Top photos from 20 years of blogging

Leo in Rome, 2018 (Piazza Bucarest)

I love this photo so much because it's the honest result of introducing a curious boy to the Eternal City. 

Leo was 5 years old when we snapped this photo, and excited to visit Italy (actually, really just excited to do anything except go to bed).

It's one of many photos taken in Italy that make me swoon. 

Here's a selection of photos posted previously on the blog that I love, and which best express the joy Italy has injected into my life -- which I guess, come to think of it, is the theme of this blog. The pure beauty of this country I happened upon during a study abroad program, chosen all because a week before I began college, I saw a movie that convinced me to study Italian or bust.

I'm reposting these photos to celebrate 20 years of writing this blog. Note, some were taken in Italy, some just reflect the life of Ciambellina, the person. Might need another post just for photos of actual ciambelle/ciambelline (hold that thought).

In the past two decades, I've had the thrill of visiting Torino (under the radar for many American travelers even though it's a fantastic city with a coffee culture all its own and a mountainous locale that's just stunning), various places in Puglia (including Trani), and of course Rome, Milan and Florence (and Siena and Pistoia and Pisa and Le Cinque Terre and San Marco dei Cavoti and Lucca and Bologna and and Focene and Matera and Venice and ... ). 

Torino, a city of grand piazzas

I've also chronicled Ciambellina's transition from aimless, vagabond journalist to besotted mother whose favorite subject (via photos or writing) is Leonardo.

He was an adorable little boy -- no thanks to me since I wasn't this cute as a child -- and now he's a teen with a gorgeous smile and rather strong opinions (Milan is the best city in Italy, don't challenge him!).

The most adorable Leonardo ever (Atlanta)

When you eat calamari fritti for the first time

My favorite place in Milan

The photo I always take when visiting Florence

To be sure, this is a make-shift photo gallery that includes my favorite moments during my travels to Italy and also my favorite moments from this lifelong project of remaining fluent in Italian and immersed in everything that Italy's one-of-a-kind culture has to offer. Buona lettura!

Monte Sant'Angelo, Puglia -- road-side pranzo!

 a

A gem of an appetizer in Puglia

Weekly flower market, Piazza della Repubblica, Firenze

The photos of Italy are more enchanting but of course the little Italian touches we've brought stateside feel pretty cozy. Our not-so-little shrine to the place we met.

Buon Natale Christmas decoration (in Atlanta)

Buon Natale sign with my little tesoro! (Leo's 1st Christmas)

Little souvenirs for little Italophiles

What I saw during those 24 hours in Rome

At Bennington, thinking of Leo

Priests crossing a piazza in Trani (2006)

Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for caring about the ways I've incorporated Italy into my life. And if I know you in person, thank you for caring about Leo. That's the most important thing you could for for me. I love Italy, no question, but nothing is bigger than my love for Leonardo.

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Ask your library to buy THIS DARKNESS WILL NEVER END

Did you know you could ask your public library to buy a book that you'd like to read?

Yes! (See UPDATE below)

And that book could be This Darkness Will Never End, my translation of Edith Bruck's debut short story collection.

I'm thrilled to say the New York Public Library and the Free Library of Philadelphia have already bought copies. Pending requests include Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago.

(If you live in any of these cities, go ahead and make a second request. It can't hurt!) 

(Click here for Los Angeles: https://www.lapl.org/suggest-a-purchase)

Atlanta friends, the book is not part of collections in Fulton County or DeKalb, so can you help?

I asked my library in West Hartford to buy a copy, and they did! (They hosted me for a reading, too.) Wesleyan University also has a copy.

UPDATE: Thanks to Baltimore County Public Library for accepting my purchase suggestion!

The book is of particular interest to survivors of the Holocaust and anyone who knows a survivor, but it's also popular with readers of Italian literature, lovers of short stories and fans of Roberto Benigni's Oscar-winning 1997 movie, "Life Is Beautiful," which film scholars say was partly inspired by the title story of my translation.

When Edith first began publishing her work in Italy in the late 1950s, Italian critics compared her to Anne Frank. The young Dutch girl's diary had been published a few years before Edith's debut came out in Italy.

