books
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Three-pitch strikeout
I know how freelance writers “pitch” story ideas. Or, as a noun, how you make a “pitch” to a magazine. I know, because I was the editor of the Sunday magazine of the Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin. And I was features… Continue reading
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The Five Deadly Virtues
Like her hero Niccolò Machiavelli, Carol Darr delights in turning conventional (and Catholic) wisdom on its head. So in one chapter of her book Machiavelli 4 Everybody, being published next week, she describes five traditional virtues as “deadly” for a… Continue reading
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Pilgrims’ Progress
To prepare for walking the old Tuscan footpath of European pilgrims and Crusaders, I borrowed a 1919 book by an idealistic American walker who represented the American Red Cross in Palestine 30 years before it became the modern state of… Continue reading
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Looking for Marconi
Before “wireless” meant a Wi-Fi router in your home or office (the “Wi” is for wireless), it meant “radio” in radio’s early days, in the 1920s. “Turn on the wireless, Sweetie.” And before that, it was the word that a… Continue reading
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Italy as Middle-Earth
Leaving for Italy in four days, we’ll be looking for a world with older layers of time underfoot. We’ll begin in Bologna, which claims the oldest university in the world (started 1088 C.E.). Then to Fano, a much smaller city on the… Continue reading
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A Netflix gem set in 1860s Italy
The more I learn, the more I realize how vast is my ignorance. Take, for example, a fascinating aristocratic Sicilian writer named Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the 12th Duke of Palma (1896-1957). I’d never heard of him. But diving into… Continue reading
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Ukrainian refugees in Italy
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Italy welcomed refugees and, within months, had absorbed more than 100,000. Among those, two sisters-in-law whose husbands were recruited into the Ukrainian army came on a cold, crowded bus with their four children… Continue reading
An American journalist heads for Italy to see his country changing from afar. 