Taking a teen to Italy

Dream #1: Take Leo to Italy.

Dream #2: Write about taking Leo to Italy.

And I'm thrilled to say I've now done both, and the writing is no longer just on this blog but on CNN's site, under CNN Travel where I'm working as a contract editor.

Here's the link:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/16/travel/mission-mom-son-love-italy-compromises

I had to leave out the moment where he might have lied to a nun in a church -- in Italian -- but the rest is all there. (It's not clear if she was a nun but it is clear he said he was "nove" years old when really he was "dieci.")

Note, the story was chosen to go out just to subscribers.

I am not a born saleswoman -- I typically don't want to obligate someone to spend money on my behalf, if I can help it, and so it's not natural to ask you to sign up for CNN's subscription.

But the people who decided news on the web should be free weren't in the news business so it wasn't their decision to make.

News sites need paid subscribers because the stories cost something to produce. I try to do my part: in addition to 7-day-a-week home delivery of The New York Times, I have a digital subscription to the Boston Globe and I also subscribe to The New Yorker, the Smithsonian, National Geographic and Connecticut magazine (and I have a personal subscription account to CNN, even though I get it for free at work).

I'd love it if you could read about the time Leo met Dante (the dog)!

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Literary prize nomination for 'This Darkness Will Never End'

My translation, This Darkness Will Never End, has been nominated for the Italian Prose in Translation Award!

It is a thrill but I also have to say: this was my goal, from the outset!

To create a translation worthy of being nominated for this prize, which is awarded by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). 

If for no other reason than Edith Bruck's story deserves the best treatment, it deserves an English vehicle capable of conveying all the horror she experienced during the Holocaust and the intrinsically creative way she had of converting these experiences into fictional stories.

Just as a reminder, you can buy a copy on Amazon here.

You can buy a copy at Bookshop here.

Oh and you can ask your library to purchase a copy! (Most recently, I got word from the Baltimore County Public Library that a copy has been purchased for its collection. YAY! I think that makes at least 5 states where there's a library with the book in its collection. Thanks to Silvia and many others who are asking their public libraries to buy the translation).

I believe the photo above is of a copy of the translation that was for sale at River Bend Bookshop in West Hartford. So you can also ask your local independent bookstore to purchase you a copy!

The other books that were nominated for the prize are all important books -- works by Cesare Pavese and Luigi Pirandello, heavy hitters in the sphere of Italian literature. And the other translators are far more experienced than I am, and if you think I'm being humble, consider that Ann Goldstein, also known as Elena Ferrante's translator, is nominated as well. She translated a book called The Night Trembles by Nadia Terranova, whom I met in Italy and whose previous novel Gli anni al contrario impressed me so much, I wanted to translate it almost as soon as I began reading it (someone else beat me to the punch, though the English translation hasn't been published yet in the US).

That means I probably won't win but it's an incredible honor to have the translation included in this group of works of Italian literature.

The winner will be announced in October at ALTA's annual conference. Learn more about the works nominated for IPTA here:

https://literarytranslators.org/awards/2026-italian-prose-in-translation-award/ 

And if there are young translators out there who would like to learn more about ALTA, please get in touch! It's a wonderful association. I've attended one ALTA conference and I was so impressed with the translators who attended, all committed to bringing foreign literature to American readers.

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What I bought at ll Libraccio (Firenze)

There are many fine bookstores in Florence but Il Libraccio is particularly helpful when you're looking for hard-to-find and possibly out-of-print books.

I found a book I needed and had been searching for when I visited the Florentine branch of Il Libraccio during our vacation last year:

Lettera da Francoforte

("Letter from Frankfurt")

It's by "my author" -- Edith Bruck, and the plot is as follows: A Holocaust survivor becomes embroiled in an odd correspondence with an official at the German organization that disburses relief/compensation funds to survivors. How it ends is stunning.

Since I began translating Andremo in città (in English: This Darkness Will Never End), I've been trying to read all of Edith's work but it's not easy for two reasons:

-There aren't many American booksellers that stock a lot of Italian titles (there aren't even many that stock SOME Italian titles; two notable exceptions are Rizzoli in New York City and I AM Books in Boston) (And as for Amazon, sometimes the Italian books on offer there are very expensive).

-Some of Edith Bruck's work is out of print.

When I was visiting Il Libraccio, I also bought:

Vita immaginaria by Natalia Ginzburg

(I probably buy a book by Ginzburg every trip -- I'm always reading and re-reading her work)

Il Libraccio also has branches in Milan, Ferrara, Pisa and Rome, among other cities. The branch in Florence that I visited is at Via dei Cerretani, 16R.