Just as Anne's diary captures a surreal moment of families in hiding, the stories in my translation reveal a lost world of poor Hungarian Jews, at the mercy of the Nazis and the many collaborators they inspired during their campaign of hatred. And yet, Edith still manages to evoke the joys of a loving family, and the gift that is remembrance.

All of this to say, it's a work that would be a credit to your library.

I'm grateful for all of the support I've received from libraries. I gave readings of the translation at libraries in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The Forbes Library in Northampton even recorded my talk, which you can see by clicking here.

I'll close with a photo of my translation on a shelf not at a library but at Atticus Books in New Haven (you can also ask your favorite indie to buy it). When I visited the city for CNN Travel, I was thrilled to see the bookstore stocked my translation!

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Re-discovering New Haven for CNN Travel

I got to visit New Haven on the company dime and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Now you can, too -- here's my story. It's part of a series we've been doing for three years on the best towns in America that fly under the radar and are often far from the major metropolitan areas.

New Haven is home to Yale -- which you can see in this photo I snapped -- and it's also one of the most walkable cities I've visited in the US.

Here's a note I scrawled in my journal:

New Haven is glorious! I don’t really say it happily but rather with a not-so-healthy dose of jealousy and what-if-ism! It would appear getting into Yale is a golden ticket in more ways than one. You get to live in a beautiful, vibrant city that’s walkable and architecturally alluring (in addition to studying at one of the finest universities in the world).

Before I forget: New Haven is for walkers. I walked so much. So it was really unavoidable that I’d love it, I suppose.

Also, my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, was on the shelf at Atticus! YES!

Interesting fact: I gave all of my leftovers to men on New Haven Green who appeared to need food.

Moment of beauty after the visit: I bought Leo a small puzzle of the painting The Wave at the Yale Art Gallery and he really liked it. He asked to open it immediately and then instead of watching TV, he began to assemble it. When we turned on “Father Ted” after a bit, he didn’t pay much attention to it, preferring instead to painstakingly find pieces of boats that appear in the painting.

(The Yale Art Gallery is quite nice and I didn’t even get to visit the sculpture garden – home to an Alexander Calder – because of the rain).

Anyway, please read my CNN story!

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“Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945”

I write letters to the editor of The New York Times but only occasionally are they accepted. This one below was not but I remain fascinated by the book at the heart of my letter because it's about World War II, and ever since I began translating the work of Edith Bruck, I've been mesmerized by this epic period in recent history. As you know, I'm trying to read as many important books about the war and about Holocaust survivors as I can, and this one goes on the TBR pile.

To the editor of the New York Times Book Review,

In his review of Ian Buruma’s book, Stay Alive: Berlin,1939-1945, Kevin Peraino says he wishes the author had “delved deeper.” 

I don’t doubt him but if Buruma manages to convey even a bit of the uncanny experience of surviving World War II, especially in Germany, that will satisfy me. 

I’ve heard about the war and ‘the Greatest Generation’ my whole life, but stupidly ignored its importance until I began translating the work of a Holocaust survivor (Edith Bruck). 

Her story is fairly typical but no less compelling because of that: At age 13, she was deported from her native Hungary by the Nazis, and, as she would write later, “lost everyone and everything.” After I translated that line, I decided I needed to permanently study the Holocaust and by extension World War II. 

I’m not related to anyone who fought in combat but still the era not only witnessed the greatest atrocity of the modern age but also shaped my parents, born just before the war, and continued to influence the world I was born into, three decades after the fighting stopped. I’ll never know enough so I keep reading, and Buruma’s book now goes on the to-be-read pile.

Regards,

Jeanne Bonner

The 20th anniversary of my blog!

Two decades ago, I sought a method to log the ways Italy had seduced me, and the activities I pursued so that the language of Dante would remain impressed in my mind. And that's how this blog was born. Early posts were about Italian meals Mike had made, rides in the Alfa and wines we bought.

It has evolved over time to become a public diary of my thoughts, my achievements, my passions (often involving Italy or Italian, but not always) and my commitment to fluency in the form of blogposts in Italian, among other activities (movie reviews of Italian films and of course endless ruminating about books, too!). Oh and a few mentions of the book-length translation I finally managed to publish (Did I mention it's called This Darkness Will Never End?!).

