Ma Speaks Up: And a First-Generation Daughter Talks Back, by Marianne Leone

This book spoke to me concerning my relationship with my mother, although my mother and I are very different from Ms. Leone and her mother, in culture and in temperament. I enjoyed reading this from cover to cover; I smiled, laughed, and cried. She did not hold back from telling the hard truths about her mother's background and experiences, and their relationship as it changed through the years.

An Early Reviewer book from the publisher, Beacon Press, through LibraryThing. Received on April 12, 2017 

Hill Towns, by Anne Rivers Siddons

Read and reviewed in November, 2012, released later

This novel is a complicated story about a group of people traveling in Italy with a newly-wed couple, combining travelogue with romantic tension.

Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, by Frances Mayes

Read, reviewed, and released in May-June, 2012

It is mostly memoir of a California couple's experiences buying and restoring an ancient home in the Tuscany region of Italy. A very relaxing and peaceful book to read in quiet moments, very enjoyable but not a page-turning thriller.

A Thousand Days in Venice, by Marlena de Blasi

Read and reviewed in May, 2012, given to another Bookcrosser

This caught my eye, perhaps because I am currently reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes and I have Italy on my mind. I hope it will be better than the usual "romance."

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It was better, much better and a book that I thoroughly enjoyed! The true story of a whirlwind romance, marriage and happy-ever-after between an American woman and an Italian man.

A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster

Read and reviewed in May, 2011. It is no longer in my possession.

Even though it is small, it is well written, and the characters are vividly drawn. Lucy Honeychurch, a free-spirited young woman, is surrounded by those who would stifle her independence. It is a coming-of-age story, and a love story.