Last but not least: to the owners of all of the independent bookstores out there, I'd like to say I love you. And I hope to visit as many indies as possible, in the years to come.

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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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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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Memories of the House of the Dead (Luciana Nissim Momogliano)

File under: What I'm reading

I read a very short book on the train to NYC in February by a woman who was deported with Primo Levi: Luciana Nissim Momogliano. 

It’s called Ricordi della casa dei morti. ["Memories of the house of the dead"]. A very insightful book! In the most difficult situation I can imagine, she managed to survive in the same way Primo Levi did: she was able to practice her profession – medicine – just as he worked as a chemist. But she was still starving, and she still observed atrocities. She says at one point that the head doctor in her barracks had to kill two children who were born in Auschwitz. Another semi-eyewitness account of this particular element of the Holocaust but still not enough information for me [I'd like to read firsthand accounts of women who gave birth in the Nazi concentration camps. Do they exist?]

The book clarifies something I should have already understood: many Holocaust victims were gassed – thrown into the camera a gas – and then cremated. 

She also says when they received rations, the question was always: 'Do I keep some until tomorrow?' But she said any decision she made felt wrong -- because she was still starving.

She also was able to transfer to another concentration camp later in 1944 and that likely saved her as well. Her friend, Vanda Maestro, whom Primo Levi also wrote about, died after Luciana left for the other camp. 

I'm happy to say this is one more book from the canon I'm seeking to exhaust: books by women survivors of the Holocaust. Because women's experiences of the Shoah were different. It's something I first grasped when I read Edith Bruck's Andremo in città, and that revelation convinced me to translate the work (which, as you know, is called This Darkness Will Never End in my English translation). My life really changed once I met Edith Bruck!

Sidenote: I bought this book directly from Giuntina last summer during my visit to Florence. I had written to the editorial staff to say there were books of theirs that I couldn’t easily find so was there a bookshop onsite? There isn't but they said they would sell me the books directly so I went and happily spent more than I should have.

The author mentions that period of follia between July 1943 and September 1943 when Fascism appeared to be overthrown, only to have the Germans essentially invade Italy and re-impose Fascist rule. What a moment that must have been -- sheer joy followed by sheer terror and the anguish that descends when you realize the specter you thought you'd escape looms anew.

Nothing original to say but here I am: I'll simply have to read about World War II for the rest of my life. I'll never fully understand what our grandparents and parents lived through -- and none of mine were in combat! None of mine were Jewish, none of mine were deported or sent to a prisoner of war camp. And yet still: They lived through a period of immense sacrifice and tension, where the fate of the world hung in the balance. So I'm simply going to try to know as much about it as I can because its impact and scope shaped the world we're living in today.

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The Four Seasons Hotel in Florence

The boy whose Fiorentina soccer team shirt reads 'Nato Perfetto' ("born perfect") gets around. 

This is a photo of Leo, aged 5, in the park surrounding the absolutely stunning Four Seasons Hotel in Florence, close to Piazza D'Azeglio and not too far from the Accademia (home of the David statue).

Somehow this fancy-schmancy hotel has an exquisite private park to its name, but there's a coffee bar there so you can show up at the hotel and simply say you're visiting the cafe to gain entrance to this amazing park, which, as you can see, is adorned with sculpture.

(No one can be denied a coffee in Italy!)

We were staying with my old roommate whose current apartment is nearby so we were game to go.

Yet since the park was so beautiful and the hotel clearly for high rollers, the day that Leo and I arrived, I hesitated. Could it really be that simple? So when I asked a hotel employee if we could enter, the born-and-bred Florentine took one look at Leo's shirt, which featured the symbol and color of Florence's beloved soccer team, and he said, "Con quella maglietta lui può andare dove vuole." In that shirt, he can go wherever he wants!

It's absolutely worth a detour if you're visiting Florence -- Italy is full of hidden treasures, often in courtyards and concealed behind high stone walls. It's nice that this one is sort of within reach.

I was reminded of this hotel recently because one of my sisters will be visiting Florence in the Fall for a wedding so I looked up the rates.

Well, she is a bit of a high roller but the cost is King-of-England-level high rolling so she might just have to pass on this one! 

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What I bought at I AM Books in Boston (2026)

Last year, I gave a talk about my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, at the Italian bookstore in Boston. It was wonderful to speak about this short story collection that I'd lovingly translated while surrounded by Italian books.

So when I visited Boston this year, I made a beeline for the store. I AM Books is in the Italian North End of the city, and it's adorable.

What I like: there are Italian books there -- which may seem quite obvious but it's important to state because it's not easy to buy Italian literature in the US at a reasonable price, or at all. There aren't that many shops that stock titles in the original language -- Rizzoli in New York is one place. And I AM Books is another.