I'm going to commemorate the 20th anniversary with a series of posts. This is the first. And here I'm going to very simply revisit a few of the posts that have resonated the most with readers. I'd be thrilled if you read some of the posts, and I hope perhaps the blog inspires you to return to your own passions and hobbies with renewed vigor.

Posts I liked:

"Tiny Moments of Exquisite Beauty," or the travelogue from my 2025 visit to Italy: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2025/08/tiny-moments-of-exquisite-beauty-in.html

*Praise for the film that convinced me to study Italian and changed my life: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/03/an-oscar-winning-film-seen-on-whim.html

Posts readers liked:

*About my fears of how the pandemic could permanently re-shape my life: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2021/05/what-ive-feared-about-post-pandemic-life.html

*On the reasons I need to hoard (or, my letter to Marie Kondo): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2017/12/dear-marie-kondo.html

*On the reference to Angelina Jolie in Roberto Saviano's book, Gomorra (note, it's in ITALIAN): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2008/06/gomorra-angelina-jolie.html

Posts about travel and the glorious Italian language:

*The time Leo learned how to curse in Italian: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/08/italian-lessons.html

*What can you do with a mere 24 hours in Rome? Oh quite a bit

*When I want what I should not want (in Italy): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-boarding-doors-are-closing-jeanne.html

*How can Milan be this beautiful? https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2020/07/from-archive-italian-diary-may-2017.html

Posts about Leo:

The joys of running -- even just short distances -- with Leo: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2023/03/running-very-little-very-often.html

Leonardo from Atlanta (not Vinci): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-little-artist-whose-mother-is.html

A Day in the Life of this American Man at Age 10 (Esquire article re-enactment): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-day-in-life-of-this-american-man-at.html

Posts about books:

My all-time favorite books, essays and short stories: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/07/literature-ive-loved-after-nyt-list.html

A book list for those looking to read the work of women Holocaust survivors: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2024/01/women-holocaust-survivors-reading-list.html

My book log for the year I read Le otto montagne by Paolo Cognetti and many other outstanding works: https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2022/12/what-i-read-in-2022-what-i-plan-to-read.html

Women authors have often been overlooked in Italy (in ITALIAN): https://ciambellina.blogspot.com/2017/06/dove-sono-finite-le-scrittrici-italiane.html

*

Thanks as always for reading my blog. 

The best gift anyone can give me is to care about Leo in some way. 

But the second best? Read my work.

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'This Darkness Will Never End' turns one!

Once upon a time, I'd never heard of the phrase "book birthday." And now my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, is turning one. Happy book birthday to my little translation!

My life has changed since I began translating Edith Bruck’s work, and also in the year since my translation of her first short story collection was published. I've spent a lot of precious, joyful time talking to people about the woman who was describing herself when she wrote about a fictional girl in the short story, "Matzoh Bread," who was "the age I'd been when I lost everyone and everything." (Learn about my book giveaway here.)

I've gained a permanent side gig reading about World War II; at first, I devoured works by the other women authors who wrote about their experiences of deportation, and now almost anything pertaining to the war that gave birth to The Greatest Generation (I'm currently reading "The Longest Day," by Cornelius Ryan -- better late than never, right?).

We all have side tables and book shelves crammed with books we plan to read but I think This Darkness Will Never End, which brings Edith's seminal 1962 short story collection into the English-speaking world, is worthy of your time:

        Click here to buy from Amazon

        OR here to buy from Bookshop

And if you have a moment, you can write a review on Amazon. My sincere thanks to everyone who's done so already! And if you're on Goodreads, go ahead and shelve the book. After all, you've probably seen Roberto Benigni's film, "Life Is Beautiful," which was inspired in part by the title story of this book.

Also: are you in a book club? Here's a reading guide for the translation. I'd love for you to read the translation, and maybe you could also consider giving it as a gift.

If you’d like to read some of her other work, below you’ll find links to some of my translations of her fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

*My translation of a speech she gave called "My Alma Mater Is Auschwitz":

https://worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/my-alma-mater-auschwitz-edith-bruck

*An excerpt of her second short story collection, Two Empty Rooms:

https://jewishcurrents.org/two-empty-rooms

*Translations of some of my favorite poems by Edith Bruck, including one in which she writes, "If there’s another life/I will be a yellow star/ To remind you once upon a time​/there was Auschwitz​":

https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/edith-bruck-versi-vissuti/

One more thing: here’s a recording of a talk I gave about my translation, courtesy of the wonderful librarians in Northampton, Massachusetts (it includes a lot of biographical information and tidbits from my visit with Edith Bruck last summer in Rome).

