A Small Place in Italy is a travel memoir and autobiographical novel written by Eric Newby, author of The Last Grain Race, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and Slowly Down the Ganges.

In 1967, Eric Newby and his wife Wanda acquire an old run-down farmhouse in Italy, I Castagni (The Chestnuts), in the foothills of the Apuan Alps on the borders of Liguria and northern Tuscany.

The book is a personal memoir of the couple's experiences in renovating the house, which had a tileless roof, a long-abandoned septic tank and a wealth of indigenous flora and fauna, as well as a vivid description of their neighbours and the lifestyle of country people in Italy at that time.

The Newbys initiate a lawsuit against him which goes on for years owing to the dilapidated Italian legal system, but which they finally manage to win as a result of the man lying before the judge.

Although the work is hard, there are merenda, consisting of huge outside picnics at which copious quantities of food are eaten, last year's wine drunk and bawdy gossip exchanged between the contadini.