But logically, the shop also stocks Italian books in translation (a good reason to give a talk about a translation there). Many people who pass the store won't be fluent in Italian or studying the language but may want to discover Italian literature in translation. 

As you can see, the shop also stocks magazines, and boy do I like that. If your store sells La Settimana Enigmistica or Bell'Italia, I will most likely need to buy a copy of one or both of them. And Mike bought a cooking magazine!

While remaining a solid bookstore that sells books, I AM Books also has a lot of fine gift items that a shopper might want as she visits the North End of Boston and becomes immersed in the Italian quarter. I went a little crazy last year when I was there to give the talk, and bought a cookbook plus a book for Leo about Italian hand gestures and a book by Natalia Ginzburg and... 

Last but not least, the store manager is a lovely person! She took charge of my reading, and made the shop a cozy place to talk about this book that means so much to me.

So if you're visiting Boston, consider stopping by I AM Books. And if you read or study Italian, don't just consider it -- make a point of visiting the store. You won't be sorry!

I AM Books

124 Salem Street

Boston, Mass.

iambooksboston.com 

Book giveaway -- my translation turns one!

UPDATED -- (see below): To celebrate the one-year anniversary of my translation, This Darkness Will Never End, I'd like to give away a copy of the book to an interested teacher or deserving student.

My translation was included in a literature course last year at a university in Ohio, and when I gave a talk there about Edith Bruck, it was a joy to behold watching the professor speak about the stories I'd translated with my whole heart.

Are you a college professor or a high school teacher? Do you teach courses (or a unit) on Holocaust/World War II literature or literature in translation? (Or do you know someone who might want to consider this book for a course adoption?)

The translation would make for an interesting companion piece to Elie Wiesel's Night. The course at Otterbein University in Ohio included Survival in Auschwitz (Primo Levi) and A Scrap of Time (Ida Fink).

Several stories in This Darkness Will Never End feature children or teens as protagonists so high school students might more easily relate to the work; the book is notable for the prominence of women and children in contrast to other well-known examples of Holocaust narrative.

Alternately, do you know a student who would appreciate these stories? Perhaps a history buff or an English major (current or future!).

You can leave a message here or send me a private message via my personal website to initiate contact:

https://www.jeannebonner.net/contact

UPDATE: A teacher in New Jersey is already teaching the translation to his students and requested an additional copy so that he can propose it to administrators for grade-wide adoption next year. WOW! Thank you, Sam. The translation is headed to you! (And eternal thanks to your students for writing a birthday card -- in Italian! -- to Edith)

While the book was published in 1962 in Italy, the stories take place before, during and after World War II. They are mainly set in a village in rural Hungary, where Edith was born in 1931. She was deported in 1944, but managed to survive Auschwitz (which she's called "the University of Evil") and a host of other concentration camps. She eventually made her way to Italy and since 1954, that's where she's lived and worked.

To provide a quick overview of the book, 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 outtakes from my visit with Edith Bruck last summer in Rome).

The Jewish Book Council published an insightful review, which you can read here:

https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/this-darkness-will-never-end

(You can also click on any of the links in this post for more information).

Happy book birthday to my little translation!

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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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My lecture on Edith Bruck & 'This Darkness Will Never End'

Some of my readings have been sparsely attended (ahem!) but each one has brought me great joy because I have had the chance to meet face-to-face with readers of the translation who inevitably have compelling questions about Edith Bruck and This Darkness Will Never End. And in the case of my reading last year at the Forbes Library in Northampton, Mass., the wonderful librarians there asked if they could record my talk, giving me a very precious gift -- a permanent visual record of what I know about Edith Bruck, what I love about her work, and what has compelled me to translate her short stories, her poetry and one short bit of nonfiction.

As I've written here and for American Scholar, the story of Edith's life is fascinating, if you can call the personal embodiment of modern history's darkest moment fascinating. Deported from her native Hungary at age 12, she survived Auschwitz but her parents both died at the hands of the Nazis. As you'll learn in the lecture above, she was barely of high school age and had "lost everyone and everything." In her 20s, she moved to Italy, and fell in love with all that it had to offer. She's been writing in Italian ever since.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this translation! Last summer when I visited her in Rome, Edith told me she thinks about her parents nearly every day, and she said, "As long as I'm alive, so are they -- in my books, in my heart."

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Edith Bruck & International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27)

Unfortunately, I won’t make it to NYC today where outside of the Italian Consulate the names of all of the Italian victims of the Nazis will be read as part of a solemn, annual ritual that I’ve attended multiple times since I began translating Edith Bruck’s work. But I’m thinking of her (and all of those who were persecuted during World War II), along with the loved ones she lost, “swallowed up,” as she wrote, during “the long dark days of annihilation.” 

