ancient cave, a sexual, archaeological and historical mystery is set in motion. At one level Sasso is a simple whodunnit, but at another it is a careful dissection of a community which for centuries has lived perched on the unforgiving rocks of the deep Italian south. Both lyrical and pacy (a harder combination than it seems), Sasso suggests that newcomer Sturz has a brilliant future.
– Eve

This astonishing book trades as a thriller, but there is so much more to it than the mystery of the deaths….Madness and menace grow as the hot summer goes on and more bodies are discovered.
– Sunday Times

A remarkable first novel…both extraordinary and sensational. This is a remarkable thriller, full of atmosphere and incredibly intense. It is the sort of strange, disturbing story which stays in the mind and makes riveting reading.
– Publishing News

A fine first novel, only a few missteps short of greatness.
– Booklist

This is the sort of writing that you expect to find in the Booker nominees: a premise rich in possibility and mystery, and bleak, lyrical prose in which darkness is leavened by shafts of comic brilliance. It’s all so poetic that you don’t immediately notice how extremely nasty a tale is being told….Sasso is an extraordinary book.
– Crime Factory

Sturz describes his claustrophobic setting with great power….This first novel is narrated with such wit, eroticism and ability to terrify that it marks an outstanding debut for its American journalist author.
– The Scotsman

An erotic, vivid thriller from a promising debut author.
– The Sydney Morning Herald

One of the most intriguing and original books I have read so far this year is James Sturz's first novel, Sasso....The mystery of who or what caused the deaths is fascinating, but it is the village itself that is at the centre of the book. The scorching summer heat, the sense of being in thrall to the past and, especially, the personalities of the individual villagers make an almost physical impact, while a feeling of unavoidable dooms grows as the story progresses. This is a most assured and memorable debut. 
– The Sunday Telegraph

Italy: The Best Travel Writing from The New York Times

The staff at the New York Times, together with the Italian Government Tourist Board, have compiled more than 40 lucid travel articles in this lavish paean to Italy. These selections, plucked from two decades of exceptional travel writing, express the country's unique diversity. Shirley Hazzard rhapsodizes about Posillipo, a historically rich headland of Naples where writers and artists have long sought "pleasure and inspiration"; Alastair McEwen describes Milan, Italy's Big Apple, in all its "industrial, entrepreneurial and international" glory; and James Sturz tours a small portion of Alto Adige, an area in northern Italy that is studded with castles. The volume's postcard-perfect color photos, which number close to 500, nicely complement the text, capturing everything from the snow-covered peaks of Monte Cervino and the luscious, undulating hills of Tuscany to the frescoed buildings of Trento and the vineyards of Chianti. As Eco writes in his introduction, "a journey to Italy... should always be seen as a journey of discovery that will reveal not one, but many Italies." This hefty, handsome coffee-table book more than bears this out.
— Publishers Weekly

This sumptuous volume combines nearly 500 outstanding color photographs with essays by some of the best writers of our time. 
— Library Journal (starred review)

Best Food Writing 2007

Stories for connoisseurs, celebrations of the specialized, the odd, or simply the excellent.
— Entertainment Weekly

Spans the globe and palate.
— Houston Chronicle

The perfect gift for the literate food lover.
— Pittsburgh Post Gazette

The whole book melts in your mouth.
— Dallas Eats

A lyrical, sensual and slightly disturbing essay by James Sturz over at Leite’s Culinaria. I just finished reading it and thought I would share. It's a beautiful, thought-provoking piece about the pleasures of eating meat by a clearly talented writer. 
— Ideas in Food 

Read my entry, “Meat: The Pleasures of the Flesh”

Hear me read the essay live in New York City, at Jimmy’s No. 43.