I just love to travel internationally, and so I love books that are set in other countries and give a sense of those cultures. I’ve spent a lot of time in Western Europe, some in Eastern Europe, years in the former USSR, half a year in Micronesia, and been to Uruguay and Mexico and Jamaica and soon to Peru. I believe we are more alike than different, and travel only strengthens my belief in that idea.
It combines an interesting geopolitical situation and a fascinating setting (Central America) and is beautifully written and paced.
I love Stone’s take on the world. He delves into the place where religion and politics meet and he describes each of those worlds in complex ways that transcend the expected and cliché’.
Structurally, the book was very helpful to me because Stone uses multiple and quite varied narrators, each of whom has their own chapter. This is a technique I used in my third novel and it’s a fascinating way to get into the minds of more than one or two characters.
I majored in Russian Language and Literature and have a Master’s in that area, and I spent 29 months in the former USSR, working on cultural exchange exhibitions across the country, from one end to the other.
Turgenev gives a great sense of ordinary life in Tsarist Russia and I love his prose style, even in translation.
Ivan Turgenev’s first literary masterpiece is a sweeping portrayal of the magnificent nineteenth–century Russian countryside and the harsh lives of those who inhabited it. In a series of sketches, a hunter wanders through the vast landscape of steppe and forest in search of game, encountering a varied cast of peasants, landlords, bailiffs, overseers, horse traders, and merchants. He witnesses both feudal tyranny and the fatalistic submission of the tyrannized, against a backdrop of the sublime and pitiless terrain of rural Russia.These beautifully embellished, evocative stories were not only universally popular with the reading public but, through the influence they exerted…
Detective Kate Bowen is out of time—and out of options.
A surveillance operation on the Irish border goes cock-eyed. Detective Kate Bowen is left red-faced when her target vanishes into the mists of the Irish Sea. She must work smart to figure out where he’s headed and what he’s plotting.
I love anything having to do with Italy, particularly in the awful Mussolini era. I think our present era has echoes of that time.
The book has nothing to do with Christ (not a great title) but is gorgeously written and so poignant. I’m fascinated by the take of a Jewish intellectual living in one of the poorest parts of Italy just before WWII.
Because of his opposition to Mussolini, Levi was sentenced to a year in exile in a part of Italy, Basilicata, that was suffering from extreme poverty. His ability to find beauty in such a grim situation served as a lesson for me and reminded me of the 29 months I worked in the former USSR, another bleak place.
'There should be a history of this Italy, a history outside the framework of time, confining itself to that which is changeless and eternal, in other words, a mythology. This Italy has gone its way in darkness and silence, like the earth, in a sequence of recurrent seasons and recurrent misadventures. Every outside influence has broken over it like a wave, without leaving a trace.'
So wrote Carlo Levi - doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of conscience - in describing the land and the people of Lucania, where he was banished in 1935, at the start of the Ethiopian war,…
More Italy here, Sicily this time, and set in the middle of the 19th century.
Again, I love reading about other important political eras, and really enjoy the beautiful prose and light ironic sense of humor. One of my favorite books, all-time. Gorgeous writing and the lightness of the scenes betray the seriousness of the era.
This was the point when Italy was unifying, and the main character of the novel is about to lose his exalted status as one of the great princes of Sicily. You feel for the man, even with his many flaws, and I love books where I’m engaged in the story but also learning a lot about history at the same time.
The Leopard is a modern classic which tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.
'There is a great feeling of opulence, decay, love and death about it' Rick Stein
In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.
PI David Randall is not a fan of singer Sherry White, but when he learns she has received threatening letters, he agrees to help with security for her concerts in Parkland.
When Sherry’s personal psychic quits, Randall enlists Camden to help Sherry deal with her stage fright. Randall’s investigation is…
This novella is also set in Italy and I love the empathy, the surprises in the story, the setting and the clean prose.
We don’t read enough about people who have mental/intellectual challenges, and Spencer handles this delicate territory with grace. There’s no other love story like this, or at least not one I’ve ever encountered.
I don’t want to give away the plot, but suffice it to say it’s about a mother’s dilemma as her child becomes involved in a love relationship that has some truly unusual aspects. Can be read in a very short time, but then you’ll want to re-read it.
Produced and directed by Patrick Fraley and Hillary Huber, recorded at Buzzy’s Recording in Los Angeles, music composed and performed by Noel Webb
The Light in the Piazza takes place in Italy in the summer of 1953. Margaret Johnson and her beautiful, twenty-six-year-old daughter, Clara, are touring the Tuscan countryside. While sightseeing, Clara meets a good-looking young Italian man, Fabrizio, and quickly embarks on a whirlwind romance with him, despite her mother’s stern disapproval.
Margaret, extremely protective of her daughter, attempts to keep Clara and Fabrizio apart, not only because of the cultural differences between the young lovers but also…
This is a quirky memoir in that the eight different sections all begin with an actual event from my life. They are then paired with the life or spiritual lessons that came from those events.
The events take place in Revere, MA (my hometown), the former USSR, Italy, Vermont, and Micronesian islands.
In the shadows of the Roman Colosseum, a young slave woman discovers friendship, belonging, and the fragile beginnings of love.
Rome, 80 AD. Althea has spent her life unseen, recording the words of powerful men while silencing her own. But when she is sent to serve Marcus, the grieving manager…
John Rossi has grown up in New Jersey, but he was born on Maui. He returns when his best friend is murdered there. He finds love and family, while dealing with dark forces.