If you’d like to read some of her 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/

*Last but not least: This Darkness Will Never End, my translation of her seminal 1962 short story collection:

        Click here to buy from Amazon

        OR here to buy from Bookshop

Wait, 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 anecdotes from my visit with Edith Bruck last summer in Rome).

I’ll close with one of my favorite lines from Edith’s work:

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

 -30-

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.

What I'm Reading: The Art of X-Ray Reading

Writers are readers, right?

They have to be, and the author of the book, The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing, does an amazing job of showing the fruits we enjoy when we read very closely.

Roy Peter Clark examines work by James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Zora Neale Hurston and Joan Didion, among others. Not summaries, not book reports but a deep examination of word choice, and how authors "create" meaning through the particular order of words.

Much of it is work I've read but perhaps not in this way or with the particular lens he employs. And besides, a short story like Joyce's "The Dead" is ripe for re-reading, savoring, deciphering, dissecting, all of which you'll find in the chapter dedicated to Joyce. As you can imagine, he examines the final lines of the story where words are repeated and he talks about the deft use of repetition here -- in other contexts, it could be something to avoid but the conscious re-use of particular words underscores the paralysis experienced by the protagonist, Gabriel Conroy.

In the back, Clark compiled a list of a long list of great sentences from a wide variety of works.

I actually read this book in 2025. I've been meaning to finish this post for a while but other commitments came first.

Before I conclude, let me say something about one section that I especially recommend: his analysis of the Yeats' poem, "The Second Coming." I've published the first stanza in another blogpost but it's worth reproducing it again in part, especially in light of the author's focus on the word gyre, which he says is an unusual word:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre//The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Clark gets into the nitty gritty of the word's Greek origins, offers synonyms (vortex, maelstrom) and also notes it comes at the end of a sentence that begins with the repetition of a present participle -- unusual. A poem written to reflect a period of political turbulence, completely embodied in one word.

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Please review 'This Darkness Will Never End' on Amazon

I've been talking up my translation every way I can -- blogposts, public readings, bookfairs, Facebook messages, a trip to Ohio, mentions in a family Christmas newsletter, you name it!

And I've been foisting this work on everyone I know since it was published last April.

But I've neglected to say anything about reviewing This Darkness Will Never End on Amazon. Probably because I was born in 1850, as I like to say (I also like to add that Leo corrected me one day with this quip: "More like 1770." Ouch!) And also because I've been focused on readings, my dayjob, Leo, breathing, etc.

I do, of course, use Amazon! All the time. 

And I do want people to find it on Amazon! A famous author actually did just that and she got in touch with me, which was amazing.

You don't need to be famous to leave a review on Amazon of This Darkness Will Never End.

You just need to have some thoughts about the translation or Edith Bruck. So if you've read it, I hope you will leave a review and provide some honest feedback. Here's the link again:

https://www.amazon.com/This-Darkness-Will-Never-End/dp/1589882016

GRAZIE di cuore!

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At a little library near you: 'This Darkness Will Never End'

UPDATED I've been dropping off copies of the translation at little libraries, including the one in Washington Market Park in Manhattan seen in the photo. I affix a note that explains how the book is a gift to whoever finds it and perhaps if the reading experience is a pleasure, would the person consider buying a copy for a friend?

Thousands of books are published each year and it's easy for a book from a small press to get lost, especially a translated title. So I took it upon myself to find a new way to introduce the book to a wider audience.

Since This Darkness Will Never End is a short story collection, I think it will work well for book clubs and I've devised a book club guide that you can find here.

It's also good for course adoptions -- thanks to Otterbein for proving this! My translation of Edith Bruck's first short story collection complements other Holocaust narrative texts such as works by Primo Levi or even The Diary of Anne Frank.

UPDATE: Copies of the translation have also been placed in Little Libraries in Boston, New Haven and Belmar, NJ.

Now that I think about it, I should have included my email address on the note affixed to the translation -- that way, I would possibly know who found the copy. Like a message in a bottle!

If you haven't read the translation yet, here's hoping you find a copy in a little library near you! Or you can buy it here or on Amazon (where you can consider writing a customer review!).

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Meeting Donatella Di Pietrantonio at Rizzoli this year

At an event at Rizzoli in Manhattan earlier this year, I asked Donatella Di Pietrantonio to autograph one of her books that I love -- L'Arminuta (English: A Girl Returned) and when I told her I did some translation work, she gushed over the efforts and mission of literary translators (I do, too, largely because I am still trying to find my footing in this essential branch of literary philanthropy). Take a look at her message: "A Jeanne, grazie per il grande lavoro che fa." Translation: "To Jeanne, thank you for the important work that you do."