I’ll close once again with one of my favorite lines from Edith’s work (which you can hear at the link to the American Scholar's podcast, "Read Me a Poem"):

Sometimes it takes so little

Almost nothing

A simple gesture

A glance;

As when in the Lager

They allowed you a potato

A turnip

A tattered glove

Life is beautiful in those moments

And human beings so very kind

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'This Darkness Will Never End' is 'powerful,' @Assoc. of Jewish Libraries

A reviewer writing in the newsletter of the Association of Jewish Libraries highly recommends my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, calling the work an "outstanding book."

Michlean Lowy Amir, who retired from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, expresses amazement that it's taken so long for these "powerful stories" to be published in English, and I agree!

She also writes, "This title is highly recommended for every Jewish library and to all other libraries with Holocaust materials."

She notes that the work foregrounds the voices of women and children, which of course is an essential and notable aspect of the stories, and of Edith Bruck's perspective as a Holocaust survivor.

One wonderful outcome of reading reviews of the translation is discovering the vantage point of reviewers, which can serve to illuminate a particular aspect of the translation.

I'm somewhat used to the lag that can occur between the publication date of the original foreign language work and the publication date of the translation in English. Perhaps this is especially so because I've focused on overlooked works by Italian women writers. Many of their works languish for years and decades before an Anglophone publisher shows them some love!

But it makes an impression to see her mention the original publication date -- 1962 -- right next to the publication date of my translation -- 2025. Wow! That IS a long lag.

The review appears in the newsletter, which isn't available online, as far as I can see.

But that doesn't diminish my profound appreciation! Thanks to Michlean and the Association of Jewish Libraries for highlighting Edith's work.

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Nieman: Most Americans don’t pay for news & don’t think they need to

This isn't a blog about the profession that's helped me pay the bills. It's quite the opposite -- a blog to my passions, the ones I've nurtured before and after my day jobs, be they newspaper reporter, NPR station reporter or adjunct prof at my alma mater. 

But it's not really an accident that I became a journalist, even if I was reluctant at first (and now earn my money in additional other ways like teaching). I grew up in a house where The New York Times was delivered every day to our doorstep -- and woe if it wasn't there on time, because my father would throw a fit! He liked to take the paper with him to the government lab where he worked so he could peruse the headlines over lunch, in the era long before smartphones (obviously).

When he returned home in the evening, he would remove the newspaper from his briefcase so that after dinner -- after my poor mother had slaved over the meal, and then cleaned up the kitchen, with little help from her wayward fourth daughter -- she could sit in her rocking chair in the living room to read the news while she smoked a cigarette (or two).

I can remember talking to her in that very spot about news articles and historical moments connected to the Watergate era, the Holocaust, the Revolutionary War and many other topics (she was a history buff).

My parents were so Catholic, it was painful! I once made the mistake of suggesting I might become a Protestant, and with a tone of voice that could freeze mighty rivers, my father replied icily, "You can do that but it's not the true path." 

Yet the words my parents quoted the most issued not from the Holy Bible but rather the not-so-holy New York Times (which my mother insisted was anti-Catholic, if not simply anticlerical, though it did nothing to slow down her news consumption and I don't think she was right).

When I reported my one and only news feature story for The New York Times, my father clipped the article from the Business section and taped it up on the wall of his den in New Jersey ('one and only,' only because they've rejected subsequent pitches -- I'm always available for The Gray Lady when she needs me). I suspect he didn't really think I was a journalist until that moment.

My aunts and uncles on my father's side have also always read the newspaper. Some of them are also masters of the NYT crossword! (Such smart people from Bayonne, NJ!)

In other words, as far as I'm concerned, if The Times reports it, it's news, I should know about it and that's that. 

