Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Books”
UNPROTECTED FEMALES IN SICILY, CALABRIA, AND ON THE TOP OF MOUNT AETNA Intrepid is the word that comes to mind when characterizing women travelers in remote regions. Take Mrs. and Miss Lowe, two proper British ladies, a mother and daughter team that tramped all over the “continent” in the middle of the 19th-century to both the horror and delight of …
Following one of my recent presentations about Calabria, an inquisitive audience member was inspired to look through his home library and revisit a book he had read almost twenty years earlier: The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean by Paul Theroux. He remembered the author had mentioned Locri and told me about it a few days later.
Before my daytrip to Palizzi, I associated the town with two things: Edward Lear’s wonderful lithograph drawings and red wine – not necessarily in that order.
A ROME VACATION My feet were killing me. It was a brisk Tuesday evening in late November. After a harrowing experience on Rome’s overcrowded public transportation system during the morning rush hour, I had decided to walk back to my apartment that overlooked the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano.
CALABRIA: THE OTHER ITALY SUBMISSION I could never have imagined, seven years ago, as I made my way down to the southern extremity of the Italian peninsula, stepping off the train in Locri to teach English, that I would one day write a book about my experiences. And I never would have dreamed that my words would be read and …
CALABRIAN TRAVELOGUES If you do any search of books about Calabria, there are three titles that will invariably come up: Journals of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria (1852) by Edward Lear, By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy (1901) by George Gissing and Old Calabria (1915) by Norman Douglas.
UNDERSTANDING THE E-BOOK “It’s just words on a page.” I’m not an e-book reader. When I started out in the process of converting my print book to an electronic format, I had a little trouble wrapping my brain around the so-called fluidity of the page and this is what I was told.
WRITING IS JUST THE BEGINNING Writing a book is demanding. Publishing a book is another story. I’m generally very disciplined, so setting myself in front of the computer every day for about ten months was challenging, but doable. Plus, I already had a doctoral dissertation under my belt, so it wasn’t as formidable a task as a first effort might …
MUSHROOM HUNTING Whenever I think of mushrooms, I think of the little old Italian woman who picked the wild ones growing in the front yard of our house in suburban New Jersey. She would always knock on our front door and ask permission. The first time, my mother hesitated, not knowing if they were poisonous. “No! They are good, very …
THE BOOK COVER PUTTING TOGETHER A BOOK for publication takes a lot of thought and requires many decisions. For obvious reasons, much care is given to the cover, but the interior layout, choice of fonts and typesetting is equally important as that’s where the reader ultimately will spend most of his time. The book cover, however, gives the first impression, …