Molly Hughes’ memoirs, about her childhood in London in the 1870s give a vivid account of what it was like to be a child at that time. The youngest of five children, […]
A LONDON CHILD OF THE 1870s by Molly Hughes
Being kind makes anyone a princess (A LITTLE PRINCESS)
I loved this novel as a child, so it was a pleasure to read a re-issue of it which contains some material that had previously been cut out. A LITTLE PRINCESS is […]
Sentimental, yes, but still charming…(LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY)
LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY has been a byword in my family for a spoiled, too-perfect little horror dressed in black velvet suits with lacey collars. Having nothing better to do, I sat down […]
THAT SUMMER IN SICILY by Marlena de Blasi
When Marlena de Blasi was given the assignment of writing about the interior regions of Sicily, she suspected that she got the job because others had turned it down. For “the center […]
Charles Stein’s PERSEPHONE UNVEILED: Seeing the Goddess and Freeing your Soul
This is a magical book. Author Charles Stein takes us on a journey into the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a spiritually transformative process that culminated in a rite at the temple […]
THE STONE BOUDOIR by Theresa Maggio
THE STONE BOUDOIR is a wonderful title for a book about Sicily, because Sicily is mountainous, and stony. And the people not only live in stone buildings redolent of history, or even […]
Ian McEwan is not a bad name for a writer (PAN E POMODOR)
PAN E POMODOR is the delightful tale of how an English couple, Margaret and Ian McEwan, bought a house near Vico in the Gargano region of Puglia, southern Italy, and set about […]
ON PERSEPHONE’S ISLAND: A Sicilian Journal by Mary Taylor Simeti
I was delighted to see that Mary Taylor Simeti had done a travelogue of Sicily, because I remembered her charming tale of Queen Constance and her various travels around Italy that I […]
THE FALCON OF PALERMO by Maria Bordihn
Maria Bordihn’s THE FALCON OF PALERMO is an ambitious biography of an ambitious character. Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250), was known to his contemporaries as Stupor Mundi (the wonder of the world), because […]
THE INVISIBLE MOUNTAIN by Carolina de Robertis
This haunting novel begins in 1900, when many people in Tacarembo explained things to themselves by means or folk-tales or legends. It is a novel with three protagonists. The first one, Pajarita […]