I've raised Leo to read the newspaper as well (as I mentioned in a personal essay that I published -- pinch me! -- with The New York Times, he and I used to begin our days when he was a toddler by looking for photos of Pres. Obama in the newspaper). We now send the dog out to get the paper every morning, and over breakfast, Leo at least looks at the headlines. He also has had a subscription to The Week Junior for several years (thanks to my Aunt Marianne).

I know he will get his news from multiple sources -- he already listens to podcasts and adores "The Daily Show" (not only for the sexual references and frat-like tone, though that helps.) The important thing is that he knows the news, seeks out news reports and understands it's vital in a Democracy.

All of this to say, I am apoplectic about a recent report from Harvard's venerable journalism institute, Nieman Lab, about a study conducted by the Pew Research Center on the news consumption habits of Americans now.

As Pew puts it, Americans have a "complicated relationship" with news, with many surveyed saying they let news "find them," because of course, these days, we are bombarded with information via social media.

But as Nieman summarizes it in its headline, most Americans don't pay for news and don't think they need to. Of the people surveyed, an astonishing 83 percent said they do not spend money to receive news (through subscriptions, memberships or donations, according to Pew). 

RED ALERT

RED ALERT

RED ALERT

In a Democracy, we must know what's happening. We must know what the government is up to. And we need people who are paid to pay attention to what's happening and what the government is up to.

It's helpful if the journalists have steady staff positions. It's not like producing a widget -- a reporter may have to spend hours upon hours talking to people or attending meetings or traveling far and wide to gather information in person before he or she is ready to publish an actual story. It could take days or even months.

And yes, a journalist may have to speak to people who do not want their names published in order to find out what's really happening.

We know from Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, and of course the wicked Epstein file scandal that the government sometimes takes steps to hide information.

I've tried to avoid asking people to spend money on my behalf -- even with my Edith Bruck translation, I gave my author copies to the people closest to me because I didn't want to burden them by asking them to buy the book (now I'm just bugging them to write a review on Amazon).

But I'm asking you as an American to support a news organization. Not necessarily CNN, my news organization, but any news organization that provides solid, original reporting.

It could even be a Substack -- Roger Sollenberger is doing solid reporting on the Epstein files.

Journalism has to be a paid activity that people seek out for work and we news consumers have to pay for it. The advertising model for newspapers has collapsed. The work that good newspapers do, however, still needs to be underwritten, supported, discussed and valued.

When you turn on CNN to see what's happening in Iran, the people explaining and delivering the news earn a good salary so that they can tell you the latest developments accurately. They cannot do a good job if they are not paid enough to do so -- if they have to take on second jobs or can only publish their work on a personal website after being laid off or if they cut corners because they are not paid enough to do careful reporting.

Other organizations worth your time and patronage:

The Boston Globe

The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Guardian

The New Yorker

The Atlantic

Smithsonian (not breaking news but important investigative journalism)

National Geographic (not breaking news but important investigative journalism)

The Morning Call (Allentown)

Local NPR stations (including WHYY, WABE, Georgia Public Broadcasting, WBUR and Connecticut Public)

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Last but not least, if you have a young person in your life who would benefit from AND ACTIVELY USE a subscription to CNN or The New York Times, please get in touch with me.

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Jeanne journals

I don't like it when the word 'journal' is used as a verb. Let's journal about this. OR: She spent the afternoon journaling...

It feels a bit like saying, 'I crochet' ... or ... 'I like scrapbooking.' Or, 'Excuse me while I get ready for an afternoon of canning.' (I know people enjoy these kinds of activities, but not me. Of course, for some of these people, the idea of writing in a physical journal would probably cause the same reaction).

But it's what I do -- a lot. I journal. In fact, I spend a good deal of time writing in my journal, reading what I've written in my journal or even simply admiring the physical appearance of my journals. What I am doing, really, is gazing at a kind of security blanket the journal represents -- when all goes awry, I can write it down in the journal. Or, whenever I have a thought about something I want to do, I must do, I should do: I can write it in my journal and the thought is preserved. Looking at a journal from last year is a little like looking at my favorite sweater. I've also found the journal to be not only a confidant who receives my inner thoughts but also one who accompanies me on my life's journey. In other words, it’s often a document of what I’ve achieved.