The book is a novel set in the author's native Abruzzo, and Di Pietrantonio is one of a wave of Southern Italian women authors who have emerged in the literary landscape remade by Elena Ferrante.

I reviewed the translation for the Kenyon Review and as I noted in the review, Di Pietrantonio "grapples with the holy trifecta of human emotions (and thus, fiction): love, longing and loss." It is the stunning story of an adoption undone but so much more than that. To quote the review again:

For much of this novel, published in Italy in 2017, the narrator is caught between two mothers. Di Pietrantonio often figuratively—and skillfully—sets one mother against the other: “Every Saturday the mother in the town was obliged to give me a small sum, which came by some means or other from the mother on the coast.”

No surprise, the author is a class act! How lovely it was to meet her, at a conference dedicated to Italian literature (which, hint hint, I hope Rizzoli and the Italian Cultural Institute will host again in 2026).

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Ginzburg, sempre Ginzburg (What I'm reading)

I keep a book log of what I read, and it's now evolved into more of a book journal because I love noting passages that intrigue me. And I also note whether I am "reading" or "re-reading" a work. Each year, I am always re-reading something by Natalia Ginzburg.

But this year, I am actually reading new works by her as well! Not just revisiting Lessico Famigliare ("Family Lexicon," from NYRB, in the superb Jenny McPhee translation) or Le voci della sera, which is one of my favorites, but actually venturing into new Ginzburg territory, namely:

Vita immaginaria

Mai devi domandarmi

And in particular, I'd like to highlight the following work, which, as you will learn, is quite unusual:

È difficile parlare di sé

This last work is for the Ginzburg completist, and I keep it on the bedside table, which is to say I am not reading it cover to cover bur rather dipping into it as time allows. 

It is, and I kid you not, the transcript of a series of television interviews with Ginzburg in which she mulls over all of her major works, prompted by host Marino Sinibaldi. There were also some guests who made appearances -- critics and colleagues from Einaudi and some other famous writers. All of her works and each stage of her career, lovingly explored.

What's especially compelling is she elaborates on the death of her husband, Leone Ginzburg, at the hands of the Fascists, in a way she did not in any of her major published works. She reported on his death in her seminal essay, "Winter in Abruzzi," if reporting can consist of a single line (I don't blame her one bit -- when the candle of hope is brutally snuffed out, often the less said the better).

Of particular interest to me now among the works explored in the compendium is the essay "Gli ebrei," ["The Jews"], which appeared in Vita immaginaria and which was published immediately following the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre where Israeli athletes were murdered.

Most notably, she wonders if the Jews who settled in modern-day Israel should have settled elsewhere, if they should have been given land elsewhere (she mentions Canada). She says many other amazing things in this essay (and the book of transcripts, for that matter) about her identity as a woman with a Jewish and Catholic upbringing. I highly recommend it!

I've written about Ginzburg's work for the Kenyon Review and also for the literary site, Reading in Translation. She remains an enigma -- someone who lived a traditional woman's life, writing in fits and starts when she wasn't changing diapers or putting dinner on the table, someone who eschewed feminism, someone who can at times be hidden in plain sight, to quote an article about her, but who has become in the US arguably the most famous Italian woman writer, aside from Elena Ferrante, possibly, only possibly. She might be THE most famous Italian woman writer for Americans.

More so than Elsa Morante. More so than Grazia Deledda. More so than Dacia Maraini.

If you haven't read any works by her, begin with Family Lexicon (preferably the Jenny McPhee translation published by NYRB). It won the Strega, which is Italy's highest literary award.

And happy reading!

The coolest thing: praise for my essay “The Quiet Exhilaration of Learning Italian”

An academic in Italy read the essay I wrote for The Millions about learning to speak Italian and reposted it to LinkedIn with the most amazing comments!

She actually called it "un bellissimo articolo" -- a beautiful article!

I believe this is one of the few times I've read something in Italian that's commenting on my writing (outside of graduate school!):

Chi ama parlare, ma soprattutto vivere, una lingua riconoscerà subito questa sensazione: non è (solo) comunicare, ma anche acquisire una nuova identità e scoprire un altro modo di stare al mondo.

Translation: "Anyone who loves speaking but especially living (inside) another language will immediately recognize this sensation: it's not only communicating but also acquiring a new identity and discovering another way of being in the world."

How truly wonderful this is! Thank you, Gaia. Molto gentile!

Here's Gaia's post:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7358807293552971776/

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