I mainly use my journals to write (as opposed to draw or log information like the number of miles one has run) but I also attach ephemera to some of the pages -- drawings by Leo, receipts from vacation stops, post-it notes destined for posterity, et al -- so they sometimes actually do have the air of scrapbooks. They capture a moment of my life. (I occasionally post diary entries on this blog. I also occasionally write diary entries in Italian).

As I've mentioned here before, I do keep a digital journal (an extensive one that’s composed of two dozen Word documents that span more than a decade), but I have a 13-year-old, which means two things to me:

*I don't want him to see me hunched over a computer 24/7 or constantly glancing at my phone, even if my purpose is to log a thought

*...And that's because: I want him to understand what I do and if he can see me writing with a pen in my journal from across the room or transcribing a translation into my journal or even stapling something onto a page of the journal that I want to keep, he may be able to understand what his writer-editor-translator-adjunct mom does for a living. (Maybe. Alternately, he might just think I twirl my hair for a living.)

The best magazine you've never read (unless you're 12)

When “The Week Junior” arrives in the mail, my 12-year-old son sits down immediately to read it cover to cover. One quick look at its smartly-written articles and eye-catching graphics, I see why he loves it so much. As a former newspaper reporter, I am thrilled at his interest!

The weekly publication, which debuted in 2020, is aiming to instill a habit in young readers that’s already a bygone one for many of their parents. Its very existence gives me hope for the future of journalism, and it doesn’t dumb anything down; coverage has included such high-brow topics as Henry Kissinger’s visit to China.

The magazine is so good that I've pitched feature articles about it but haven't been successful so I am writing about it here (in fact, I started this post more than a year ago, hence the reference to a 12-year-old son. He's now 13!). 

Just like a news magazine or newspaper, The Week Junior covers a little bit of everything, and there are always calls for reader submissions of photos or ideas. Coverage includes tween and teen-friendly topics such as Taylor Swift and the World Cup, in addition to hard news about politics and world events.

I'm writing about it now so that the magazine can attract more subscribers and keep going. It’s hitting newsstands at a time when scores of magazines and newspapers for grownups have closed. I hope it's successful longterm because it's been a wonderful gift for Leo (courtesy of my one-of-a-kind Aunt Marianne).

And of course, the next generation of news consumers needs to be nurtured.

Journalism is at an inflection point and our national digital addiction has also reached crisis proportions. The Week Junior is attempting to instill the habit of reading the news in the next generation at a time when adults as well as children are giving up on print publications. 

I am blogging about this magazine because I want the world to know about it, even if I've been unsuccessful pitching a feature article about it. Maybe another writer will see my post and write about the magazine. Or a parent will subscribe.

This is a magazine any parent would be proud to have in the home, and which furnishes children not only with information about our world but with curiosity about it.

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What I read in 2025

Not a great year in reading for me and I am all to blame, a self-inflicted wound owing to distraction and commitments related to the translation (I also taught a class at Wesleyan, which requires me to re-read a lot of books from the course text list and thus neglect any non-course books I may have been reading). 

But I do like to log the year in reading and so here are a few books that sparked my imagination in significant ways:

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs

The experience of reading John and Paul was so seismic that I wonder if perhaps I've been excluding a genre that I would otherwise love, namely biographies.

It’s been a while since I devoured a book the way I read this book. As I wrote in my journal, "I’ve been staying up until 11 p.m. reading it – not looking at Facebook, not fooling around with the laptop. Just reading as much of the book as I can manage – running to it whenever I have a moment free."

Am I reading the wrong books? So should I be reading more biographies? Or books about rock icons I love?! (Quick! Someone send me a biography of Bono and/or U2)

I think childhood -- and childhood obsessions -- could be the key here. When I read about the Beatles, it's as though I am reading about someone I knew – as if someone wrote a biography of St. Anthony’s High School or the streets of Florence or my mother. I followed the Beatles so closely as a young girl that I suppose that's why. As I wrote on Goodreads, it was part and parcel of my girlhood obsession with the Beatles to explore in minute detail the inner workings of the Lennon-McCarthy songwriting partnership, and thanks to this wonderful dual biography of the two Beatles, I can do just that. For anyone who's ever had any kind of Beatle worship, this book is essential. And what an interesting concept! Exploring this relationship as a one-of-a-kind partnership that eschews easy definition. 

I read another book that fascinated me while also being revolting:

Nobody's Girl by Virginia Giuffre

I both recommend and don't recommend this book by one of the best-known victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Would you like to confront pure evil? On the other hand, I made a point of purchasing the hardback so that my purchase could be counted in the hopes there are many, many sales. Sales = interest. Sales = this topic is important.

Per my routine, I also read a book by French novelist Patrick Modiano (which I was even able to review for the Boston Globe) and I re-read A Christmas Carol, something I've been doing every year at Christmas for about a decade (it's worth reading each year a line with which Marley chastises Scrooge: "Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business...")

And I read another book that satisfies my nascent need to know everything about Nazi-occupied Europe: The Propagandist. I wrote about it for the 'What We're Reading' rubric published by The Common literary magazine (back in March). It's a fascinating though also revolting book about a French family that was pro-Hitler during World War II and most notably long afterwards as well! I believe it caused a bit of a stir when it was published in France. 

I also began reading (not read, in the past tense) (see distraction above, also insistence on reading multiple books at once) Eichmann in Jerusalem, the seminal account by Hannah Arendt of Adolf Eichmann's infamous trial for war crimes. There are a few books in the world that are so fundamental for understanding human behavior that you can glean quite a bit by reading half or failing to finish, and this is one such book. What I read about Eichmann's attitude, his ordinariness, his spoken testimony at the trial, the fact that he lived for quite a few years (dare I say happily?) in Argentina before being captured, all of this furnishes me with new horrifying information about the semi-recent historical event that engrosses me the most. (But I plan to finish it this year). 

Similarly, I read a book I'd long been searching for: Lettera da Francoforte by "my" author, Edith Bruck (translation: Letter from Frankfurt; not available in English). I found it at Il Libraccio in Florence -- a review copy, I believe, since on the front it says "inedito," ('unpublished'). It's the story of a Holocaust victim who tries to apply to a compensation program run by the German government. No, I do not know how autobiographical this work is but I'm going to see if I can find out. Did Edith ever apply to this fund? Is this fund real? I've come to know a little bit about the Claims Conference, which distributes compensation to victims of the Holocaust but I don't believe it is run by Germany.

A poem for today? The Second Coming by Yeats

(First stanza, only. How prescient W. B. Yeats was!)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

 (Thanks to the Poetry Foundation. Also thanks to Roy Peter Clark for his wonderful analysis of this poem in his book, The Art of X-Ray Reading). (Also: photo courtesy of me! From our 2024 trip to Ireland, which included a stop at his grave).

I eloped "with" Italy 30 years ago

How odd to conclude that among the loves of your life is an entire country, in addition to the real loved ones, like Leo.

I am, of course, talking about Italy, a country that for me is nothing less than a shaman, no safer than those Sirens who ensnared Odysseus, and more akin to a being that enthralls (enchants/bewitches) me than a landmass. Also: a twin who lives mainly in my mind but who nonetheless follows me wherever I go.

And it's been following me for a long time: 30 years ago this year, I left America to live in Italy.

Dates. Anniversaries. Milestones. The accumulation of years. I dwell on these notions a lot. But because I've been busy promoting This Darkness Will Never End, my first book-length translation, I haven't had a chance to reflect much on the fact that three decades ago this year, I left for Italy. 

Thus began my expat life -- the years, for better or for worse, against which all the subsequent years would be judged.

Thirty years ago, I eloped to -- and with -- Italy. And 'eloped' is the right word because the transaction lacked the solid planning of a wedding. I escaped with my paramour and let all the naysayers (who wisely said, 'You don't have a job...') be damned. All I knew was that, following my graduation from Wesleyan, I'd secured through a friend a summer "job" as a tutor to a bunch of rich Romans whose children attended an American school in Rome. And then I would go on to Pisa where I would be the guest of a doctor whose cousin worked in my department at Wesleyan.

After that, who knew? Not I, but I didn't care. I only knew one thing: my days of living in one language were over. Once I'd tasted bilingual life, it was the only one for me. As I mentioned in a previous post, once you've heard and understood Italians speaking their native language, I don't think you can go back to the English-only world. I couldn't. 

Before the year was out, I migrated to Florence, a city I'd circled warily. It's hard to believe this, but I was on Team Siena back then. I'd spent a semester in Siena as a student and found Florence dirty and chaotic whenever I visited.

But one Sunday, the doctor who was hosting me in Pisa had to work all day at her hospital in Florence and she invited me to come along. The city enchanted me! Perhaps because she dropped me off somewhere other than the dodgy train station or due to the quiet hum of a weekend but I can remember crossing one of the bridges that span the Arno and succumbing to the magic of Florence.

Lasciate ogne speranza: for me, at that point, I could abandon all "speranza" -- hope -- of ever falling out of love with Florence or Italy. Like the author of those famous words, I would spend the rest of my life thinking about enchanting, beguiling, occasionally wicked Florence.

As I've said before, if my life were a novel, I might call my departure for Italy the “inciting incident.” It followed that semester abroad where I'd resolved to truly immerse myself in the culture, and being fluent in Italian became an obsession—a lonely one, since I often forced myself to forfeit outings with other Americans so I could instead practice Italian. 

What's ironic: I’d struggled to learn the language in my freshman year of college, but once in Italy, nothing short of fluency would satisfy me. In an essay I wrote for The Millions, I noted that one of the first words I learned on the ground in Italy was the verb scherzare. "It means 'to joke' and is indispensable for following almost any conversation with Italians. During a trip I took to Sicily, a Palermo policeman warned me about strange men near the station by yanking on the skin below his eye with his finger, and uttering a single word, occhio, which simply means 'eye.' I was hooked," I wrote. Mastering Italian became a pursuit not unlike bedding men or getting drunk.

I had very little money when I lived in Italy, and no real career to speak of. In fact, when I returned to the States, I was at loose ends (since I hadn't been building a professional foundation, or so I thought). I can recall visiting the beach with my sister, who uttered an immortal line about my lack of a real job when I lived in Italy, which caused a bit of a stir between us at the time.

She wasn't wrong. But she may not have realized what Dad had intuited. Knowing not only that he was a world traveler but also that his library included books by many authors who made the most of their ex-pat years, I believe my father sent me off to Italy so that I could truly live, so that I could collect the kinds of experiences that fiction and other writing spring from.

Of course him being him (a contrarian), he had an unforgettable comment when I decided to return home from Italy: "It's all downhill from here." I was 25!

It took me many years to get over leaving Italy. Perhaps because I moved from a medieval tower in the center of Florence to an apartment in a car-infested Atlanta suburb. I can recall crying in the car in Atlanta whenever we listened to Italian music (and forget watching Italian movies -- total sob fest).

Eventually I forced myself to develop interests in other countries, such as Mexico, which we visited quite a few times. I even allowed myself to study Spanish, although it felt as though I were betraying my true love, Italian.

And then when I'd finally moved on, I allowed myself after many years to return to Italy, only to discover that I still wanted what I shouldn't want: to live in two places and two languages, which is to say, live in Italy and the US. The compromise? I live in two languages by translating Italian literature.

The experience of living in Italy was so rich, it's as though everything that came after paled. Luckily, I became a mother and that feeling dissipated because the experience of being a mother is much more powerful than adoring a culture or way of life.

But the experience of living there continues to shape my life today (and the mementos that have proliferated throughout my house. It dominates what I read, and it spurred me to translate, and it influences where I choose to vacation (and my dreams for retirement, which I recently concluded should begin with a year's wandering through Italy).

I continue to marvel over Italians and the Italian way of life. At one point during our travels last summer, I developed an obsession with the Roma-Viterbo train line, which is separate from Trenitalia. As I wrote here, it's not entirely odd: our apartment in Rome overlooked one of the stations on the line. And when I am in Italy, I am immersed in "my beat," which I define as the ordinary aspects of Italian life, the parts of Italian life that an average Italian contends with. I found it reminded me of the PATH trains that link lower Manhattan to New Jersey inasmuch as it's both local and separate. They are like an alt subway line, which is slightly odd. If you were a traveler to NYC, you could mistake them for the actual subway system, no?

And I continue to silently beg Italians to keep being Italian (especially as I note developments such as a Starbucks coffee location on Via del Corso in Florence. Ma dai! Non ci voleva).

So my dear Italy, I'm very happy we eloped all those years ago! I'll remain true to you until my dying day.

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